March Showers Bring April Flowers

After a wet March mixed with sporadic heat waves, the garden is pretty much declaring spring over, punctuated by my young daughter happily picking the last late straggler of a daffodil.  I am thankful for the rain after some years of drought here in North Carolina, and with the rain has come flowers (and unfortunately weeds!)

'Souvenir de la Malmaison' Rose

 My 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' Roses are blooming already.  You can see some of the leaves on this one are curled up from powdery mildew, one drawback of all the humid weather.  I find it interesting that these rose blooms can look two different ways.  This bloom in the picture above looks more like a classic rose shape, but I bought these roses because of their old rose-looking, quartered blooms.

'Souvenir de la Malmaison' Rose

My 'Princess Bride' Verbena, a perennial, also started blooming with gusto as soon as it got a whiff of summer.  This plant handles a tough location in my hilly backyard flower bed, and it bloomed nonstop last summer until frost!  It is also attracting the Swallowtails that have already been making an appearance...

Verbena 'Princess Bride'

This one verbena plant is quite the sprawler!

Verbena 'Princess Bride'

Another tough plant in my garden is dianthus.  I bought these three plants on clearance last year.  At the end of the summer they looked a little sad, and I wanted to plant something in their spot, so I pulled them out and threw them over the fence into the empty lot next door.  Several weeks later I was walking through that lot for some reason, and there they were, all three of them looking lush and healthy, even sideways with exposed roots!  So I picked them back up and replanted them in the garden.  They deserve it.

Dianthus

My Gladiolus byzantinus bulbs are almost done flowering now, but I have to show pictures of how they looked in full bloom.

Gladiolus byzantinus

I love these newcomers to the garden.  They don't need staking like other glads, and their fuchsia color is so bright and cheerful.

Gladiolus byzantinus

Yet another new pink flower in my garden, Clematis integrifolia 'Rose Colored Glasses'...

Clematis integrifolia 'Rose Colored Glasses'

Strange that all my late spring/early summer blooms are pink... I didn't realize I had so much pink in my garden! 

I've been quite busy the last few weeks, building a veggie garden, trying to correct some drainage issues, and moving plants around.  So much to do in Spring, especially when it seems to be such a short one!

To see what's blooming in other gardens around the world, check out this month's Garden Blogging Bloom Day!