Around The Yard | Very Early Spring 2014

I have daydreams of sticking closer to home this summer.

Those often parallel my travel daydreams so it's hard to tell where I'll really end up.

I love my yard and I love working in my yard and I love hanging out in my yard and I love having people over for dinner and eating outside.

It's an amazing spring day here today so I grabbed my camera and took a walk around my house. Here's what I found:

In the front yard right now are those gorgeous little blue flowers around the icy blue lavender.

Forsythia. This is my sure sign that spring is coming. I have one on the right side of my house and one on the left side.

When you come around to the backyard there's this great ground cover under a large Japanese Maple tree.

It's short and lovely.

From left to right: really large white lilac along the side of the house (that I die over every year) + three blueberry bushes along the little fence + the giant wisteria which is what I saw the first time I walked through the doors of this house and it took my breath away (far right).

The blueberries.

Up close on the lilac.

There's a neglected rhododendron in the far edge of my yard with beautiful pink blooms.

These will soon be cherry blossoms.

These, my favorite of all forever and ever amen, are peonies just coming up out of the ground.

There's five or so groupings right here and nothing makes me quite as happy as when they bloom.

I've got some more peonies in a few other parts of my yard. Some that were planted over three years ago that might finally bloom this year. The others that are in the ground above produce the most amazing huge light pink blooms.

A white hydrangea that did pretty well last year. Doesn't look like much now but it will have lovely large white blooms.

These will end up being really tall (I think they are day-lilies).

These came up again from last year. My Mom has told me that daffodils don't always return again and again. Just one this time. I'll likely put more bulbs in the ground there next fall. Behind these are a bunch of dahlias which are my second favorite behind peonies.

I have a shaded area along the back of my house that includes these white bleeding hearts and some other shade-loving plants.

And the beds. Obviously in need of some major TLC. The tomato cages are leftover from last years crop that were all volunteers (meaning they came up again from the year before). I really want to work on this area again this year and make sure I get some sweet peas in here like I did a few years back.

As you might be able to tell, I love perennials. These are the flowers that die to the ground and return again next year and the joy they bring me is big time.

I know how fast this all goes.

By the end of next month my yard will look more like this:

This was taken April 30th of last year when the wisteria was going crazy. We miss you Lily!