Rough winds

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May...

William Shakespeare

Interesting weather in Seattle this week.  On Monday, a pretty strong storm (for us) knocked out power around town and drenched the ground. After a mini heat wave?  There's nothing plants like better.

The other morning I peered out at the lawn without my glasses, and it looked like a couple of large brown birds were sitting there, doing nothing. No, it turned out to be the tops of immense bamboo runners that had sprouted up overnight like mushrooms, 20 feet out into the yard.

Our bamboo "thicket" is always a lot of work in the spring, but it never did that before.   If it decides to travel across the alley and invade the neighbor's lawns, we'll have to move to Arizona from embarrassment. Only a bulldozer could dig it out now. People around here are scared of invasive bamboo, I suppose for good reason. 

But gardening fools rush in...

Everything seems especially lush and beautiful, maybe because the last few springs have been late and cold. 

The purple alliums at at their peak this week...

The big iris just starting to bloom.  And what could be prettier than hosta leaves, when they explode out of the ground like this?