How Does My Garden Grow?

It's growing!  Absolutely amazing!  It hasn't even been very warm, but I still saw tiny, tiny little sprouts among the flowers and the lettuce.

The transplants are doing well too.  Even the cucumbers (which supposedly don't like being transplanted) look perky, and they have new growth.

I planted my marigolds, which were the last things I wanted to plant.  Also, I planted my garden sign.  I found this at a recycled art show several years back, and I thought it was so cute.  Over the years, the lettering had faded until it was nearly invisible.

I repainted it a couple of days ago, and now it's back in the garden where it belongs.

We also have fruit growing in the form of strawberries, raspberries, and cherries.  (Now, if we can just get to them before the squirrels and the raccoons!)

More colors of iris have opened up.  We've had a little rain, but not enough to ruin them . . . not yet, anyway.

All of the rhodies have bloomed now.  Some of the bushes have grown really big since we planted them several years ago.

This one below was all but dead before we had a chance to plant it in the ground.  I was sad because I loved this dark purple color so much.  A neighbor had one at our previous house, and when we moved, I wanted one for our yard.  We took off on a camping trip before it was planted.  The pot was left in a corner where it was missed by the person we left behind to water it.  We had record high temperatures that week, and when we came home, the poor thing was absolutely crispy.  Mike stuck the whole pot in a bucket of water, and amazingly, it was revived.  Here it is just getting ready to bloom.  It's taken it years to recover from that neglect.  I'm so happy it survived.

This is my favorite of the azaleas.  The flowers have a ruffled edge, and it looks like a mass of pink carnations.

After checking things out in the garden, George and I walked in the woods for the first time in about a week.  He's crashed out and snoring beside me as I write this.

Here's a George-eye view of a toad stool we saw.

This is the thing I most look forward to in the woods.  These are the wild tiger lilies just starting to head up.  They should open in about a month.  There are several of these growing along the path.  I wonder how they got there.

The wild roses have finally started blooming.  There were only a few open flowers, but lots of buds.

And we saw this little left-behind treasure.  I love finding things like this.

So that was our walk for the day.  I spent the morning making custard and strawberry goo.  It's cooling in the refrigerator now.  In a few hours, I'm going to use it to make strawberry ice cream.  The Oregon strawberries are here!  Happy!  Happy!  Joy!  Joy!