Arrrgh!!!

This is my favorite time of year in the gardens! How can you not love a garden that looks like this? It's bursting with health and still filled with cool green leaves. This particular year I had a volunteer Dame's Rocket in the center bed, the tall stalks of pink blossoms.

In the bottom left corner, you can see the day lilies bursting with growth. In June there will be two colors of blooms on long stalks. They are plants that were growing on the land when we bought it, and have continued for the 16 years we've been here.

The small pink flowers in the bottom right corner of the garden are the chives. I let my chive plants go to bloom, and then give them a crew cut. They are the most amazing plants in the garden. Cut them down and they grow back within 10 days or so.

Further up the arm of that bed is the oregano. I let it get out of hand for a couple of years and now could probably supply half the world's oregano. My youngest sister was helping me in the garden this year, and I asked her if she would cut back the oregano. When I turned around, she had cut them clear back to the crowns. I gasped.....and closed my mouth. She did what needed to be done, in a quarter of the time it would have taken me. And, she helped the plants immensely, by getting rid of all the old growth. Another benefit was that she uncovered the wood of the raised bed, making it painfully obvious that it's time to do repairs. Dear Husband has started replacing the timbers with cedar.

At the top of the bed, climbing up the right side of the arbor, is a beautiful purple jackmanii clematis. Each year about half of the superstructure gets clipped back and it sends new shoots up over the top.

I think this picture must have been taken in mid-May, because you can see the boat in the back yard. Traditionally, May 15th is the day the harbors open in Chicago, and Dear Husband is not one to loose a day of sailing.