May at home and in the Smokies

This is always the most lush month in our garden, and after being away in the Smokies, we were amazed by all the bloom and growth in just a few days' time. When we pulled in the driveway, this is what we saw!

The Cecille Brunner climbing rose is at its peak - I think it must have hundreds of blooms. Everything I read about this tells me it should be a repeat bloomer, but mid-May is the only time it's bloomed for us in the last seven years.

Meanwhile, the Zephrine Drouhin is also full of beautiful, fragrant blossoms. This one does bloom several more times in a summer, but it's never as healthy and full of roses as it is in May.

Becky came by for a garden tour one cold morning last week and I blanked on some plant names. Here is Lonicera heckrotti, "Gold Flame," which is finally coming into its own and covering one side of our shed wall this year. I think this is the third, maybe fourth, year we've had it, and I've never carried water to it or babied it during long dry spells (which probably accounts for its very slow growth.)



The Deutzia is "Nikko" (I love this plant and the way it spills over the wall - flowers or no flowers.) The tall evergreen that is not pictured is Cephalotaxus harringtonia (Japanese Plum Yew). Very pretty and positively glacial, it's so slow growing. The plant behind Natalie with the pale blue flowers is Amsonia. I saw it planted amongst jonquils at Lewis Ginter and loved how it hid the dying foliage.

We've come from such wild beauty in the Smokies, that I'm struggling a little with the tidiness and over-the-top color in our garden. How is it that those unplanned slopes of fern, rue anenome, trillium and dwarf iris are so perfect? Mama sent me off with bloodroot, Lenten roses and fern from her "down, down, down" hillside, so I'm going to concentrate on a woodland garden for the front of the house, with lots of little nodding plants that greet you from the sidewalk. If I can just manage not to "arrange" them!

Our biggest finds (my camera failed me this trip) while hiking this week were: a pink lady slipper on Deep Creek Trail (thank you, Daddy, for spotting it!), slopes packed with trillium on Kanati Fork Trail and a Vasey's Trillium on "Tunnel Bypass Trail." Worth every sore muscle!