Spring blooms

There are so many wonderful things flowering in our yard.

Tulips:
Iris:

Redbud:
Our crabapple bloomed for the very first time:


Hellebores (lenten rose):

These guys actually flower during the winter, but we just added these to our shade garden and wanted to share how cool they look.

Last weekend we bought 2 new trees to add to our yard. That puts the total up to 11 trees planted since we moved in. That doesn't count the ones that didn't make it or that we gave away. We got a persimmon tree (I've never tried them, but Lisa says they are good and thought it would be something different) and planted it near the birdbath:

She is leafing out a little; we'll post another photo once she's a little more visible!

We also bought a saucer magnolia, which is more like a bush than a tree. The flowers on it are so beautiful and it smells wonderful.


She is going to go in the front yard, where we have started yet another project. We want to change the placement of the front walkway and create a nice garden in front of the boxwoods. Here Lisa is just getting started with the digging:


And here is our progress:
Slow going, but we're moving along. We just love to make work for ourselves.

Look what is going on in the vegetable garden:

Hooray for peas! We will be eating them very soon...

And our seedlings have gotten so big:


These are our tomatoes, a few daisies (white petals and bluish centers), and lots of dahlias. The dahlias will be the main focal point of the new front yard garden, but we grew a bunch so that we could add them in other places around the yard.

And what would a blog post be without the latest of Vivian's antics? What did she steal this time?
A bag of potting soil,

that she managed to drag all the way

to her bed.