Pure heaven... you have ALL my favorite flowers. How do you pull yourself away? I'd be sitting right there with my favorite book all day....

Just lovely. I love the French irises and wish I had more. Mine evaporated for a few years and returned. I guess it was that drought we had been through for a number of years. Your peonies are splendoriferous.

Mine have about all come and gone. It's now summer. We are in the doldrums until Autumn. We do have sporadic bloom but our big spring flush has sprung.

Very pretty. Thanks for sharing them.

YEs, our flowers are gorgeous. I keep meaning to take some pics. We are ahead of you though - lilacs, peonys and iris have already bloomed here. Well, maybe a few iris still around. I love my flowers! LOL Come by it honest, I followed in my pappaw and mom's footsteps. Very pretty Annie.

tina

Thank you. The french irises are a gift from a neighbor...she was digging out extras and didn't want to throw them away. Gotta love the generosity of neighbor gardeners.

I did plant trailing torenias for summer-long color. They're an annual that seem to tolerate pretty much anything and they bloom all summer long. And they come in lovely colors...great for hanging pots too. You might want to check them out to help beat the summer doldrums.

Beautiful! You sure are ahead of us.

Gorgeous! I wish I could have peonies. They are such beautiful flowers. My lavender and star jasmine are blooming. Once those stop blooming, I'll be back to mostly green as deer and bunnies eat most flowers I would try to plant.

Beautiful! Do you have deer in your area? I'm wondering if they leave all of those lovelies alone?

Thank you all for the kind words.

Yes we have deer. Lots of them. We stake out ivory bar soap. The deer don't like the smell so they stay away. We also plant deer-resistant plants like boxwood.

Annie - I love torenia and have it in two different colors. I only do annuals in planters or hanging baskets though. Have some in an old nail keg (little barrel - short) and love how it trails down. Have some on my patio in a pot. One of my favorites!!

Beatiful flowers thanks for posting them. My iris and peonies are blooming right now as well.

Annie that's just lovely!! Our gardens have many of the same plants - and deer!! Funny you use Ivory soap - you said staked - please explain!! I use Irish Spring as that was recommended to me many years ago but shave off little pieces with a vegetable peeler as I walk around my garden. I think it works - sorta - nothing is 100% when it comes to my phlox - the deer top them every stinkin' year but they still bloom, just later than everyone else's.

These came from my garden the other day.

I'd love to see some pics of your gardens blooming...and tinam of your torenias hanging.

DH puts some stakes in the ground near the plants we want to protect. The stakes have a nail stuck in them. He drives the stakes into the ground so they're up about 18-24". He then drills a hole in the middle of the bar of soap and ties the soap to the nail with string. The odor from the soap stays a long time that way.

Irises and lilacs don't do well down here and I miss them. Thanks for sharing.

dlm your peonies are such a lovely color!

Beautiful. I love the white peony's.

Annie, I have such a dullard entry way with a beautiful door but it is not visible from the street, so for passersby, it just looks dull.

I put pretty caladiums and a bunch of torenia in those big, beautiful Vietnamese cobalt blue pots for some excitement approaching my door. The torenia give great color all summer long and they trail so pretty down the pots.

I added a little pocketbook planter that I painted to blend with the mahogany color and placed some white and blue faux flowers mimicking the colors of the torenia. So a little bit of excitement for my dull entryway.

Gorgeous flowers Annie. I love your tiered planter too. It all looks so cool and pleasant.

The spring flowers have been over for a while here. My pond irises usually are the last ones blooming around Mother's Day. Here's a picture of our dogwood from the end of March:

Thanks JoeyMc and marti!

Patricia, I'd love to see a pic...your entry sounds lovely.

Dogwood end of March? We were still having snow this year! It's beautiful.

I wish my yard had gardens half as pretty as yours. That said, I am enjoying my chives blooming too! The combination of delicious herbs and beautiful blooms is fantastic.

Annie, your flowers are lovely, it must be wonderful to have so many of them blooming at once! Our peonies did not even bloom this year, but the iris was spectacular. We are about two or three weeks from canna lillies and the first wave of crape myrtles, so all I've got are hanging begonias and potted geraniums. And lots of Queen Anne's Lace in the woods!

