The Back Garden

I know it's almost June, but only in the past couple of weeks has it been consistently warm enough (though not necessarily sunny) that I'm convinced that it's actually Springtime. We've had fits and starts of nice weather for a while, but now it really seems to be sticking. Yay for sunshine! To celebrate, I took a tour of the back garden a few days ago.

This may not look like much at this point, but with any luck, this planter will supply us with tomatoes and lettuce. The lettuces are coming in really well, actually, and are already noticably bigger than in the photo. I've planted another container with lettuce and several more with tomatoes. We eat a lot of them in the summer and I'm hoping to improve over last year, when I got not a single tomato. Everyone I've talked to says it was generally a bad year for gardening, so hopefully it wasn't my black thumb that did it.

Our next door neighbour/gardener Rocco did a lot of work in our garden last year. We're trying to keep it up to a degree - he did clear out a lot of weeds and overgrowth, which definitely needed doing, but he is much more of a garden disciplinarian than I am and left the flowerbeds a bit bare - and even wanted to get rid of more. He divides plants into two general categories: pretty flowers and rubbish. Needless to say, we had a lot of rubbish. He wanted to get rid of this little rose bush, but I vetoed the removal. Its flowers aren't very impressive, but I find them very sweet and tiny.

I bought these little carnations last year and am happy to say they're doing well. They are just under the rose bush so I can see both from the back door.

This camelia is so impressive - the bloom is larger than my outspread hand. Another bloom is just opening up and there are two more buds, so I'm looking forward to a lengthy show.

I don't know what these purple flowers are, but we've got several clumps of them. I've seen them in other gardens and in parks, so they must be good. Plus, they made it past Rocco's cull last year, so I guess they qualify as "pretty flowers".

We have a single hollyhock (I think). It gets ridiculously tall, like three or four feet, and lasts a long time. I imagine a bunch of them would be very impressive, but for now we're making do with just one. Don't want to overdo it.

Rocco gave us several beautiful purple lillies (or irises - I don't know the difference). They're all blooming very impressively against the wall of the shed. I can see them from the kitchen window.

This jasmine also grows against the shed and it is gorgeous. I brought a sprig in the other day and you could smell it as soon as you walked in the door. Lots of fat, lazy bees hanging around, but they aren't too aggressive so we're co-existing peacefully.

And this vine I just don't get. The bottom of it is brown and shriveled; we thought it was dead and almost pulled it out. Then it started growing leaves and produced these very large, sort of alien-looking buds, which opened into large, strange flowers. I don't know what they are, but I like them.