Perennials - April through May

(Alchemilla mollis - Ladies mantle, Corydalis 'Blackberry Wine', Athyrium 'Pictum' - Japanese painted fern, Photo taken May 25, 2007 a very late spring)

It's Thursday, which means I teach my adult education gardening class tonight. I am so very excited because today's topic is "Perennials" which is my absolute favorite part of gardening.

Since I don't own a digital projector, my class can only see images from when I was shooting slide film. So just for fun, I thought I'd put some digital images of my favorite perennials up here for all to share. This batch of photos were all taken in the months of April and May.

It's interesting to see how different the blooms times are each spring.

(Unknown Epimedium, Photo taken May 25, 2007)

(Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold', Photo taken May 25, 2007)

(Geranium cantabrigiense 'Cambridge' - Photo taken May 28, 2007)

Calie the wonder-doodle almost decimated this clump last fall while digging out a chipmunk tunnel. I'll be starting over again this year with a tiny piece instead of this nice big clump. Bad dog.

(Iris germanica, unknown variety - Photo taken May 28, 2007)

(Nepeta mussinii - Photo taken May 28, 2007)

(Geranium sanguinium and Geranium cantabrigiense 'Biokova' - Photo taken May 28, 2007)

(Pulmonaria angustifolia 'Azurea' - has no markings! Photo taken May 28, 2007)

(Sanguinaria canadensis - Double bloodroot - Photo taken April 18, 2006 - a much earlier spring!)

(Primula - unknown variety from a neighbor - Photo taken May 2, 2006)

(Brunnera 'Jack Frost' - Photo taken May 17, 2006)

(A corner of the shade border - Photo taken May 5, 2006)

While I've been predicting that our spring isn't going to be as late as last years spring, I don't think it will be as early as the one we had in 2006. This morning we took a big hit with temperatures in the low 20's, that's -4 celsius. I just went out to check the various plant foliage since I plan on digging something to bring to the class tonight. Right now I'm not touching anything. This afternoon I can hopefully dig some Euphorbia and Hemerocallis - daylilies.