Wednesday Wandering

It's that time of year when I love to wander my garden paths as much as I love to quilt.  The cottage garden is a sea of blue early in the spring - full of scilla and little bees. 

And there's the fragrance of a few hyacinths here and there if I care to bend over. 

There's a shady area at the end of the garden near a dying peach tree and a hedgerow of wild mulberry trees that separate the garden from the field.  Last Autumn I planted a couple of different varieties of grape hyacinth hoping they will naturalize. Deer and rabbits don't seem to bother them. 

The differences between varieties are subtle. There's a big huge downed tree log I can sit on and pause for a minute to look at the cute little flowers.  A common name for Muscari is grape hyacinth but they are not a hyacinth at all. 

There's a little clump of grape hyacinth in the fairy garden under a miniature rose.  I have a difficult time keeping the fairy garden free of invasive saponaria. As you may or may not see - it is already taking over. 

The Virginia Bluebells are in bloom now.  Isn't it strange that a lot of the early spring flowers happen to be blue? 

And then there's the Narcissus in bloom. I have a few different varieties of those. Most are in the cottage garden.

Last Autumn along with the Grape Hyacinth I planted a couple of different varieties of miniature daffodils I hope will also naturalize in the shady area.  They are supposed to be scented but I haven't bent over that low to see if that is true. 

These come up in the grass in the front yard. 

And then there's the Tulips. These are species or wild Tulips. 

These are hybrid Tulips. I forget what varieties. I'm surprised they are in bloom. This is the second year for this tulip bed in my cutting garden. My husband bought me a few different types of tulips because he likes them. I know the squirrels and rabbits like them as much as he does so I never really have wanted to plant many tulips only to be disappointed when I have no blooms. 

I like the variegated foliage on these. You can see here and there some eaten leaves and buds of other tulips that won't bloom this year. I have this bed interplanted with dianthus so there will be blooms in here after tulips die back. Right now it looks like I need to pull out some velcro weed.  The weather until a couple of days ago has been unseasonably warm so it seems like some of the the early tulips were magically in bloom one day and gone the next. 

These are some free tulips we got one year from Thompson Cigar company. My husband used to smoke a cigar now and then back before he got cancer. I always thought Tulips was a strange thing for a cigar company to give away. When I see these in bloom every year it reminds me that I am thankful that my husband beat stage four oropharyngeal cancer oh so many years ago. And the really strange thing is that even though there are lots of squirrels that live in a tree near these tulips they are never dug up or eaten by squirrels or rabbits. But maybe it's because they are close to the back door of the house. 

Bloodroot

Fritillaria. I find it amazing that a flower could have a checkered pattern. 

Bleeding Heart. I also find it amazing that a flower could be shaped like a heart. 

In a corner of the veggie garden the rhubarb is about ready to harvest. 

My onions are planted.

The asparagus is up...

...and we harvest it every day. So far we have had it for dinner twice. If we get tired of eating it in a variety of ways we pickle it. The folks who used to share the harvest have either passed away or moved away.