Things continue to do mostly well in the seed department.

The lettuce/spinach continues to grown nicely.

The radishes are doing very well too – look at that little red root. Of course, they have much more growing to do, but I couldn’t help checking on them.

I am THRILLED with my sweet peas. I’ve got over 50% germination rate. and look how tall and straight they are. They get rotated a couple times throughout the day to keep them growining nicely.

Sadly, the Mini-Mike melons aren’t showing any sign yet. Im going to give them a little more time before I give up on the completely.

And it looks like the squirrels are protesting the lack of peanuts

They made quite the mess of the cornflowers. There are still some growing, (and I have a lot more seeds) so it’s not a total loss.

The seeds I planted last week are just starting to sprout – mostly the tray of sunflowers. But here’s some proof that sometimes you just have to let nature do it’s thing…

These are all sunflower seedlings… from the sunflowers I had surrounding the front porch. I’m going to let these grow on a bit. If they survive the squirrels, I’ll give them some better spots in other gardens

While the strawberry seeds I planted didn’t germinate at all..

The existing strawberries are starting to bloom. I still need to get some fresh plants though. These ones are a few years old, and strawberry plants tend to weaken over time.

May is the time when the summer perennials start to take over… but it’s not happening quite yet.

There are still some late blooming daffodils…

And there are still tulips thriving

And the Grape Hyacinths aren’t about to give way just yet.

I just love that one little stubborn white one among the blue.

But still – the late spring perennials are getting ready to shine.

The bleedings hearts aren’t quite as spectacular as they have been in the past. Last year, I moved them, and split a couple up, so they are still building their strength.

Similarily, the irises took a beating from the Iris Borer moth last year. I wasn’t sure how well my irises would do this year – but the first one has bloomed! I don’t think it’s going to be as good a show as previous years, but at least they aren’t gone completely.

My Red Pasque Flower is on the small side this year for some reason – it might have been the dry summer last year. I have to go check the catio for the purple one. I don’t recall seeing it at all.

This little Saxifraga only blooms in late spring, but it’s a nice bit of colour in the walkway garden when nothing else is in bloom there.

I actually don’t recall buying this creeping phlox… but I’m glad I did. It’s a real pop of pink right in the front of the border.

Over in the woodland garden, the Leopard’s Bane is shining bright.

And then..the summer snowflake. Which neither blooms in summer, or snow… it’s similar to a snowdrop, but blooms about a month later. I planted a few bulbs in the catio. I didn’t really do well, and I thought it would eventually fade away… but this year it’s relaly proving me wrong. There’s four or five clumps out there and they look so pretty swaying in the wind.

Now I just hopes the weather holds, so I can get in the gardens, clear some weeds, and really let these May beauties shine!

The other day, I was out front chatting with a neighbour, when I noticed a bit of a crime scene in the grass.

Judging by the length of the feathers, we figured it was a Mourning Dove. Now… there are a couple of suspects when it comes to bird murder around here. We’ve got a variety of raptors – hawks, eagles, falcons. And of course, a pile of neighbourhood cats. Fryburger, who lives across the street, is a precision birder.

But… as we were chatting… suspect number one came sauntering up…

And yes….

That’s some very compelling evidence hanging out of his mouth (and there was literal blood on his paws) Still… to remove all chance of reasonable doubt… I reviewed our security footage. The feathers were actually the secondary scene. The victim was assaulted in the front garden… then carried off to the secondary scene where disection and consumption occured. And yes.. it was a mourning dove.

It just makes this plaque I found at the thrift store last year, all the more apropos.

I’ve made some progress on my Mossy Kroy socks… but I noticed something curious…

It almost looks like I’m knitting with a completely different yarn. The first sock is much more tweedy and muted than the second. My guess is that I’ve got two different dye lots. Sadly, I threw out the label from the first ball, so I can’t check. I don’t even remember where I got them from – or how long they’ve been in my stash.

Happily, these are for me, and I can live with the differences – but I’m going to have to check the rest of the Kroy I have in the stash.

Mom left early Sunday morning, so as she hit the road, I hit the gardens. It was time to start cleaning out some of the leaves.

This is right under the maple, so it’s where the leaves are the thickest.

It didn’t take very long. And as you can see, I don’t remove every last leaft – just enough to let the plants breath. It’s mostly hosta and heucheras under here, but I do also have some native plants.

