Playing Catch-up

I am hopelessly behind both in posting and photos. These are photos that were taken around my yard between April 16 and April 19.

This is another of the mystery tulips that appeared and bloomed. The bulb is on one side of the fence and the stem and the flower are on the other side of the fence.

I love my primroses. I tried dividing and transplanting some of them last year. I had about as much luck doing that as I did transplanting roses this year!

A lot of my photos are taken early in the morning when I get home from work. The sun is still low in the sky. I love the way these are back-lit.

My lovely fritillaria bulb from last year rotted. This is a new one in a new spot, hopefully with better drainage. I don't know why the stem is bent.
These are a few tulips that have survived for years. They appear to be in a row. I don't plant my bulbs in rows but rather in groups. What happened here is that of the original group, only these three survived. They are actually staggered.

More early morning light. The dappled shade from the maple tree in my neighbor's yard will become denser as the foliage develops. This bed is not shaded all day, though. The shade will move as the sun moves across the sky. I like this picture a lot. I think I may use it as wallpaper on my office PC. I'm a little tired of looking at last summer's picture!

This bed is in the front of my house and sorely in need of renovation. The daffodils were here when I moved in. I pulled out the ugly shrubbery and planted Nikko Blue hydrangeas and added crocuses, tulips and grape hyacinths. I'm going to widen this bed and add astilbe. My one and only tree is located on this side of the house so this bed is in deep shade most of the day. It's also the side with my bedroom so that stays nice and cool in the summer.

More primroses! Judith has the most wonderful post about her primroses, including the candelabra primroses that we both covet. I too have the perfect spot for them along the back of my house where they can add summer color after the iris and roses finish in May.

The Iris bucharica bloomed. This is one of five bunches. By the time they were all in bloom, we were having heavy rain and I couldn't photograph them. I tried to take as many pictures of them before the rain as I could because they won't survive the summer. I didn't realize when I ordered them that they require extremely dry conditions over the summer. It's too wet here in NJ for them.

A closer look at them. I love them.

I finally have green flowers in the green garden. The parrot tulips I planted bloomed. Pictures soon . . .