A Beautiful and Fragrant Invasion

Some Lily of the Valley plants seem to have migrated from all the way across the street. Pretty and poisonous!

This is a purple-and-white orchid columbine from Home Depot:

A pink-and-white version planted in the same area decided it has had enough of the vacillating spring already. Perhaps it will come back stronger next year?

Of Bleeding Hearts and Azaleas

The bleeding hearts are back with a bang after it looked like they had not survived the fall season, let alone the winter. What a lesson in resilience! It likes the shade too, which is a huge blessing in my yard:

Our two fledgling azaleas are beginning to come into their own. They get snow dumped on them from the roof above, yet somehow find the extra will to bloom in the spring:

Cost-effective lawn maintenance

You too can have a great-looking lawn without spending tonnes of money on seeding, fertilizers and water bills. The key is to give it a good mow, find the right spot to stand in, and wait for the optimal lighting conditions. If it rains once in a while, even better.

My scraggly lawn is pictured below, photographed after a fresh morning mowing followed by light rains. The evening cloud cover provides just the right luminous intensity to hide the numerous barren patches strewn about :-)

The diminutive primrose

I picked up a few perennial primrose plants last year and planted them in a partly shady corner near our car-port. It produced some nice flowers but then it appeared to whither away prematurely. I thought it was due to the pesky chipmunks that have drilled giant mine-shafts all over the place and near their roots. What chance does a frail plant have against such aggression?

The primroses proved me wrong. I did not even notice the buds forming, yet they are suddenly in bloom!

The hyacinths have come and gone

The hardy hyacinths were among the first to bloom, and they somehow were ignored by the deer while they hid in plain sight:

These blooms have now dried up, making way for other plants to step into the limelight. Even the vibrant forsythia are winding down: