in bloom

How quickly things change in the garden. Quicker than I can make time to snap a photo, load it on my computer, upload it here, and come up with something interesting to say about it. 

For instance, these blooms on my purple leaf plum bushes that came mid-May were beautiful - heartbreakingly so, as it seemed like they left us as suddenly as they came (days upon days of heavy soaking rain did not help their longevity). 

I cant say for certain whether or not these bloomed last spring, our first spring at the house. But I can say that I didn't take note of them like I did this year. I came home from work one gloomy day in May to find them suddenly in bloom, and I can't even describe how happy they made me.  

By the time my mom and grandmother came to visit for Memorial Day weekend, the blooms had mostly wilted and began to fall. 

I went back to New England with them for 12 days (more on that in separate posts) to visit with family and friends, and returned to another exciting floral surprise - peonies! 

Peonies have always been a favorite from my mom's garden (in high school I had the hilarious idea to make perfume from them called "My Mama's Peonies" - not really sure she found that as funny as I did). So when we bought the house I was excited to see that we had a peony bush planted in the backyard - but was told that in the few years since our friends planted it (we bought the house from friends), it had never bloomed. Last spring was no exception. 

I planned to dig it up and plant it closer to the surface, as was suggested to me by Evan's uncle, once I returned to Buffalo. 

Here is what it looked like just one day before I left for New England:

Grammy helping me plant some hellebores in a temporary 

location before leaving for Maine/New Hampshire. 

And here is what I returned to!

And now, a week later, these blooms have faded away too. Maybe this peony will bear more blossoms this summer, but if not, I'll still be satisfied with the progress we made over last summer. 

This week's featured bloom is the Japanese Stewartia in the front yard - a favorite of mine.

I love the little soft silvery buds as much as the blooms themselves. I hope they stick around for a while.