what's blooming

we've been getting a crazy amount of rain here over the past few weeks. it's my understanding that there are parts of iowa facing near-drought conditions, but i've spotted mushrooms growing in our woodchips, so it's safe to say that we're a little waterlogged in iowa city.
this spring we converted the aluminum buckets used for kegs and ice at our wedding into planters by drilling some holes in the bottom and snagging some topsoil from one of rob's road expansion projects. the brandywine tomato, green bell and "carmen" sweet peppers are flowering right now and my little herb garden (the bucket in front--basil, oregano, thyme, terragon, rosemary and peppermint) has been going crazy. here's our healthy red corn poppy. joyce gave us fair warning that these don't transplant very well, and our other plant has been looking pretty pathetic, but i was really happy to see these delicate, papery little blooms emerge.

close-up of the impatiens that are overflowing the half barrel in front of the house. last summer, i stubbornly planted sun-loving annuals (on sale, at least) in the barrel and after a few weeks in the shade they got droopy and i felt guilty and vowed to be more realistic this year. here's my reward...


i have to say that i don't love this rose bush. i like flowers with big, vibrant color and the pale pink of these blooms doesn't really do it for me. still, i have to admire its pluck. a few months ago we cut it down to the ground, mistaking its brittle brown-ness for certain death (admittedly, we don't know a lot about roses), but lo and behold, it fooled us and came back with lots of healthy growth. our tigerlilies are also blooming and the lazy stargazers have just started to show themselves above ground.

finally, the bright bee balm. we visited our friends jeff and amy in st. paul this weekend (more in a later post) and their lovely yard has an abundance of established perennial flowers. unlike our well-spaced clumps of recent transplants, their tall and hearty plants overlap and really look like a garden. right now they have lots of shoulder-high purple bee balm beginning to bloom. maybe that's what our plantings will become over time, but i guess it's likely that the next owner of this house will have to take that on and we'll start over at our next home. i hope that we'll find a sunny yard with some coneflowers, black-eyed susans, and flowering flax when we get there!