Am I Blue?

Oh yes, I am.

This is part of my mother's day present. It's Hydrangea "Endless Summer." I love the purply-blue flowers. It's probably not as utterly beautiful as "Nikko Blue," but Nikko doesn't bloom reliably in my climate zone.

I love blue flowers almost as much as I love pink. In fact, in my former garden I had so many blue flowers that bloomed in the spring that the whole effect was a little somber from a distance. I had meant it to all bloom with some lemon yellow daylilies, but the flowers had their own ideas about when they'd show up.

This is a Siberian iris. It's much more purple than this picture shows and I'm pretty sure it's one called "Caesar's Brother." It's quite tall -- about 40 inches -- and very elegant with long, slender stems and these softly architechtural blooms that seem to float above the foliage. In my old garden, these bloomed with the first flush of roses and I grew them in full sun. In my new home, these were a pleasant surprise, found growing in dappled shade.

Another blue, though more in the category of excellent background notes is Hosta Sieboldiana "Elegans." This was one I planned to take from my old garden but my husband accidentally killed mine with Spectracide. I was debating whether or not to just buy another one when two huge ones popped out of the ground next to our new deck. What an unexpected pleasure that was.

It's been raining here for days and days and Sunday I went out and shot some water droplet pictures of these hostas. Man, there is nothing like a really beautiful plant, beautifully grown. These massive babies (they're 3 feet across and nearly 3 feet high) make my heart happy.

I've been missing my old garden a lot this spring and I seem to be unable to get a grip on what I'd like to do with this space, especially since my husband tosses out these caveats from time to time, like "No trellises!" and "Nothing with thorns!", which make it hard for me to know what direction to take things. Then, too, having a dirt-eating toddler around is kind of a deterrent to digging and planting and generally making any kind of progress at all. At least I have a few things that soften my loss.