Aerial View

Check out the aerial view of the garden. It is definitely the most distinctive feature on the site from the air. Just yesterday we were discussing the need to reset the stones and align severeal beds. This photo confirms the need to align the two herb beds in the northern section of the eastern garden.

Orange and pink or pink and orange?

Blooming next to the cabin is a beautiful orange honeysuckle (above) and on the south end of the garden is a pink honeysuckle (below). I call the pink one Ron's honeysuckle, since my teenage son transplanted it from the driveway at the farmhouse in the middle of summer last year. It was growing poorly but I wasn't sure it would survive being moved. It is thriving.
So which one do you like best? The primarily orange bloom with hints of pink or the primarily pink one with hints of orange?

Japanese Lilac

The Japanese lilac is in bloom and is wafting its sweet scent across the eastern garden beds. Gene planted this tree sometime in the 1910s. It has three trunk branches but perhaps because of the extremely cold weather in April, only one branch bloomed this year. Its listed as having a height of 15-20' and a width of 12-15'. Does anyone want to measure this tree to see if it breaks a record. (The largest tree in North Dakota is 45 feet tall with a canopy spread of 39 feet.)

aka Cow Slobber

One of the first flowers Gene planted when she bought Wildflower Woods in the fall of 1912 was spiderwort, tradescantia. The spiderworts are in bloom now and will continue throughout the summer. They are mostly blue, but we have several plants with magenta blooms. We are in the process of potting up some young plants for sale, in case you want to add this lovely prairie plant to your garden (or prairie!)

A different sort of tulip bloom

I found this on the walk beside Gene's cabin this morning. Usually it is hard to see the bloom on the tulip poplar because the tree grows so tall.