Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

I have been a bad blogger lately and for that I apologize. So much stuff going on (yes, work, what else?) that I can barely find time to garden, let alone write about gardening. I've composed dozens of posts in my head, of course, each one more thoughtful/enlightening/witty than the last. I'm so sorry I haven't been able to share them with you.

It's been cold on Tiger Mountain! So much so that my window sills are still crammed with tender vegetable plants that in another year would have been in the greenhouse by now. But night time lows are still in the 30's every night, even inside the greenhouse. Zone 4 and 5 gardeners who envied everything that was growing for me in March and April, you can gloat now. Irises aren't showing buds. The peas I planted in February are thriving but not a single blossom. That peony that was shooting skyward and setting buds on April 9? Six weeks later it’s still just in bud:

But. Enough complaining. On to what's in bloom on Tiger Mountain on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Because it’s been too cold for most of my perennials, it’s mostly shrubs that are in bloom this month:
daphne ‘Carol Mackie’
enkianthus campanulatus
evergreen and deciduous azaleas.
double file virburnum
viburnum sargentii
Aronia melanocarpa
clematis x cartmanii 'Avalanche', a pretty little evergreen clematis, blooming for the first time ever.

There are some perennials in bloom:
columbine (lots of different cultivars), icelandic poppies (they're loving this weather!), and a lovely little single peony I acquired in 2003, Paeonia veitchii var. woodwardii, also bloomed for the first time ever. Worth the wait.
Finally, because I haven’t been time to weed out my “be careful what you wish for” plants, there’s myosotis (forget-me-not) and sweet woodruff everywhere!

azalea (I think this one is R. calendulaceum) and myosotis

enkianthus and myosotis

viburnum plicatum (double file viburnum) and sweet woodruff


aquilegia and mysotis


aquilegia and sweet woodruff


Iceland poppy and myosotis

viburnum sargentii (these flowers turn into clusters of golden berries in the fall) I cropped out the myosotis, but trust me, it's there.

In the meadow: buttercup, aka ranunculus repens, aka the bad ranunculus, to distinguish it from the sweet non-invasive ranunculus in my borders.

In the woods: Pacific Dogwood, Stinging Nettle (marking the end of the nettle foraging season), thimbleberry, and Himalayan blackberry (aaargh)

Breaking bud: Joseph's Coat climbing rose. Ignore the black spot on the leaves. That's what I do.