This is one of the prettiest seasons…the front yard is irises, lots of irises….we’re going to be digging up large yellow and purple clumps and setting them out on the roadside with Free on them so we have room to plant some of our other colors as they multiply.
And the red and white tree peonies have done their thing and are shedding petals, and now the pink tree peony is blooming, with the bush peonies coming close behind…
Azaleas and rhodies are in bloom: we have sunset colors, plus one red, and one pink… The magnolias have done their bloom, but the dogwood is out, such as it is: a very young tree.
Not forgetting the red hawthorne, which stand about 20 feet tall and arches over our fence: this is how it blooms. 
Oh my! That’s is gorgeous!
Down here the azaleas have been going crazy for a month or so, in spite of our rubber-band temperatures (80 one day, 50 the next, and so forth). I’m an admittedly lazy gardener, and forgetful, so the only things that do well in my yard are the things that can get by without any human intervention! (i.e. weeds and natives.)
I didn’t know hawthorne even had blossoms 🙂
Remember that I spoke earlier of mayhaw jelly? As far as I know, it is not available commercially, but your red hawthorn is its close kin.
http://hedgerowmobile.com/hawthorn.html
Mayhaw jelly was my favorite growing up in Southeast Texas. Since all the oldtimers that used to make it have died off, its hard to get these days. When I see it for sale and buy a jar, it’s just not the same.
Did you ever hear of “Jamison’s Home Canned” They had wonderful jellies and jams, including mayhaw. Alas, he is one of the old timers who died off.
If you google ‘mayhaw jelly’, there are several places that offer it for sale, but I don’t know what the shipping would be (it might be prohibitive). A case of 12 jars is about $84, or you can buy them in smaller amounts.
That’s certainly the fruit we get—quite a lot of it. I’d heard it was laxative, and sort of worried about it having that effect on the fish, whose pond gets some of it. But apparently it’s much gentler than that! which would bear out what I’ve observed: no harm to the fishes.
The hawthornes we get around here are the wild ones with thorns and itsy-bitsy little white or pale pink flowers. Never know the came like that, but I’m a West Coast boy.
On the other subject, I did have a 20′ cascara tree here, but it died and had to be cut down. See seedlings now and then.
“knew”! Sheesh, Wish WP had a modify function. 🙁 GalaxyZoo does. 😉
Our 4 plumerias are in bloom now, and making the whole yard smell goodly.
The drawback to hawthorne jelly is that you probably need 3x what you think you might need, because hawthornes are mostly seeds. I hadn’t heard the laxative part before; I wonder how much you need to consume to get that effect o_O
Apples have laxative properties too. Matter of fact, so do all fruits and stem or leaf vegetables.
Put a photo of the iris on the box with the free sign. Which reminds me I need to wrap yarn about the white and two purples by the front porch.
It’s certainly an idea. Ours that we’re getting rid of are purples and yellows, the old basics.
My irises didn’t do well at all this year. The yellow ones were blooming nicely, then it snowed and froze hard. Only had one purple one. Of course, if I’d water them occasionally. . .
BTW, tell Jane the grape hyacinth “bubs” got here today, may all her numbers be fortuitous.
Be double sure to plant them where you want them to be forever–because they will be! They pup little “bulbs” as small as a grain of (uncooked) rice, that eventually will come back up.
Yay~for the hyacinths.
My irises are doing right well just now:) they make me want to put in more. I am going to have to separate most of the clumps later. Fortunately I have some people who want them.
Maybe it’s the seeds that have the laxative properties?
Anybody know the diff between hawthorn and crabapple? All I know is, they’re both in the same plant family, botanically.
The irises in front of my rent house did splendidly this year. Enough to reconcile the tenants (who do the mowing) that it is worth pulling the grass out from between them later in the summer, to pacify the Code Board who say grass can’t be over a foot high, rather than just mowing the whole bed down.
Carolyn, in your trips have you gone straight east and maybe a little north, the way the passenger train goes, to cross the Divide along the southern border of Glacier National Park? OH, MY!!! Even cell-phone pics out the window of a train are pretty darn impressive. But I have still no idea what Spokane looks like. We were there over an hour, waiting to hook to the Seattle half of our train, but it was after midnight.
Google-Earth? Also checkout the Bretz Missoula Floods. Such of the topsoil they had that’s still topsoil, ended up here, at the bottom of Lake Allison.
They’re different plants with a different genus and species, but the next higher ranking (‘sub-tribe’ according to Wiki)has them in the same group, so they’re very closely related. I’ve got bonsais of both, some sort of Malus (crabapple, collected from the field) and a Crataegus monogyna, they’re both nice little trees. They’re both too small/young to bloom though! (fooey, I want FLOWERS!)
They will get there. I’ve tried to raise dwarf pomegranates, and gotten blossoms from them, but they all pooped out and died after a couple of years.
Where’s Pegleg Pete’s “branch”???? Long since chopped away?
Ah, his branch persists, but I fear Pegleg Pete’s head came down, I think t’ was last fall…we should throw another party. I think of just gathering everybody at the Apple Inn or some such not-spendy locale, about on the level of the NoTel Motel, and just partying down for a weekend…