What's Blooming on Shore Drive - May 17th Edition

My yard looks really, really nice right now. All the fresh mulch has been spread, and flowers are being quite polite about taking turns blooming.

Remember my almost forgotten container garden? These little white flowers sprouted in the container this week. Unfortunately I have no idea what they are.

I realized that when I started to get ready to do this week's edition of my "What's Blooming" project, just how many things I have growing in my yard that I don't know what they are. It used to not bother me much, but as I've gotten more into gardening I'm starting to feel a little embarrassed about my continued ignorance.

This groundcover was something I acquired in a plant propagation class at Garden in the Woods several years ago. I thought it was some kind of  Chrysogonum, but it doesn't look very much like the pictures online.

One nice thing about this project is that as things bloom and I take their picture, I'm TRYING to figure out their name. This week, however, I've struck out several times. Maybe some of my more educated friends can enlighten me!

The high and low bush blueberries are blooming all over our yard and neighborhood. I can't wait until later this summer when the blueberries are ripe!

Another one of the mystery ground covers. This one has tiny blue flowers that don't last very long.

I know this one's common name - Candy Tuft. It only blooms sparingly. I wonder what I should do to get it to bloom better?

The trees are an other-worldly color right now - electric green. They are also spewing pollen like crazy. Its everywhere, happens every year. It gets on everything, cars, lawn furniture, dogs, people. We need lots of rain to wash it away!

Oh yeah, my lilacs are in full bloom now. The pruning I did seems to have really helped them.

Some kind of wild cherry, I believe, growing in the middle of my day lilies along the driveway. I welcome pretty accidents like this!

A baneberry bush (maybe) on my neighbor's property

I love, love, love this ground cover that my neighbor has under her birches! I covet it. I think it is Lamium galeobdelum. I have to ask her if I can take a little bit of it, but I'm shy....

Lady Slippers! One of my favorite things about New England!

Canada Mayflower - its blooming prolifically this year, another New England wildflower that I really enjoy

Our beautiful lake is very low this year.

We got over a quarter of an inch of rain last night, much needed. Our lake is partially drained every winter, but in April its supposed to get refilled from another lake north of here. Well this year the other lake refused to supply us with water because they are too low from lack of rain. So here we sit, way below normal for the foreseeable future. The people that live on the lake are pretty annoyed. Its still pretty, but it would be prettier with less brown shoreline showing!

What's Blooming on Shore Drive - May 10th Edition

I think I'm starting a new little project within my blog. I did a post last week showing some of the plants that were currently blooming along my driveway. I've decided to do another one of those posts this week, and maybe weekly, for awhile anyway. My yard looks really beautiful right now and I'd like to share it with you! Plus it makes me practice with my camera....

My lilacs are almost ready to burst into bloom. I took a class on pruning last year and pruned my tall scraggly bushes some last fall. It already seems to have made a difference. I have a lot more blooms this year, and I'm going to prune them again after they finish blooming.

This is a container garden I made in a class a couple of years ago. In the fall I put it in the garden shed to protect it from the weather and then once things have warmed up a bit I take it out again. It worked beautifully last year, so I put it in the shed again last fall....and then completely forgot about it! I suddenly remembered a few days ago, found it in the back of the shed, and set it outside. The plants in it looked very anemic, tall and pale, straining toward the light. In only a day, really, the biggest plant sent up a strong, vigorous shoot. The smaller plants still look kind of iffy, but now, a few days after I took this picture, they're looking better too. It lives again, in spite of me. And no, I don't know what these plants are. I should look them up, I guess.

Strawberries! Lots of blooms this year, its going to be a bumper crop. The people who built this house put these plants in and I thank them. I just put a fence around the strawberry patch, however, because Cosmo eats strawberries, and I don't want to share!

Clematis! Large pink blossoms, due in the next couple of weeks, and then smaller whiter blossoms later in the summer.

Wild columbine....isn't it beautiful?

The itty bitty Japanese Maple I bought at the Salem Garden Club sale last year survived the winter very well. 

This is the shade garden I created last year along the driveway. It really looks promising right now, if only I can keep the deer and rabbit repellant applied sufficiently....

Bleeding hearts, pink and white....

Solomon Seal...

....and last but not least a little bulb called Summer Snowflake, Leucojun Aestivium (yes of course I had to look that up). I love the little green markings on the petals.

What's growing in your garden?