These are all early spring photos, that I didn’t get around to posting before.

This one feels uplifting to me. I got down close to minimize the distortion, and ended up with a distant sky view. Pulmonaria is a foliage plant that also flowers beautifully. This variety is Trevi Fountain. I have the best luck keeping them from year to year by planting in a shaded, raised area. I water whenever the leaves floop a little, but I want all my perennials to dig their roots deep, so they are as water-independent as possible. I never fertilize these.

 

 

A combo of close-grown shade perennials, lush in appearance with the brunnera and bleeding heart pushing their leaves through each other. Then they’re blooming together, so the bright pink and white is mingled with the blue. In the corner is a bird’s nest dwarf spruce, always pretty when its candles (nubs of new needles at branch tips) sprout.

 

 

This came by surprise, but looked really great. The clematis is Vagabond, a big bloomer and climber when mature, purple flowered with raspberry stripes. The last I read of this variety, it was listed as “hard to find”. But maybe someone is selling Vagabond again. It wants bone meal at the roots, well watered in, in my loamy clay soil. The potted plant is classic deep pink and white Sweet William. Sweet Williams are so pretty and accommodating, that you might as well cut off the seedheads and strew them around your garden every year.