The view from my kitchen window

May is coming to a close. We've had some nice rain and cooler weather and things are blooming like crazy. It's enough to make a person want to stand at the sink and do dishes all day! (Well, maybe not the dishes part, but what a view!)

A promise: Genesis 9:13-15

This was the view in our backyard at 6:25 this morning, May 25. Breathtaking! (Click on the photo to enlarge.)

Good news...bad news...

The good news: it's May 24 and the yellow roses are blooming and beautiful. The bad news: the pink roses seem to be kaput. We think maybe the Carefree Delights have crowded them out. And in fact, the wild roses we love so much are actually climbing the arbor, so we didn't even notice for a while that the pink "real" roses were not coming back. (What's ironic is that the yellow rose bush was given to us free from the garden center because they thought it was dead. We paid good money for the pink one. There's surely a life lesson in there somewhere.)

Honeysuckle

The honeysuckle we planted in a corner of the garden has filled the fence on both sides. It is in full bloom now and its sweet scent fills the air!

What I'm missing

I'm away at a conference this week and really missing our bagel breakfasts out on the porch. Missing a lot of flowers blooming, too. (Though it's beautiful in North Carolina where I am, too.)

Pretty in pink

It rained all day yesterday, and today everything is lush and beautiful. The pinks are the prettiest thing in the garden right now. I love this pot of cosmos, and several varieties of dianthus mingle in the arbor garden.

Blooms are bustin'' out all over

It has been the most beautiful week in the garden! Perfect weather and everything is bursting into bloom. The Carefree Delight roses are 3 or 4 years old now, and provide color and a great backdrop for everything else. Have to be pruned like crazy, but they're worth it. The broken blue pot holds Neon Star Dianthus. They're hiding under the Dappled Willow bush in the arbor garden, but it's fun to come upon them peeking out when we take our morning and evening strolls through the yard.

Rearranging furniture

We've been taking our coffee and cinnamon tea to the east-facing front porch for coffeebreaks these last few beautiful mornings and decided on a whim to move the bistro set from the back deck to the front porch so we'd have a table for our bagels and mugs. That means the front porch bench got moved to the back deck, and I think it will be a lovely place to sit to catch an evening sunset or early morning breeze.

UPDATE: Here's the front porch...after the bagels and coffee are gone.