Some of you may already by aware that today is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. For those of you that don't know, it is an event hosted by Carol over at May Dreams Gardens. With the idea being to share what's currently in bloom in your garden.

Here's what you'll find in my yard:

Yarrow! Not the medicinal kind, but the kind typically used in dried flower arrangements. It has not actually fully blossomed.

I do have some of the medicinal yarrow starting to flower:

Sorry, not the best picture. We have three or four different patches of this throughout our yard.

As for other flowery herbs. Our rue:

and valerian, are currently in bloom.

Oh and our salvia too!

I love purple flowers. I could really just have a whole yard full of them. This plant was actually given to us at our wedding shower. With a description saying how it is best to plant this around the four corners of your yard to keep away evil spirits.

Being that our anniversary was two days ago, I really need to share pictures of our Garden Party wedding shower and our garden-esque wedding decorations.

I'm also very exited about our roses

Its really neat how they transform from this golden color to redish color. The color seems to start at the edges and work its way in

This is actually a climbing rose bush that is being deprived of something to climb. For now, the rue bush is holding it up.

Of all the things that are currently in bloom, I'd have to say my irises are my favorite:

They are so purpley and pretty right now. My time in garden has been so limited recently that I've been snatching them up for floral arragements...so I can enjoy them while away from my garden.

They actually circle the entire bird bath.

Also mixed in with my bird bath garden is a larger variety of iris:

The zebra like striping is really neat but I don't really care for the paleness of the petals. I think I'm typically drawn to more solid and vibrant colors. The one picture above is actually part of a group that flopped over with our recent rain and wind.

Finally I noticed a little  flower in my mailbox garden that is ready to fold open.

The whole plant is full of buds but this is the only bud that was starting to show its petals.

I haven't been the best at documenting my garden in the past but going from memory, our lavender plants were already in bloom this time two years ago....but they aren't now. The only reason I remember that is because I picked the flowers from our garden to use on the wedding cake. I'll have to dig through some of my old pictures to see if I can figure out what else was in bloom previous years.

Happy Bloom Day!

The other day I was snapping shots when I noticed these really interesting bugs on my strawberry plants:

Does anyone know what these are? At a glance my plants look fine. They just seem to be hanging out. The creepy part about them is that they were stuck on there kind of leech like. The front part of them is suctioned to the leaf and the rest of their bodies seemed to over the leaf. I've never even seen this kind of bug before.

As I moved around the yard I also discovered that they are on my Yarrow too!

One day I'm going to get a super duper camera and lense like bob and lance. :) So I can share better pictures. In the mean time I might just get a bug identification book.

 

I was feeling less than optimistic this morning when we removed the blanks and towels to discovered they hadn't really done much to prevent the frost. As a personal study I thought I'd take some before and after pictures. Before being this morning and after being this afternoon.

A Frosty Valerian.

It was looking pretty wimpy in the morning but it really perked back up by the afternoon.

I've noticed that many plants curl their leaves when they get frosted.

By the afternoon the pak choi's leaves were spread out like normal.

We probably should've covered the bleeding heart, but didn't. So I was eager to see how it handled the frost this morning.

I didn't get a very good post frost overall shot, but it was looking better by the afternoon.

Well, I hope that was the last hard frost we're going to get this year. Everything was doing so well prior to its arrival. Also, I didn't picture them, but my ginkgo tree and blueberry bushes took a bit of hit. I'm hoping the ginkgo comes back quickly and that was haven't lost too many blueberries!

Even though it rained and trickled on and off all day, it was still a nice day.

I took my typical stroll around the yard to see what else was new.

I recently read an article or blog post about how nutritious black currants are for you: http://tinyurl.com/6favfj

I knew they were good for you but it was good to have a reminder about just how good they are for you. So I thought I'd snap a shot of my black currant bush (or stick at this point really :)

It has a lot of new growth at the base and I'm not sure if this is a good thing. On more developed bushes and trees bottom growth actually takes away from the rest of the bush/tree....but maybe since this plant is so small its ok?

I also snapped a shot of my bleeding heart which is spouting out of the ground at an astronomical rate:

Here is what it looked like 2 weeks ago:

I also thought I'd shot a picture of my evergreen lavender that I mentioned in a comment to lance:

Does anyone know what variety this might be?

I was also excited to see buds on my lilac!

I love lilacs! Growing up I had a huge lilac bush outside of my window and my bedroom was on the second floor! I was excited to find a variety that would grow in the south.

In my Original Herb Garden, which is right around the corner, I spotted a volunteer pansy:

I'm guessing he some how came from the mass of pansies I have growing in my Birdbath Garden

When I returned inside I was excited to discover that some of my seeds had sprouted! I already have a baby basil:

And a baby Chia:

I'm so glad its spring again!

 

A garden starts anew.