Purple

Tulips are coming in bright and cheerful!

Pink

This is a Muckle Plum tree. The bees are loving it just now. Even after getting warmed up by trying to photograph active kids, none of the bee shots worked out. I'll have to keep trying. In the meantime you will have to satisfy yourselves with this. It wasn't moving much.

White translucence

The delicate translucence of the white petals!
That lovely hit of colour in the middle?
How did I go so long without truly appreciating the beauty of flowers?

Mostly tulips

I think this is what they mean by bursting forth. No idea what this is, but I think it's a peony, trying to keep up with others. The two well established peonies look like they're starting to eye the lawn in an acquisitive sort of way.

Two views of the same peony, showing the difference between two lenses. This first one was shot with a 105 mm lens, but you can't get as close. I love this rich yellowy orange.

This one was shot with my 100 mm lens, but it's built as a macro so I can get much closer. The slightly difference leads to entirely different photographs.

I sort of liked these two, it reminded me a bit of two sharks swimming together.

An unconventional work list

This one.

And this one.

One is Linda's, one is mine. Guess which is which.

The white is a Riesling, and it's lovely right out of the carboy, with a delicate peach taste. It went quite well with BBQ lamb skewers. The far one needed to be racked and stabilized, and that got exciting. It channeled Hawaii and I got a wine volcano. That's never happened before.

Linda had made yet another trip to Sunnyside to help clean them out. I don't even know what all is there. More peonies, and some hens and chicks (see below) and flowers. Lots of flowers. I think everything from last year is coming up, including the poor clematis that I decapitated by accident last year while mowing the lawn.

The poor lilies!

There they are, just starting to grow, barely out of the ground, and what happens?

They are savaged.

Savaged by the rapacious lily beetles. We had hoped the long winter would kill them off, but no. We'd seen a few, here and there over the last few days, but today Linda caught them boiling out of the ground to feast on young innocent tender succulent lily. Poor thing.

It's going to be a long summer keeping the lily beetles repressed. Anybody that comes over and kills some lily beetles, or the rose mites/beetles, goes home with a bottle of wine.

Here's the first bloom from a plant in the back patio garden. I think it's a tulip.

Dry and wet garden

Here's a couple daffodils for you. The first is from a few days ago when it was just about the only flower going. Now there's a ton of stuff on the go. The second one is from last night. It wasn't raining very hard, and raindrops on flowers are always nice.

My neighbours are growing accustomed to seeing me sprawled out on the lawn, aiming the camera at something small and close to the ground. Not this time, the grass is soaked, a nice gentle rain the ground can absorb. The garden is loving it!

So much going on in the garden!
All the roses are putting out leaves.
The two grizzled old clematis in the side bed are well leafed out now, and that's happened quickly. These are the ones transplanted from the back fence, and after a bit of a quiet start seem happy.
The clematis I accidentally chopped down last year seems to be coming back.
I'd already mentioned the established peonies are doing well, but the two newer tree peonies seem to be taking their time.
Lots of other plants are sending up leaves and even a few blossoms as well. Just like last year, I don't know what very many of them are called. Linda tells me, then I forget.