Rock Garden Makes Me Happy

I am socked in working on Confidence Camp notebooks. But the rock garden is looking so pretty! This is a shot across the top with lots of color.

Now the Hawara daffodils are blooming. I put the wrong labels on earlier ones, I'll have to go back and fix those.

I have a tiny bit of the 'Candystripe' moss phlox left. Most of it reverted to plain pink and white.

One of the Lewisia has a lot of buds. I'm hopeful.

And the Rock Cress is in full bloom. It's quite reliable- one of the survivors from the original garden.

OK, it's back to work for me. Got a LOT done today, but there is lots to do yet.

See Jewel Baby

More Yellow

I had a hard time getting into gear today, but finally managed to get off my butt and do some things to prep for Confidence Camp.

Meanwhile, enjoy more yellow!

First is another daffodil. I'm pretty sure this is 'Sweet Sue.' Only a few seem to be left and they have moved slightly downhill.

I'm not sure I've showed you this before. It's a variegated absinthe, a gift quite a while ago. It can get too aggressive, but it looks nice right now. It looks much more yellow-green in real life. I'm not sure exactly which one- there are a couple of choices

Lots of the Cowslip Primrose are blooming in the front bed now. I really like these.

I know I've never put this on the blog. It's a shrub that was around our old house. I really don't like it because it spreads all over. But it's Golden Currant, Ribes aureum. At least it's native.

Shopping, bell choir and a short walk.

Miles walked in 2026: 146.4

Methodist Church trails: 1.7 miles.

See Festival in Yellow

Small Goodies

I spent most of the day working on Confidence Camp. Cathy came over and we divided and packaged a lot of the items that participants will receive and learn how to use. I spent most of the rest of my time refining "lesson plans."

Meanwhile, some more areas of the rock garden are looking nice. This area of color is great. The yellow is Moneywort, Lysemachia nummularia 'Goldilocks.' This has totally surprised me by looking better than ever since I've revived the rock garden. It really prefers something more moist. There are violets, and a Sempervivum Margaret gave me that stays quite red.

This is another of the miniature daffodils I bought a long time ago but has come back. This is 'Rip VanWinkle' with violets and some of the first of the moss phlox to open behind it.

This is a daffodil I split last year that had gotten all bunched up. The other patch didn't come up, but the ones I left in the rock garden did. They are really too tall, but I put them at the very bottom, so that works. These are a tarzetta daffodil, variety 'Erlicheer.' The leaves persist way too long, so I need to figure out what else I can also put there for later in the year.

I just have to show you the Sempervivum 'Gold Nugget' again. It's starting to change from red to gold!

And for the final act of the day, we will switch to the front flower bed. This is the sunburned Brunnera I bought at the end of the summer last year. It's the first of my Brunnera to bloom this spring! Variety is 'Variegata.' I'm really happy with this one. I really bought all of my Brunnera for the foliage, but have been delighted with the early spring forget-me-not-like flowers.

It still hasn't rained, but it's been plenty windy!

See A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

What an absolutely glorious day! Temps in the 70s with a light breeze. And I have flowers blooming to prove it.

The Corydalis 'Blackberry Wine' is pretty much in full bloom, and I now have at least 3 clumps. Maybe a couple of other spots of it. I'll be happy to have this spread because the leaves die back in summer so there is plenty of space for other things to fill in.

Just to complete the report, this is as good as that one lonely regular hyacinth is going to get. However, I see that there are a couple of other clumps of leaves. Maybe they will do something. I keep hoping for that, but in all honesty, they never do. They probably don't like sand. I also moved the three crocus that were in the yard to this flower bed.

The rock garden is starting to come alive! There are blue grape hyacinth all over the place. Also an OK thing because those leaves also die back.

A few violets are starting to open. I pretty much let them bloom and fill in wherever. They self seed all over, but they are easily ripped out if they get too aggressive.

The 'Kaydee' daffodils are in full bloom. Yes, the trumpets are sort of a salmon color. These are medium size- not miniature, but not full size, either.

And finally, the first photo shot of trying to show off mixed colors. The white grape hyacinth, violets in the middle and the 'Gold Nugget' Sempervivum behind that.

I worked on most projects, did errands, fixed the nylon screen door for the deck (ahh- a nice breeze), put out the bird bath

The front garden bed is pretty much cleaned up for the spring. It was amazingly easier than other years because I got it in good shape last year. I also started through the rock garden. I'm starting later than last year, but everything seems to be about a week later.

Of course, I see that some plants lived and some didn't. I'll post the body count as it becomes certain.

See Festival in Yellow

Festival in Yellow

I have daffodils everywhere!

And other things in yellow too. The Donkeytail, Euphorbia myrsinites, is starting to bloom in the rock garden.

More dafs. These are in the driveway bed. I just moved these bulbs here in the fall of 2024, and quite a few are blooming. (You can see some iris leaves looking healthy, and a bunch of grape hyacinth starting to bloom in the front).

The forsythia is just about perfect.

The "big bed" that I've been sort of trying to reclaim is full of daffodils- several kinds.

And here is fig buttercup. More on that another day.

There are even more clumps of daffodils in bloom in various other places. It's quite lovely. In fact, I need to get some of these patches split up and give a bunch of bulbs away.

It's been a few years since I did a "daffodil tour" to show all the varieties. Would you like to see that again? Some bloom earlier and some later.