Including Jack-in-the-Pulpit. You may remember that Mom brought me some from her garden a couple years ago. And I’m happy to say it’s thriving here and there are several plants now.

Sadly, it doesn’t look like my trilliums have come through. When we were driving to the quilt show on Saturday, the woodlands on route were blanketed with trilliums, so I should be seeing them now. But there’s nothing. I’m debating on getting more to try again – the Norway Maple may just make it too dry for them (plus the soil is fairly sandy here)

My native geranium, however, is thriving. I have two clumps of it (one on either side of the fence) and I think I may add some more.

The one outside the fence gets more sun and it has just started to bloom. In a few days, both clumps will be covered in those pretty pink flowers. I think I need to get a couple more clumps.

I had some woodland poppy that bloomed at this time too (beautiful yellow flowers) but last year Dave accidentally weed whacked them . I didn’t think they’d recover, but when I was out there taking pictures of the geraniums, I noticed this…

It’s going to take a bit for it to bloom, but at least it’s stil alive.

My black Cohosh is doing nicely.

There are also two clumps of this – and the one that gets more sun is much further along, but the other will catch up eventually. It gets spikes of tiny white flowers that look like they were made for fairies.

I’m not seeing any sign of my ostrich ferns, and like the trilliums, I think it’s too dry for them under the tree.

But one native that is thriving, I didn’t plant at all…

Wild violets! I used to pull these up from the beds (but I’ve always left them in the lawn). But I’ve since learned that they are vital to Fritillary butterflies.

Most of these are in the catio – but I think I’m going to dig some up and move them to the woodland garden.

And these, of course, aren’t the only natives – there’s sneezeweed, wild bergamot, cardinal flower, blue lobelia, false sunflower, smooth aster and coneflowers. And… I may have a whole order of natives coming in the next couple of weeks… We can look forward to Maypop, New Jersey Tea, Heart Leaves Aster, Spotted Beebalm, and Michigan lily!

I will never have a completely native garden, but I’m thrilled to include them wherever I can!

Excellent progress was made with the tiny needle this weekend.

Rupert helped me decide on the colours I wanted to use for the next section (the fairy’s skirts). And after that he settled in while I stitched away

We got two sections of the skirt completed, and made a bit of a start on the third, and biggest section. I can probably finish that section up this coming weekend.

This is certainly moving along much faster than I expected. As mentioned, I bought this pattern book some time in 1993 (I was about 14 years old). I didn’t make anything from it until the early 2000s, when Samantha had her first child. I made the Fairy Godmother for her, and I remember it being an absolute slog of a project! It just shows how time and age can change your perspective – I’m enjoying EVERY stitch of this one!

I mentioned that Mom was coming for the weekend… and this is why…

We had plans to head to Chatham for a quilt show! It was held at a very large church, and they had the sanctuary absolutley filled with “Comfort” quilts which would be donated after the show. Isn’t that wonderfu?

In the other rooms of the church (there were many – did I mention it was a very large church?) they had all the quilts made by guild members.

There were literally hundreds of beautiful quilts… but judging by the pictures I took, I seemed to like the applique ones the best.

Check out the amazing birds on this one…

And all three of us (Dave came too)

Loved this chicken quilt.

Especially the inclusion of this saucy foxy.

Naturally this cat one caught my eye. But if you look close, you’ll see it’s not applique, but embroidery! It looks like it’s probably machine embroidery but still amazing!

As was this black-work embroidery with an automotive theme!

But my absolute favourite quilt….

Isn’t that just stunning? It was huge (probably King-Sized). I couldn’t get the whole thing in the picture!

Things are going pretty well in the seed department.

The snails have mostly survived the bulking of their soils.

The Dahlias were DEFINITELY doing well. They’d outgrown their spot so it was time to move them. They are now on the catio porch. They can take the cold nights, just not frost – so the porch will protect them from that for a couple more weeks. Then it will be safe enough to put them in the ground.

Also on the catio porch…

TWO more trays of freshly planted seeds. The top tray is a mix of different sunflowers, since none of my sunflowers in snails made it (I’m still salty about that). The bottom tray is a mix of my last seed order, which just arrived on Thursday – Cosmos (yes, more), Nasturtiums, Scabiosa, Queen Annes Lace, and more Foxglove.

