And it's outa here!

Many thanks to everyone who emailed me or left comments. My pretty wildflower turned out to be the dreaded Garlic Mustard. It has been removed and bagged with the equally dreaded poison ivy to be taken to the local recycling center if I am ever able to leave the house again. My rash became infinitely worse and despite my terror of needles (I pass out just having blood drawn), I went back to the doctor and requested the shot. Apparently, I am past that stage and he gave me a prescription for a stronger dose of Prednisone. To give you an idea of how awful I look, I was not allowed to stay in the waiting room. I was, instead, immediately whisked into an exam room and the nurse acted as a go-between for me with the receptionist. Ditto at the drugstore. The pharmacist took one look at me and filled my prescription in record time.

Believe it or not, there is an upside to my situation. I have had time to finally read Old Time Gardens by Alice Morse Earle. Originally published in 1901, it contains many photos of turn of the century gardens. Both her descriptions of gardens and the photos reminded me of the gardens kept by women of my grandmother's generation.

I have more green tulips! They are Deirdre tulips. I didn't think I was going to like them because the buds were really ugly, but now that they are open, they're not half bad:

In the Wildflower Garden, I had noticed one of the columbines was larger and the leaves were a lighter color. My suspicions were correct. It is an entirely different type of columbine, one of the spurless types and faintly lime green.

I have moved it into the Green Garden. Normally I wouldn't transplant any plant while it is flowering, but columbines are notorious for promiscuously cross-pollinating and I want to keep the little red wild columbines pure.

Here is my first entry for the 2006 Weirdness Chronicles:

Is this one plant with two different colored flowers or two plants growing so close to each other that they appear to be one?

My fernleaf bleeding heart did not do well last year. I never figured out why. It is making up for it this year, though:

In contrast, my old-fashioned bleeding heart did exceedingly well last year but is not nearly as spectacular this year:

Because it blooms so rarely, I have been obsessively taking pictures of my lilac bush.

No, it's not really that dark colored. It's just the light or lack of it. In the lower left-hand corner in the background is my Mme. Plantier rosebush. In "Old Time Gardens", there was a photo of one that looked just like it. I was glad to see that it was allowed to sprawl like mine rather than be neatly pruned. I like the look of roses when they grow naturally.