a brief tour ...

I took my camera with me when I went out to investigate the garden this morning to decide what needs my attention the most. I'll give you a glimpse of what's going on at my place this week. None of this may seem astounding to you where you live, but here in Outer Siberia, it's a rare thing to find tomato or zucchini blossoms the first week of June. In a normal year, we'd be lucky to even have been able to plant the seeds or set the plants out! So we're just tickled by the sight of such things.

Here, I'm trying to show the tomato blossom:

Here's a little zucchini plant putting out flowers already. I hope it can support the fruit by the time it develops.

... and the clematis is still blooming its head off:

You probably can't tell from the photo, but this antique climbing rose is absolutely loaded with buds. My sister and I "rescued" small pieces of this bush from oblivion years ago. It was growing near an old, caved in foundation in an abandoned field. It proved to be quite an adventure getting a piece of the plant, as the first attempt stirred up a nest of ground bees. (DS took off on a run, but I was determined to stick it out. No, I did not get stung in the process, but it's truly a wonder.) I'm not sure what variety it is, but it makes clusters of little deep pink blossoms and is very fragrant. Each cluster is like a little bouquet. Any guesses?

... and here's another rose that's putting out more blossoms than usual. The bush needs some serious pruning, but the flowers are very pretty -- don't-cha think? We normally have a big problem with Japanese beetles on the roses, but maybe they didn't get the memo on the early summer.

I've gotta say, tho, I've never seen so many slugs as we have around this year. Doesn't anything eat those things?
Oh, and the mama and papa Orioles were both sitting on a branch singing their hearts out this morning. I watched for a few minutes and they revealed the location of their nest. It's in the same tree every year, and our family has a "contest" to see who can find it first each Spring. I win!

Now I need to get back out and do some mulching. When I become fully exhausted from that, I'll head over to the studio to catch up on some quilting. I need to quilt my Paint Chip Challenge piece before guild meets next week. We're all going to display them. It was a fun group project.