Late April flowers.

 We've been pretty lucky as far as the weather goes the last few weeks.   Sunny weekends followed by some rain during the week.  It looks like this weekend will follow the same pattern.  This means that the plants are really taking off growing (as are the weeds).  After living in this house exactly 13 years this month I've really started to notice patterns in some of the trees and plants in the garden (although there are few that have been here since we moved in).  This seems to be looking like a great year for roses, Clematis, Lilacs and Pear trees so far. 

 The pear trees are in about their third year here and are absolutely loaded with flowers.  Since we've had quite a bit of sun and some warmer weather I have high hopes they were pollinated.  Last spring when they bloomed it was cold and the bees weren't out much.  We ended up with 2 pears.

Pear flowers that will hopefully be pears come this fall.

 A kind of neglected part of the front yard is slowly starting to fill in with plants.  Not sure why I ignore this section of the yard, maybe because it's been hard to find plants that like the mostly shade and clay soil here.  These plants are all beginning to show some good growth.  The large shrub by the fence is a Snowball Bush.

 It doesn't seem to be a good year for blooms on the Dogwood tree.  It had an amazing show of flowers last year so maybe it's on a break.

 I love the bright pink of the Dogwood flowers.

 Another shady bed in the front yard is starting to look good after I pretty much removed every plant 2 springs ago to start over.  I've never had my Astillbes look this big and healthy before.  This soil is also fairly heavy clay with poor drainage, but I've worked on amending it over the years.

 The Tiarella also loves the shady bed, I'd had these plants in the backyard path garden for years and they barely ever bloomed, in this spot they have tons of flowers.

 This is another area I sort of started over with last fall.  This is full hot sun and I've been working on plants that can take the heat and don't really need too much extra watering.

 Awhile ago I found this galvanized chicken feeder at an antique mall.  I can't believe how much the plants area already growing.

 Solomon's Seal in the backyard path garden is having a great year.

I planted this Indian rhubarb (Darmera peltata) in the pond last year.  It had already bloomed when I bought it so I didn't realize what pretty flowers it had.

A quick update on the chicks.  They are really wanting to try to flap their wings and fly some.  I try to take them out of the brooder everyday or so to let them have some room to move and explore.  They are all getting along really well after needing to separate the two babies for about a week after we first got them.  Two of the older chicks were really chasing them around.  I put chicken wire down the middle of the brooder and everyday would let them mingle while I supervised.  Now they all sleep together.

I hope everyone has gotten a chance to get out in their gardens some.  I read that some people were seeing snowflakes this morning! 

All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.