I worked quite a lot on Confidence Camp today and did a few errands

See A Riot of Daffodils

My Fantasy World

Found another fantasy map. Definitely an island with one access road. It has small peninsulas with cliffs jutting over the mainland on the right. Maybe the dark areas are swamps (I'll have to explore them) and I also see an ancient forest line. I think I'll just disappear into that world for while.

Maybe this is another island where things have begun to green up. Or maybe it's just an old dry turkeytail fungus with moss growing on it.

The red pines were wet from all the recent rain. It really makes them RED.

And another fungus that I've learned the name of. This is Crowded Parchment fungus, Stereum complicatum. It's supposed to be very common, although I don't think I see it as often as I see turkeytail.

So, what was I doing in the woods yet another day in a row? I shuttled Chris back to the trail this morning, and then walked with him a short way before turning around. I really need to get some work done here! But we had a great visit- getting acquainted a bit.

You know in my fantasy, I would have just kept walking.

But I did come home, and I got a lot done. Serious editing, some work on the lawn. A few more things are starting to bloom. The Tete-a-tete daffodils in the rock garden are looking good. I walked around all my garden spaces to see what's happening. Stay tuned.

Miles walked in 2026- 141.2
NCT Hike 100 Challenge- 43.1

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. North from Timber Creek (AGAIN), 2 miles and back.

See A Great Day

Garden Surprises

I keep having wonderful garden surprises. It's amazing what roots turn out to be still alive if they have a few years of weeds being kept in check.

I'm really happy about this. It's a large vase-shaped Hosta called 'Krossa.' I bought one years ago and it got moved several times and I thought it was dead. But I thought I found a bit of it last year and moved it here to the front bed. It seems to be very happy. AND- there is another one that must have hitchhiked with some plants from Ester.

This is in the rock garden. I thought it had all reverted to pink and white, but there seems to still be some of what it was purchased to be. It's a moss phlox called 'Candystripe.' You can easily tell why.

This is a really nice surprise. I thought all of these had died out. This is pheasant-eye narcissus and the bulbs came from the home where I grew up. This will need to be moved, but that's easy enough.

The last surprise is a surprise only because I didn't think it would bloom any more this year. This is the damaged sea thrift 'Morning Star Deep Rose' that I got cheaply. It still has the two blooms that were there when I bought it three weeks ago, but it also developed another flower!

I had good energy today and did a lot of tasks both inside and out, although it's never enough! The lawn needs mowing again, and I HAVE to make the mower seat better before I do that again. That may be tomorrow's project.

Maybe I'll even go out and weed for 15 more minutes right now!

See Almost Surprises

Lots of Color!

 Right now, I am truly thrilled with how the rock garden is looking. Sure there are still bare spots, but after only two years of trying to bring it back to life on a budget, I'm feeling as if this might be something I can make happen and end up with it looking really nice.

That said, a few of these pictures are not in the rock garden, but I'll tell you which ones.

All these photos are staged. Not that I moved anything around except the camera, but I did work at trying to get a nice angle to capture the most different colors in one shot.

This one is the donkeytail (yellow) with pink moss phlox behind and above it. One grape hyacinth and one violet snuck into the corners.

I showed you this same view a few days ago, but it's much better now. The Erlicheer daffodils are in full bloom, and more of the grape hyacinths have opened.

Still in the rock garden... I purposely left a lot of common violets because they can nicely fill in spaces both with spring color and greens later. They are starting to bloom, and so is the moss phlox behind them. I used to have four colors of moss phlox- blue, white, this pink, and a candystripe one. So far all I'm seeing this year is pink, but it's early yet.

One more picture from the rock garden. Even though there is bare dirt between these two plants, I'm calling this a huge success. In the lower part is 'Firecracker' Sedum that I showed you more than once last year. The sedums are just starting to fill in and get their summer colors. This will spread even more as the season goes on, but the whole plant has only been in place for one year.

Above it, with the little purple flowers is a rock cress. I bought and planted a little 3" pot of this last year while holding my breath. It should be a perfect rock garden plant, but I have previously killed a couple of them. But look at it! I know there is nothing for scale, but it has definitely grown, even though it didn't look all that happy last fall. And, much to my surprise, it's blooming! Maybe it will even get more blossoms, but I took a picture now so I wouldn't miss it. As these two plants fill in the space better, there won't be that ugly stripe of bare dirt.

Now we will move to other garden spaces. This is in the front flower bed, and again I've shown you part of this already this year. However, now we have not only common blue primrose, with the 'Blackberry Wine' corydalis behind it, but we can add the yellow cowslip primrose, the tall one behind the corydalis. I moved all the primroses again last fall, so I'm pleased they tolerated it well.

Here's a daffodil that I'm not sure is a favorite, but I have lots of it, and I do enjoy the fact that it's a little different. This is Narcissus delnashaugh. Before it opens it looks as if it's going to be yellow and white, and then develops this peachy color. I show you this most every year, but it's very reliable.

And the last for today is another favorite of mine. This is the pure white Mt. Hood daffodil. They are also quite large.

I spent a lot of today getting ready for something that will happen tomorrow and Friday. I'll be blogging early tomorrow, and will tell you what I'm doing then!

Other than that... you know the drill. I edited, I wrote one of my columns, I did errands, I puttered.

See Next Round of Color