Although it’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day I am leading off with a flower that finished blooming last month.  It came into bloom at the end of May and I was so frightfully impressed that I have purchased yet another of these trees.  I promise another posting on the Stewartias because they are well worth sharing.

Currently the Stewartia japonica which we’ve had for years is just now coming into bloom

In the meantime the other striking flowers at the moment are the lilies.  Just a few of them are showing right now but they are lovely

There is also a very late and very large Azalea at the front of the house

The rest of flowering is more or less normal roses, penstemon, and annuals.  One exception is the Evening Primrose out on the bank to the pasture.

This wildflower came along on its own and appears anytime we don’t mow to close or too often on the pasture hillside.

We have been busy picking and eating fruit (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and cherries).  Mostly it’s what we expect but for many of them they are bit on the small side given the extremely dry weather we’ve had (can we say drought?).  The exception is the wild cherry tree at the entrance to our forest.

This tree is just one of many wild cherry trees in our forest.  Most of them seem to have come from bird-planted seedlings from the original orchard that we planted forty years ago.  They all have reasonable taste and the birds love them.

This gives some idea of the density.

But the really surprising thing is that one of the smaller trees with branches actually close to the ground has absolutely marvelous cherries and they grow without being sprayed.  Just pick them.

This is one of the bowls he brought in the other night.

Of course the other thing we get is as a bonus is all the birds visiting at this time of year.

I’ve even seen the bluebird in the cherry tree, though he spends most of his time harvesting grubs in the grass.

Life is good.  Now if we could just get some rain…