One of the things I love about my Ruby Meidiland roses is that they bloom profusely right around the Fourth of July. They make a nice foreground to the flag that hangs on my house behind them. You can’t see the flag in this photo, because it was taken on June 29th, but the blooms are still there this week and it looked really cool with the flag. You can also see my front flowerbed here, which is growing nicely after all the rearranging I did last fall. Here’s a closer shot of the rose blooms.

Just look at this Larkspur — doesn’t it seem to have an iridescent shine to you? And it’s so BLUE! It’s tough to find real blues in flowers. I admit this looks just a little more purple in real life, but this photo was not “photoshopped” or adjusted in any way (besides resizing). It does have an intense blue color in the garden. These are offspring several generations after having the ‘Rocket’ variety of Larkspur in a wildflower mix in my backyard. I can’t be certain that they’re still ‘Rocket’ since some plants along the way could have been cross-pollinated…

My ‘Ville de Lyon’ Clematis has now been in the ground for four years, and it’s true that they are slow to establish. The one on the other side of the arbor finally died all the way this year. Previously, it was only “mostly dead” (wasn’t that a line from The Princess Bride?). But this one is doing quite well! I was worried for a while that it wasn’t competing with the birch tree roots very well, but it seems to have found its niche in this spot. This photo was taken on June 22nd, and it flowered pretty much…

This is Rosa ‘Nearly Wild’ – a very cool small rose that I planted up among my aspen trees. This one is only about 18″ tall, and it’s been in the ground for two years now. These photos were taken on June 22nd, when it was in full bloom. Its blooms have faded now, but I believe there will be more waves of them soon.

My Kwanzan (or Kanzan) cherries really came into bloom during the past four days or so. This one is the best of the three I have. Below you can see my row of sand cherries (flowering cherry shrubs) in peak bloom at the same time the Prairiefire crabapples are starting to bloom well. I don’t think these blooms usually coincide this well, but with the long, cold winter-spring we’ve had, it has changed many of the bloom times. The crabapples have hit peak bloom nearer the first of May in past years, but right now, they’ve just opened their buds…

This is my Mericrest nectarine, and it really has pretty blossoms. Here are a few shots with slightly different lighting. They were taken on April 29 – a week ago. Everything is late blooming this year, because of our long, cold, “La Nina” winter, and it sure is nice to see things finally blooming. Here’s a shot from up by my patio, looking down: I am positive that this tree escaped frost damage in our cold snaps the past few weeks, since peaches (nectarines are really a kind of peach) can handle low temperatures fairly well. I can almost taste…