
Pileated Woodpecker
This bird has been a frequent visitor to our garden this last week so I thought you might want to join him in perusing the flowers at Ball Road for this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day.

Azalea Exbury Hybrid ‘Gibraltar’
It’s very much the Azalea time of year hereabouts. What is especially nice this year is that we dug four layered offspring from this plant last year and they are now to be found in other parts of the yard.

New Azalea ‘Gibraltar’ from layering
One of our favorite Azaleas is beside the deck. Azalea ‘Visco Sepala’ came from White Flower Farm many years ago, though it’s originally from England. It has a spectacular fragrance.

Azalea ‘Visco sepala’
Naturally at the same time the tree peonies are stepping up to the plate.

Tree Peonies in Bloom

Yellow Tree Peony
Nearby is another very nice perennial.

Glaucidium palmatum
And a very distinctive Japanese Maple that is worth building a garden around

Golden Full Moon Maple (Acer Shirasawanum)
We also have a reliable showing of Lamium by the garage where it outcompetes the weeds.

Lamium orbala
One could easily get lost with trying to account for all the things in bloom right now. If we go back to the Alpine bed there are some special repeat performances.

Dianthus petraeus ssp. petraeus

Aubretia ‘Blue Beauty’

Ornithogalum exscapum

Papaver atlanticum (Moroccan Poppy)

Lewisia cotyledon ‘Rainbow mix’
I want to take a few minutes out to share our meadow-like pasture. Last year son Josh, cut the pasture ultrashort and then seeded the area with crimson clover and wildflowers from Wildseed in Texas. The result has been wonderful. It’s easy to get lost in just the crimson clover.

Wildflower meadow

Crimson Clover Flower
But amidst the clover are wallflowers, peas, flax, sweet william and POPPIES.

Poppy from wildflower mix

Pink Poppy

White Poppy
We also have for the first time Five Spot

Five Spot (Nemophila maculata)
As an ending point for this already long posting let me share the Viburnum on the hillside that overlooks these wildflowers.

Viburnum on the hillside
Beth and John. I always look forward to seeing this blog. Your flowers are so beautiful. I thought I was the hippie in our family, but you two are the flower children. I thought all poppies were red. Silly me! We are planning to run a tour of trees and flowers found ( planted) on the grounds of our co-op on Saturday I’ll tell you how it goes. Flower power!
LOVE that orange color of the Moroccan Poppy. I visited a botanical garden yesterday that featured the astonishing, sky-blue Himalayan poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia). That frazzled dianthus is crazy cool.