May!
May is now established, in true Northeast fashion. It began nice and warm. Like summer, without the excess heat and humidity. Sunshine brought out the first May blooms.
Today we have returned to March. Rain I can handle. But rain and cold?
It’s too cold to go out and take pictures of the newest blooms, so I’ll do that another day.
Precious Child and her husband stopped by a few nights ago, with an early Mother’s Day gift of two trees! (I love these kids.) One is Syringa patula, a lovely little lilac whose blooms extend beyond normal lilac season. It’s a more compact lilac too. I’ve put it directly in front of the door, where the azaleas turned brown and dry. I just cannot do azaleas, goshdarnit. No matter my effort, the ungrateful little plants sneered their way into death. All I have to show for my troubles are a few feeble leaves off to one side of one plant. Out they came. Now they can spend eternity in the woody compost pile. Heck with them. The birds can get better use of the things. Birds like nesting in the woody pile. Probably so they have more immediate access to the cold pile’s worms.
I dug a vast hole, and filled it with layers of compost, rotted horse manure, and plain dirt. I don’t bother with mixing the amendments in-it’s a deal of hard work and all plants (except ungrateful azaleas) get busy thriving in their layered mess. The plant looks so teeny on its mound!
The other gift plant is a superb magnolia-the Leonard Messel. I haven’t planted it yet, simply because I couldn’t decide an appropriate place for it. The Husband and I strolled the front yard yesterday looking for a place that would provide it the best conditions, and provide us the best view when it blooms. Maybe we’ll be digging its hole in the cold and damp tonight. Maybe we’ll be smart and wait til tomorrow, when the rain should clear up and it will only be cold.
Here are some of the April through early May blooms.
