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Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: May 2024

It’s been a while since I participated in Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. This month feels right for a return to the routine, mainly because I’m in the right head space: motivated to plant and weed, motivated to write and photograph, and ready to give myself permission to be OK with wabi-sabi-style plantings.

May has been filled with more and more bearded irises over the years — mostly because deer don’t eat them the way they do lilies. The alliums are also super deer-resistant, and they offer some long-term interest, but they don’t have quite as much of a punch of color.

I planted bearded iris Califlora War Chief in Fall 2021, and I’m fairly sure this is the first year it’s bloomed. It needs some support, and I’m not sure if it’s because it’s not getting enough sun or if it’s just how this iris behaves.

The two Peggy Sue bearded irises I planted in Fall 2018 have spread nicely over the years, and they now make a colorful impact from a distance. I took this photo a few days ago, and now there’s easily some two dozen blooms.

These purple and lavender irises with yellow throats were already established when we moved into this house some 11 years ago. I’ve divided them once or twice, and I’ve also seen them popping up in places I didn’t remember moving them to.

This little white irises were some more that were already on the property but needed dividing to thrive. I’d honestly forgotten that I’d moved them to a spot by the driveway where they can be enjoyed.

The peonies are putting up buds, but none but the early single-blooming red peonies have shown their colors quite yet.

I also saw this morning that the purple Siberian iris has started to bloom. The foliage looks grassy, so I’ve lost more than one of them over the years to well-meaning landscapers who whack them before they’re in bloom. Glad I still have at least one out there… might need to divide them this fall as a bit of an insurance policy.

This May has also been full of weeds and grass and things that didn’t survive the winter for whatever reason. I think this will be a good summer for my plantings, though, and I’m looking forward to tending to the growing things.

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An Inauspicious Start

Last week, I realized that Early Spring had quite suddenly become Mid-Spring, and that I have a good amount of garden cleanup to tackle. I spontaneously decided to cut down some weed trees along the back fence one morning before work.

The itching started a couple days later.

Wait — there’s not any poison ivy back there… right? The poison ivy lives in the front garden by the dying dogwood tree, and over by the office window, but not along the back fence!

Well, I double-checked. Looks like it does now.

I wasn’t expecting it, so I wasn’t watching for it. I had seen the tiny sprigs and thought it was a volunteer raspberry bush, and cut it back along with the weed trees. Since the branches were small ones, I’d picked them up with the piles of twigs and carried them across the yard to toss in the garbage.

The first itchy spot cropped up on the inside of my left forearm, where I’d pushed up the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

Right then, I should have showered and scrubbed all over with Tecnu. But I didn’t.

And it spread.

I am so sensitive to urushiol.

It’s a week later, and I’m still finding new blisters and itchy spots. Anywhere my soiled fingernails touched: neck, waist, and places that don’t ever see sunshine.

At this point, Benadryl antihistamine pills and Clobetasone prescription steroid cream are pretty much all I need. That and patience.

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Bloom Day, May 2023

Foregoing the usual commentary for this Bloom Day in my Zone 6a/b garden. Enjoy these photos from May 15, 2023, including the tree peony and early-blooming herbaceous peony, alliums and chives, dogwood, camassia, one final late-blooming daffodil, lamium, lunaria, and variegated Solomon’s Seal.

Thanks as always to Carol Michel for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day on the 15th of each month! As Elizabeth Lawrence said, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.”