Growing Season

April showers bring May flowers.

But our showers came in May. The recent rains (almost every day this month!) have helped my flowers grow. This is the best year I've ever seen for irises.


These irises are ones that Bob Sandy, a Valley Writer and a retired science teacher, gave me last fall. I love this color combination.


He also gave me the white iris.


And this one, too. Is the color mauve?


The lavender ones below originally came from Mama's house.


Is this an iris? It sort of looks like one. I see a lot of these growing wild.


It's been a good year for azaleas, too. All the azaleas were here when we bought the house. The ones that survived last year's drought look a lot better than they did last year.

Yes, the lovely green vine on the tree is indeed poison ivy.

The peonies are just coming out. I transplanted this one from our house in Roanoke in 1999. I'd gotten the original slips from mama in the 1970s.

And with the flowers come bugs. Yesterday I saw the first cicada of the year.


I don't know where it came from.

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