Thank you PPC and kswl! Isn't it wonderful when edibles are good looking too.

Here are my geraniums and begonias. It's all red this year:

Oh, and a few yellow and pink day lilies here and there.

And I just noticed in this one that our white crape myrtle (dead center in far ground) has started blooming, very early!

This post was edited by kswl on Thu, Jun 5, 14 at 23:30

Just beautiful.

Annie, thanks for the pics... love your peonies, of course. Yes, perhaps a silver lining of the horrendous winter is we're appreciating our weather today so much more.

All the subsequent pics are so pretty, too. Cloudswift, I grew up with dogwoods, but live too far north now to have them in my yard. I forgot how sweet they are!

Kswl, what is in the foreground in your last photo--is that rosemary or lavender?

I have a cutting garden in a little-seen area of my yard that I use to fill my house with flowers. I currently have 4 vases of various blooms--mostly peonies. They remind me of my grandparents' farm, and my grandmother's peony bush that produced blooms like Dim's above.

Even today, my annual late spring ritual is to drive out to the rural areas and admire the rows of peonies that many farm wives planted years ago up and down their long driveways. Go check out any farming community in a peony zone, and you'll find peony bushes that have been around for decades (I know--because I've stopped and asked!). Peonies like to be planted and then left alone. But a one-time investment, and they'll bloom forever. They are frugal beauties.

Ok, I'm 'green' with envy...:-)

Here in Canada we just got rid of the snow!!!!

Wow.

My stargazer lilies are just loaded with huge buds and blooms this summer.

Kswl, your geraniums make me think of my dad...he planted them all across the front of the FL house. So pretty. Nice yard.

Gorgeous stargazer!

I picked a few peonies for the kitchen and they smell so wonderful!

I'm with Radley, what a winter! Thanks so much for sharing your gorgeous pics.
I am definitely using the ivory soap tip. We fed a deer herd of 18 - 24 this past (tough) winter, and although most have dispersed, there are a few tame stragglers that are nipping at my garden and fruit trees...

Peony, those are dwarf yew in the foreground. But we do have a whole bank of rosemary bushes near the tennis court, and you can smell it when you're playing on that side of the court :-)

Love seeing these beautiful plants and gardens! We're in northern MA and our bush peonies are just about to start blooming (tree peonies have just finished, as have lilacs).

Lots about to start blooming, too. This is such a great time of the year. I need to get out there and mulch and trim and mow and ....

From this morning, dreadful thing. Went out and sprayed deer off immediately.

And look! I am even using the greenhouse this year as something other than overflow storage. Lots of morning glories, some moon flowers, basil and sunflowers. The containers I just drag in, in late fall, water occasionally, and most everything comes right back.

Happy Gardening Annie and All!

That stargazer is a stunner!!

Oldbat, I envy you that greenhouse! There is a place near me that sells small cute greenhouses and I am so tempted....it would pay for itself as a place to overwinter our five big sago palms instead of replacing them each year.

ob2b, so nice to see your lovely yard! That greenhouse looks great.

Annie - your yard looks wonderful!

Our Clematis is as beautiful as ever.

I also love the greenhouse. I have wonderful memories of my grandfathers greenhouse that was attached to his daylight basement. I loved working in it with him.

This post was edited by newhomebuilder on Sun, Jun 8, 14 at 14:25

How lovely, nhb!

Oh! I've never seen chives in the garden before, but now I want some. Is that garlic chives or onion chives? How long do they usually bloom for you?

Our spring bloom is long over, but the Ruellia is getting tall and it will bloom like crazy until our cool January temps.

alex, pretty yard with lovely ornamentation.

msrose, these taste like onion...hollow stems. Not sure how long they bloom...I've never really paid attention. Some people cut off the blooms which are edible to keep the chives growing, but I just leave them alone and they seem to take care of themselves. I know some people will grow them in pots or plant as a perennial border.

DH loves to put chopped chives in his morning scrambled eggs. Really yummy.