And I’m VERY excited …

We have Sweet Pea seedlings! The plan is to plant these in a pot with a trellis, so even if I only get a third of the seedlings going it will be enough. The seedlings on the far right, last row should be the Mini Mike melons. But Dave was moving things around the other day and I’m a little worried he moved the tray. Mini Mike could be in the very back row which isn’t sprouting at all. I hope I’m wrong.

The other trays, both planted two weeks ago are all seeing sprouts too. The top row of pics is a mix… cosmos, snapdragons, foxglove etc. The bottom pic are marigolds – Eskimo and Strawberry Blonde.

Outside…

Peanut service at Squirrelington’s has been temporarily suspended.

At least until the seedlings are strong enough to take some digging in the beds. The second pic is all Foxglove. Foxglove must be surface sown, so any digging around them is a real problem. I doubt I’ll get anything in this bed now, but I’ll give it a couple weeks just to be sure.

The lettuces and spinach are starting to look good, with true leaves appearing.

I can’t remember if I told you that I picked up some Red Cabbage seedlings at the nursery – but I did. And the White Cabbage Butterflies have already laid eggs on them. I’m going to have to keep a close eye on these!

Furby has offerd to do garden patrol but I’m not sure he’s much of a defence against cabbage worm.

And the Cornflowers are sprouting!

I said this year was going to be all about seeds over ready-to-plant… and it’s looking like that…. of course, I haven’t really hit the nurseries yet… nor have several of the pre-order plants I bought earlier in the year shipped yet….

I guess I better work on expanding some garden beds!

The May Garden begins with the slow decline of the daffodils. That said, there are still many blooming – as I said, I have quite the collection

I bought a large mix of bulbs a few years back so I don’t know the name of many of them. But there are others that I do.

This one is called Mount Hood. It’s the biggest daffodil in the garden. It starts off with a light yellow trumpet, but then it fades to this perfect creamy white. It’s one of the longest lasting daffodils too. It started blooming almost two full weeks ago.

From the larfest, we go to the smallest. And my absolute favourite. It’s called Minnow. It’s taller than Arctic Bells and Rip Van Winkles, but the size of it’s blooms are on par. You can see by my hands, they are teeny!

And last – the most fragrant. This one is called Pipit. As you can see it’s a soft, creamy yellow and it has the most wonderful perfume. Most of the daffodils don’t seem to have any scent at all, so this one really shines! It’s go mid-sized blooms.

There’s still a few late-blooming daffies to come, but the garden is definitely giving way to the tulips.

Now I don’t know about you, but I kind of prefer the tulips when it’s a little grey and cloudy, and they are closed up tight.

Now, I did say that most of my tulips were Darwin and Triumph Tulips because they last longer… but there are a few outliers.

I bought a mix in 2024 that had a bunch of fringed tulips in different colours. So far this year, this is the only one that’s appeared, so I expect this will be the last year for them.

This funky one was bought as part of another mix in 2023. Again, so far, this is the only one that has appeared. But still – three years is good for a fancy tulip!

My absolute favouite tulip, I didn’t plant at all. It was here when we got here.

It starts off as a yellow with just a touch of red along the edge, and a dusting of blush across each petal. But as the blooms get older, they gain more and more of that blush.

We know that Ruby, the lady who owned our house lived here with her son Robert. She passed in 2013. Robert died in 2020, and we bought the house in 2021. Our understanding is that Robert wasn’t much of a gardener, so they must have been planted by Ruby. That means they are at least 13 years old!

There’s quite the little patch of them. I say every year that I’m going to dig them up and spread them around, but I never do. In truth, I’m a little afraid to. What if I move them and they don’t come back. Probably best not to mess with a good thing.

I’ve also more of those species tulips I told you about…

This one is called peppermint stick. Don’t you just love that dark pink underpetal?

And this one is called Little Beauty! Such pretty, bright cerise blooms.

And there’s much, much more on the horizon.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve awoken to find Burton in the bed, staring at me. As soon as he realizes I’m awake, he moves in for a snuggle – but that’s not what he really wants.

He wants me to get up and open the bedroom curtain.

From 8 am to about 10 am, the bedroom floor is the perfect place to catch a sunbeam.