and they all popped right up again. Just to the right of the Lamb's Ears are some Lady's Mantle. The shape of their leaves allows them to hold on to water droplets, and they rest on the leaves like sparkling gems:
My trick of propping little guys up with pine cones worked very well, and helped my tomatoes and ground cherries to remain standing throughout the onslaught of wind and hail:
The garlic is now thick and lush. The slender spates have grown into curls as elegant as a swan's neck. Here is one, which grew surrounded by a volunteer copse of Love In a Mist:
As delicate and romantic as the spates appear, alas, what starts in the garden is often destined to end up on the table. I'm seeing salmon, steamed with lemon, a little freshly cracked pepper, and these spates, photographed beside their cousin, a chive patch in bloom:
Speaking of volunteers, I continue to be surprised by what sprouts in the garden in what is most often a rather unusual place. I never plant Pennyroyal. Instead, I hunt for the volunteer patches that grow every year. This year they are growing on the path between two of my garden beds. Now I have to tread carefully along my paths, while I train the Pennyroyal to grow in the beds, instead of where I need to walk!
I have a bramble volunteer in one of the containers on my front porch. It sprouted along with the greens that I have sown in the container, hoping to outsmart whatever is eating my greens in the beds at the back of the house.
I'll have to wait until it has some berries, to know exactly what kind of bramble it is.
I get so many evergreen volunteers, and I don't have the heart to pull them out, so I'll either let them grow in place to get a little stronger, or I'll transplant them to a pot, and hope that I'll find a good home for them. Here's a cedar and two pine trees (although I think one of the pine trees isn't looking so good):
And here's what happens when I don't find a good home for them - I continue to foster them until they are teenagers....
These are some four and five year old cedars, who need a home. If you look carefully, you can see a two year old pine tree peeking out from under the cedar on the left. We have one of these adult trees on our lot - and it's one of the largest pine trees in the neighbourhood. I am overrun with Lilac and Ironwood seedlings, and I do, with regret pull them out. Please speak up if you would like some.
As for the rest of the garden, it is growing slowly but surely. I have managed to keep some peas safe from the slugs - whether it was the weather, the location or the coffee grounds I suppose I'll never know, but here they are, slowly climbing their trellis.
The gooseberries are looking promising, hanging like beautiful emerald drop earrings:
And the red currants are doing well also, supported this year on tomato cages.
Thankfully, the Black Raspberry continues to thrive:
And the Elderberry, Lavender and Peach Roses are ready to bloom:
As much as I love the Sweet Woodruff that's growing in the rock garden, and I did know it would spread, (that's one of the reasons I put it there), I wish I had known that it spreads faster then mint, and makes such a thick carpet that it even out-competes the Forget-Me-Not! Here's the Sweet Woodruff in my rock garden, flanked by some Hyssop, Day Lilies and Carnations. Soon it will have tiny, delicate white flowers.
I could spend whole days in the garden, making tour after tour, always finding something to do on each trip. One tour to see what needs to be done in the next hour, day and week. One tour to dream about what to do next year. There's always another sprout to celebrate, another harvest to bring in, another feeding, another weeding, another staking, another pruning. Another tendril to train, another scent to savour, a few minutes to spend taking in all the different shades of green, and a few more to spend listening to the wind in the trees.
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