Picking up speed

 

The last of the tulips have bloomed and dropped, while summer-blooming plants in the tulip beds are coming on.

Mountain lily (Ixiolirion tataricum ssp. pallasii;)

Spanish (Hyacinthoides hispanica) and 

English (H. non-scripta) bluebells 

Direct-sown vegetables are starting to take off.

Recently, I transplanted tomatoes and peppers I had started from seed in the winter.  The tomatoes look like hell from being put into the cold frame too early, and I hope they pull out of it.

The wasabi radish and Napa cabbage that were being eaten by what I thought by the look of the damage (dozens of tiny holes in the leaves) might be flea beetles are looking much better.  It may well have been something other than flea beetles, because I'm attributing the improvement to several neem oil sprays, and the literature says that won't protect against flea beetles.  That makes sense to me because oil is usually considered helpful where insects have sucking instead of chewing mouthparts.  Beetles are chewers.  At any rate, the plants look much better, so I'll stick to neem treatments.

Wasabi radish

(Rhaphanus sativus)

Napa cabbage (aka Chinese cabbage)

(Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis 'Hilton')

Somebody is eating the green beans, and I don't think it's flea beetles, because the holes are rather large.  I haven't seen the culprit, so I'm not trying to treat it yet, even though it's bound to slow down plant growth.  

'Calima' green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Beside the vegetable plots, flowers are budding and blooming.

The oriental poppies I feared were killed in last year's flooding are doing great and popping their caps. (Is that why they're called poppies?)  

German (aka bearded) iris are in full swing.  I've been fooled more than once by advertisements showing color-altered pictures of flowers they call blue.  More often than not, if you're surprised to see it, it's probably actually purple, and I swear not to be fooled again.

In this picture, the iris do in fact look blue (depending on your device's screen).  I didn't shop it, but if they look blue to you, I assure you, they're purple.  The glossy Breck's paper catalog in which I found them showed them very blue, disappointing me on color, but the quality is quite good.

orange 'Penny Lane' and purple 'Victoria Falls'

'English Charm'

'Penny Lane'

'Earth Mother'

I don't know the name of this next fellow.  It was on the premises when I came here.

Until next installment, here's a little gray tree frog (Hyla versicolor) to encourage you to go out and look around your neighborhood.  His red oak tree is a little small, but perhaps he's encouraging it to grow.