These late May, early June days are some of the best for the garden. I tend to hit the garden with full vigor in the spring, so find that my spring bloomers tend to be the best developed. The last year or two I've been trying to be more intentional about filling up the later summer with something other than yellow daylilies, but this season is still when the garden shines its brightest.
Starting earlier in the day, the fountain was putting in some time. I'm looking forward to developing the planted areas of the fountain garden to provide more physical and visual cues for where people are and are not intended to walk! I'd love to incorporate some more permanent (and less tippy!) seating options over here as well.
It's wonderful that this is an activity that Reuben can share with his sisters!
Later, after the kids were in bed, Matt and I were able to spend a few minutes outside.
The garden up the hill from the small rain garden:
 |
| These yellow iris are glad I pulled some of the myrtle out from around their toes last year! |
 |
| Looking up from the rain garden to the yellow iris at the top of the photo. I like how the yellow bookends what's happening in between. |
 |
| Moving up the path from the lower to upper yard, on one side the coral bells are blooming alongside the blue flag iris. |
 |
| The gooseneck is an invasive one! I try to keep it to the south (right) of the stepping stones, counting on the concrete stones to create something of a barrier. This motley garden relies on hardy plants, but that also means we can be somewhat ruthless keeping them in place. Looks like I have some pulling to do! |
Moving into the large garden by the old elm and big maple, the large red root beer iris I planted last fall have decided to go ahead and bloom this year! These will be so pretty after a few years of settling in! These are like little sentinals at the entry to the path that leads through this garden to the yellow slide and the G² office entrance of the house.
 |
| You don't get a good view of the swirling pattern of this portion of the garden from the photo, but you CAN see that the gas plants took pretty well to their transplanting last season! The three smaller ones at the beginning of the spiral took it a little harder, but they may still come into their own over the next few years. |
 |
| Such a fun variety of colors and textures - the large, flat, lobed purple leaves in the front, the serrated glossy foliage of the gas plant, topped by the stately white columnar clusters, next to the fine grained slim lines of the chives, topped this time of year with their tiny purple globes. The dead elm provides a nice backdrop. |
This garden around the base of the cottonwood is always one of my favorites.
And the peonies have all burst into flower after those first two started last week!
 |
| Nothing like a profusion of old fashioned peonies to transform an ugly, peeling, old shed! |
And into the vegetable garden, which is apparently going to have a mostly fallow year. And that's okay. With Mira back in the hospital, I had Owen help me put up the two tomato trellises. How nice to have a son who's strong enough and big enough to take Dad's place in some things!
 |
| Also, in the front of the photo, you can see the potato sprouts greening up. These are the last of last year's harvest that we didn't eat because they were beginning to look like little aliens crawling out of their box in the dark basement! We thought it wouldn't hurt to put them in the ground, and apparently they took to it quite well! |
And, lastly, the garden on the north side of our practice retaining wall between the blueberries and the vegetable garden. A bright hosta, some root beer irises, and basic orange daylilies for later in the summer. I really enjoy the part of gardening where you split and transplant,and it looks mediocre for the rest of that season, but the next year, it's lovely, and in two more years, it's bountiful!! How could you not enjoy being a part of this!
Thinking about Eden is one small piece of what makes me look forward to eternity. If, before the Fall, Adam and Eve spent their time working in a garden that must be a little bit of what paradise must be! And we get to be part of that in a tiny way when we garden here in our short time on this earth.
