How does your garden grow?

I admit, I haven’t done much constructive gardening this spring.  Between beating back the garlic mustard, stinging nettles, poison ivy, and the super-prolific mystery weed; I just haven’t had the time.   So instead I’ve been enjoying what has come up this year.

We have a rather treacherous hill that I prefer that Mr. Tiger not mow (but we must retain its smoothness for winter sledding), so two springs ago I seeded it with wildflower mix.

At the top of the hill is this spike of purple lupine, and I noticed a few more are coming.

And at the bottom of the hill I noticed today a new patch of wonderfully charming columbines in a pale lavender.

In the middle are sprinkled patches of blue flax.  Love these little flowers.

I love how the wildlife have returned to this part of our yard now that it isn’t a baking hill of grass.  Here we have some soon-to-be-caterpillars.

The next wave of flowers on this hill will be daisies.  If I remember right, they are yellow.  We’ll see!

Bordering the shady side of the hill is my row of black raspberries (I showed them off last year).  Looks like we’ll have a super bumper crop….I can’t wait!

And at the top of the hill in my shade garden, I have a few new blooms also!  This is a geranium variant, and will bloom all summer.  It looks great peeking out through the hostas.

We also have our good ole reliable salvias.  (Well, when I remember to pinch them off.)

And one more picture…..this is a charming columbine variant, so delicate and pretty.  And not blue or purple….lol!  What actually clinched getting the camera out for me was a shimmery blue damselfly that was basking in the sun, but…alas….she flew before I could get the camera.

On the vege front, I have potatoes just coming up, and the lettuce, peas, and spinach are doing well.  The oregano needs a haircut (wouldn’t hurt the thyme, either), and I’m trying to decide if I’m actually going to build more garden boxes or just put my peppers and tomatoes in pots this year.  If it stays hot like this week (seriously…..60’s last week, 90’s this….hubba wha?) then boxes aren’t going to happen.

Hope your garden is doing well, feel free to share yours.  And if you know of a foolproof erosion control plant that grows in full shade in zone 4, do let me know.  We have a lot of hill to hold up, and the naturally sprouting baby maple trees are not doin’ it for me (or the hill).

(PS, if you read through this whole thing to see if there’s a teaser for the May Tiger Clubs…..sorry to disappoint!  This month’s colorway is too easy to guess from a hint picture, so I’m not gonna do it.  It IS lovely, and it will go out this week.  The fiber is a new one for me, I’m loving it’s soft wavy crimp.)