The garden soothes my soul

 

I love the yellows of early spring.  The doronicums have just finished and now the yellow iris are stealing the show.  It's hard to focus on any other color.  I have no annuals because of the water situation so I am dependent on drought-tolerant perennials which are like a parade of visitors coming by for just a short visit and then they are gone for another year.  For now the iris are fabulous..

Another yellow I am anxiously awaiting is this yellow species rose "Harrison" It is impossible to propagate by stem cutting and not easy to get going by a root division.  But once well established it will last for years and years and in the future someone will wonder who was the idiot that planted this so close to the porch.  One small rose has opened near the bottom and you can see it is loaded with buds.

I have coddled and fussed over this plant for several years but I think I have it well established now...  Sometimes called the "pioneer  rose" and  old homesteads may have collapsed with age and this rose would live on.

Once established it is common for them to reach this size

 
 
 

The next glamor girl and just opening is this pink oriental poppy.  If you look closely you can see that it also has enough buds to keep it showy for a couple weeks at least.  The flowers are about 8" across.

Out in the old greenhouse which has a floor of rocks these columbine flourish with no watering or care.  I've transplanted them to the garden with no luck and gathered the seed to plant with no luck. But without fail they give me this dazzling display each spring and the only catch is I have to walk clear out to the greenhouse to see it.

The pink one in the foreground is double and reminds me of fancy bloomers.








I have been busy spraying the weeds and hauling around a 2-gallon spray tank is hard on an old body so I converted a golf bag cart into a carrier for my spray tank.  Whenever I find one at the thrift store I buy them and have several I have converted to different uses in the garden.














And last but not least...remember the collage of rusty tools I gathered last summer to be "garden art"  Well it is shaping up nicely and I occasionally add another old tool to the lot.  Even the clematis "Bill Mackenzie" is growing like crazy and I will probably be sorry I planted  it there.....