So Much Going On

The tidal wave of spring has begun. Will the gardener successfully ride the wave or be engulfed? With all of these open sun gardens and the Lamium purpureum takeover I feel like I'm carving my gardens out of weeds every spring. I hope to get Lamium pastures going in the open spaces around the gardens next year. (It's not the Lamium I really mind, other than the fact that it's greedy. The Chickweed and Shotweed get all over my last nerve.) As always I feel I need more Baptisias and woody plants in the gardens below the house and that there can never be enough purple.

But first, the new leaves.

The new leaves of Serviceberry remind me of Pussy Willows; silvery and velvety and as pretty as the flowers which have faded just as the leaves emerge.

I love, love love Heuchera for foliage effect. The leaves are beautiful all growing season. This is Heuchera villosa and I even like the delicate late summer flowers, which remind me of a fancy grass bloom. The insects love them too.

Janet Queen of Seaford recently wrote a post about river birches, which grow in abundance in the floodway on our farm. I think these trees are their most beautiful in their youth, when their bank peels in elaborate scrolls and is colored in warm shades of pink, gold and fawn. Their leaves are most beautiful in the youth of the year.

I did not begin to capture much of the beauty of the new leaves this spring, like the golden bronzy new growth of the oak trees and the wisteria or the cool blue-green of iris foliage against the velvety bright green of Monarda.

And then there are the azaleas. It's a little corner of my garden that reminds me of the sisters' garden for its colorfulness, although most of my azaleas are deciduous natives and almost all of theirs are evergreen.

Pink and white Piedmont azaleas

Semi-double evergreen pink from DH's grandmother's garden

Encore 'Autumn Amethyst' often doesn't have a whole lot of flowers in the spring ~ it tends to bloom much more in the fall here ~ but the color has a lot of impact.

The fuzzy buds of Coast Azalea

open to deliciously fragrant flowers.

More to come ~ there is a lot going on. I hope you are able to get out in the garden and enjoy spring.