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.

Fertilizer Friday - new flowers to flaunt.

Another week has passed by so quickly it seems like just yesterday I was doing last Friday's post.  The garden is looking good this week with new blooms and roses on another round of flowers.  I still have quite a few bare spots I'd like to fill and am trying to keep in mind bloom times as I fill them.  I tend to pull up the annuals and then fill all the empty places in with what end up being end of summer bloomers and then once Spring rolls around I feel like nothing blooms until mid July.  Now that I've realized what I'm doing it's easier to make sure there is more year round interest rather than everything blooming at the same time and having to wait a long time for new blooms.  I've also found that I've done far less plant moving this summer than usual.  I think I'm finally getting the right plant in the right place, although it took many years for some of them to get there.

 I'm so happy that Rose 'Gertrude Jekyll' has started blooming again.  I was a bit concerned about how it would end up doing this year.  Both this and 'Abraham Darby' were really hit with black spot pretty bad, but after using an organic spray and some organic rose fertilizer they both look much better.

 I always forget how many Phlox I have until they start blooming.  The plant blends in so well with everything else, then suddenly I'm surprised by all the bright spots of color.  I've lost track of which are which now.

 This one is the reverse coloring of the one above it and also reseeds quite a bit.

 I always remember 'David' since it's the only white one.  It also reseeds like crazy.

 Echinacea 'Double Decker' which is now in it's third year in my garden and also in it's third year of not being a double.  It did have some strange extra petals last year, but nothing like it supposed to look.

 Behind the Echinacea is Aster 'Monch' which I moved last year.  It's in more sun and is growing up instead of reaching sideways for the sun.

 A new Echinacea 'Summer Sky' which is the color of the powdered cheese that comes with macaroni, not that I've ever served any of that to my kids.  ☺  Not sure if I like the color, a little fluorescent, and I'm not sure I would've bought it if it was in bloom at the time.

 By this time of year Dragonflies are constantly swooping over our yards.  I love seeing their shadows float by when I'm outside.  This one seemed to like landing on the warm stones and pavement to rest.

 I've never had Sweet Peas bloom this long, they are usually long done by now.  These are planted by the back door and the scent really carries.  I keep picking little bouquets to put around the house.  Sweet Peas are one flower I do pick regularly, one to prolong the bloom time and two because they smell so good I like them in as many rooms as possible.

I'm so happy the Pear trees are producing pears in their second year.  They each have about 6 pears which seem to be growing quickly now.  Our apple tree still just has one apple, the fig tree is loaded with figs and the Blueberries are ripening and at the tart and juicy stage which is just how I love them.  There has been a baby Robin that loves them as well, almost every time I walk through the area the blueberries are I see him hopping around underneath.  He doesn't even seemed scared of me when I walk by, just looks up and then keeps going.

Tootsie hosts Fertilizer Friday each week.  This week she is sharing garden pictures from non-blogging gardeners so they can get a chance to share their pretty gardens with all of us. 

Fruitful Fertilizer Friday.

Another week has flown by with barely a chance for me to really get outside.  Every time I walk past parts of the garden or look out the window I see something new or a chore I'd like to get done.  Our weather is still not very good.  We've continued to have mostly gray or rainy days with highs still only in the mid 60's.  We've been breaking all sorts of weather records because of it.  I'm starting to ignore the weather forecast since it changes daily and not usually for the better.  Anyway, school is finally out today and so even if the weather doesn't cooperate we still will have time to just relax and enjoy our free days.  School in the Seattle area usually ends around this time and the school district we are in generally starts back a few days before Labor Day.
Quite a bit of the fruit bearing plants are doing really well.  Blueberries are getting close to ripening and the girls have been eating Red Currants even though they are on the bitter side.  The apple tree produced few blooms this year and I'm pretty sure we'll have few if any apples.  I've heard that it's not uncommon for apple trees to have years like this.

Even with the cool weather some of the tomatoes are getting flowers, this is 'Black Krim'.

The 'Desert King' fig tree is full of figs, this first crop is called the breba crop.  The breba crop is grown on last years growth.

So far I haven't had a chance to try a strawberry, the girls have been eating them, but they say they are good.

The two small pear trees each have a few pears on them.  I'm really hoping they'll keep growing so we can try them.

These are more of the Campanulas that I showed a few days ago.  The flowers are different on these, almost like the Cup and Saucer type.

I've been meaning to post a picture of the Nigella or Love-in-a-Mist.  They reseed in the same little area every year.  I love the dainty flowers and foliage.

To see who else is flaunting their flowers today visit Tootsie at Tootsie Time, who is the host of Fertilizer Friday.

A fruitful Fertilizer Friday.

I thought for this Fertilizer Friday I'd show some of the blooms that are starting on some of our fruit trees and bushes. Every year at about this time I start checking to see if there are flower buds. Growing fruit in our garden is one of my favorite things to do. For some reason they always seem to be a little easier than vegetables for me. I don't really fertilize any of them other than fresh compost around them in the Spring.

We have a dwarf 5 way grafted apple tree, there are 5 varieties of apples grafted onto a dwarf rootstock. While it's fun to have so many types of apples on one tree, it does make for a strangely shaped tree. Almost every year we have problems with worms in the apples and since I don't want to spray with pesticides, this year I'm trying Coddling moth traps to see if it makes a difference. The moths are lured to the trap which contains Tanglefoot. Tanglefoot is very sticky and the moths then aren't able to leave to lay their eggs.

'Duke' our most productive Blueberry. 'Bluecrop' has been by far the least productive. This year it seems to be the only with no buds.

'Jersey' Blueberry is just now sending out the flower buds.
We grew 5, now 6 varieties. The newest variety are Pink Blueberries! Can you tell we love Blueberries? To me there is nothing better than blueberries picked fresh from the bush. I was a bit worried earlier that there were no flower buds. Normally the flowers come first with the leaves coming after. This year it seems to be in reverse order for some reason. I guess I'll blame it on the weather ☺

One of our dwarf Pear trees, 'Comice'. The other is an 'Orcas'. When we learned about pear trees we discovered that like many other fruits you need two varieties to cross pollinate. It's important that the the varieties bloom at about the same time. We also found varieties that are known to do well in this part of the Pacific Northwest. This is only their second full year in our garden so we're hoping that this year we might get a few pears. They look so pretty right now covered in white fluffy flowers.

Currant (Ribes rubrum) 'Wilder Red' is actually growing under a Cedar tree and does really well there. Each year it produces lots of red currants, they aren't one of my favorites but they sure are pretty when they are bright red and hanging in clusters.

We also grow a Fig 'Desert King' which has just barely begun to show leaf buds and strawberries which won't have flowers for another month or so. The Meyer Lemon tree which we brought indoors when the weather got cool still has a few lemons left trying to grow. One of them is about quarter sized, and I'm crossing my fingers it can hang on until I put it back outside in a couple of weeks.
Fertilizer Friday is hosted by Tootsie at Tootsie Time each Friday. Visit her to join in or to see who else is "flaunting their flowers."