Poppin' Fresh (Up)

 

My violets are really going crazy these days. All three plants in this indoor garden are blooming, I'll take it out on the porch tomorrow and photograph the entire thing with good outdoor light.

 

Probably the last Daffodil arrangement this year. They were really beautiful and strong this year, though.

I think the back of flowers is just as interesting as the front...

 

This forsythia was heavily damaged in the last 25 inch snowfall. As soon as these meager, though pretty, blooms are finished, I'll prune the bush to the ground and let it come up fresh all summer. It should be perfect for next spring.

Pointing the camera towards the ground, the petals remain a solid look in the strong, late afternoon sun.

I have at least six varieties of ferns. They range from bright green to dark green, from frilly to thick, matter to shiny. They all love shade or "dappled" sunlight the best, though.

 

My mother's perennial Primrose has come up once again. It seems to be getting smaller each year, but what's left always makes me smile.

 

This variety of fern has a fuzzy frond when full grown. The late afternoon sun really gave them a golden hue.

My pink granite bird bath. I gave this to my mother for Mother's Day in the mid 1980s and I've moved it to wherever I live. This is the same type and color of granite as my ancestral family's granite quarry in Leete's Island, Guilford, Connecticut. Our quarry furnished much of the granite for the base of the Statue of Liberty.

 

 Blooming valiantly on broken stems. Next year will be their year!

My grandmother brought this ornamental Ribbon grass to the shoreline area in the 1930s. I believe she sent away for it from a western company. It grows perfectly almost anywhere and I always bring it with me. I have a couple of dozen clumps of these around Pink Gardens now. This one is only a few inches tall right now. They'll get to about two feet with four foot tall "wheats."

This is a giant fern. My friend Mary gave several of them to me a few years ago. They grow to about three feet tall and have dark fronds with a sheen to them.

A slightly longer view of my violet garden. The pink plant can be seen peeking from behind, and there is a second purple plant. The flowers are slightly lighter and smaller then this one.

 Rescued from the woods, Solomon Seals just began to pop up from the ground this season.

One of the three white Triliums I found under some wild rose bushes last year, I transplant them to the shade garden right next to the granite bird bath. I planted three last summer and now I have four! They've only broken ground in the past two weeks and are about four-inches tall. They should get another foot taller and will have beautiful white flowers.

 

Last But Not Least

 

The vegetable garden this afternoon. I've established perennial gardens all around the perimeter of it. I have a few varieties of day lilies, iris, sedum, foxglove, rose campion, ribbon grass, cinquefoils, hosta, thistles, Solomon seals, jack-in-the-pulpits, and I'm sure a few more, lol. As each perennial finishes its cycle, I plant Marigold seeds so by fall it's full of tall orange flowers.