MAY BLOOM DAY

My first Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day of 2023.

I notice I haven’t done a May GBBD since 2019! Buţ this year we’ve already got a few blooms — or plants that aren’t blooming but that are noteworthy anyway — perhaps due to the wet April and early May we had. From mid-April until last week, we’d gotten over seven inches of rain, though none in the last week. The average high for the period was 58.9°F and the average low was 41.2°F. The forecasted low for this Wednesday right now is 28°F, which will mean having to cover the lilacs that are just about to bloom. <sad face>

FRONT YARD

The Pieris japonica (andromeda) is blooming its little heart out.

Pulsatilla vulgaris ‘Rote Glocke’ (Red Bells Pasque Flower) is always a pleasure to see in early spring, and now that I cut back the leucothoe that was shading it, it’s in full bloom.

Not too far away is the Helleborus x hybridus ‘Royal Heritage Series’, pretty much finished now but one of the few plants blooming in early April.

I just noticed the white epidemium (from a plant sale in 2021, species not known) blooming today. There were many small flying insects around it and a small bumblebee, too, which also barged its way into the delicate flowers.

The daffodils by the driveway are still blooming, unfortunately usually blocked from street view by a vehicle but we have plans to move them.

‘First Blush” Euphorbia epithymodies is getting some colour, that flourescent yellow. A few years ago it was variegated, a sort of pinkish-white, but no longer.

The weeping ‘Red Jade’ crabapple is beginning to bloom —

and next to it the ‘Olga Mezitt’ rhododendron.

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SIDE YARD

The peas are up, though not nearly blooming, in the vegetable garden; the strawberries are starting to bloom; and the violets are blooming there, in the lawn, all over the place.

Bloodroot, an ephemeral that likes to plant itself wherever it feels like it, has finished blooming now but was nice to see in April.

The bears have taken note of the fence around the vegetable garden — which right now holds only garlic, peas, kale, and arugula — and hopefully it’s enough of a deterent. 

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BACK YARD

There’s a runt of a bleeding heart that came with the yard, snuggled up under the foundation. it blooms a little every year but is it fulfilled? I might have to move it.

I quite like the intricate little flowers of the blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) in the sunroom border.

A bloom from the Pieris japonica (andromeda) in the back yard, back when we had rain.

The first common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) to emerge blasted its way through the patio.

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FRUIT GUILD

There’s an epidemium in the fruit guild as well, a pale pink one, and like the white one in the front yard it’s also from a plant sale and unmarked as to species.

SHADE GARDEN

The ephemeral Jeffersonia diphylla (twinleaf) has, true to its ilk, come and gone and soon will be found only in memory.

Here it is in its decline with a white goldenrod crab spider on a fading bloom.

The spring bush pea (Lathyrus vernus) has spread to a few new places, including a spot on the edge of the patio where it seems happier than where I placed it. (Photos are of same plant, the second with some dead nettle (Lamium) and European ginger (Asarum europaeum))

Brunnera and forget-me-not have such similar flowers; I love that they bloom in the same places at the same time.

The Trillium luteum (yellow trillium) has emerged with a bud for its 6th year!

Finally, Canadian wild ginger (Asarum canadense), and its inconspicuous pink-red flowers, held at ground level. If you didn’t look for them, you’d never find them. The’re like baby bird beaks.

Thanks for stopping by, and come back in June for many more blooms!

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Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day is hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. (She’s in USDA hardiness zone 6a in Indiana and I’m in zone 5a in New Hampshire.)

Featured image is hellebore in April.