Garden Blogger's Bloom Day- May 2015

Last year in May I said we had a splendid spring (see HERE). This year mid May I say we have a splendid garden with a weird weird spring.   We live in  Northeast Ohio, USDA hardiness zone 5b. We started spring later than last year by a week. 

April 1 the ground was icy, and we are now ahead of last year by 2-3 weeks.  We have the blooms of what we normally see the last week of May. I am not enjoying this spring because we had too many hot days of over 80F too fast and I could not do any perennial moves, splits or place my leaf humus and pull the weeds properly.  Oh, don't misunderstand.  I tried to pull the weeds but I ended up breaking them and leaving the roots in the ground.  I made some splits of perennials but only in relatively new beds where the soil is not clay.

The crab apple trees bloomed last week ..for a day as usual.. the rest was a petal mess. 

I got all my tomato, pepper, leak and onion seedlings hardened this week and will plant them in the garden soon. Radishes, lettuces and onions are ready and on our table every day.

So what is blooming in the garden now?

It feels that everything is blooming in the garden.  This is a rich point in our garden blooming, followed by many others. This is the time of the year when I say: how can it get better than this?  What else can happen that will make this garden more beautiful?  
It is about to rain.  This is the time to take pictures.  The greens are deeper and the colors of the blooms are closer to reality.

I admit that what gets me the most excited today are the blooms on my new Chinese tree peonies. Two little plants with very large and hot colored blooms.

New Tree peonies facing west

Tree Peony or Paeonia suffruticosa 'Shimanishiki' 

Tree peony or Paeonia suffruticosa 'Houki'

The petals on the last one are 5 times the size of the first one above.  It is quite a flower.

Lilac "Boomerang", Leopard Bane (Dornicum orientale) and Bachellor button (Centaurea Bluet)

 Geranium  phaeum "Samobor"

Japanese primroses under the kitchen window

Japanese primrose in the Outside path bed

Japanese primulas in two different moist loving beds that create a continuous stream

The burgundy flower is one of the early hardy geraniums in my garden.  I have a large colony of these along the long path bed.

There is the beginning of the Bearded irises show

And there are many kind of columbines spread around the beds.

Besides the crab apple trees, there are more flowering trees and shrubs this year. We keep adding them:

Cercis "Covey" in bloom

Daphne x burkwoodii "Carol Mackie"

But have you seen how giant some hostas are?

That is all for now!

Garden Blogger Bloom Day is hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens with gardener bloggers around the world share each month what is in bloom in their gardens. Click the link in blue and check it out!