Welcome to the Garden (this isn't really the entrance to the garden but it looked so pretty I thought I would take some poetic license )
The allium are just starting to open. I love this plant, it is very dainty and delicate but creates an explosion of color that I love.
Down by the pool (excuse the cover) the hostas are just starting to unfurl. It is hard to tell but above them is a wonderful pagoda dogwood. My conscientious husband wraps this tree in wire ever year so that the deer do not nibble during the winter. In the summer with it's variegated leaves it looks just like a wedding cake.
A very interesting Japanese maple which I planted two years ago. I hope it takes off this summer and actually starts to look like a tree. It will be stunning someday, I just hope I live long enough to see it.
Everything looks too washed out. The colors of all the tulips and the forget-me-knots are very bright and pretty.
The lilacs are in full flower and smell so good, but my all time favorite for fragrance has to be the Daphne "Carol Mackie" I planted right outside the mudroom door.
The wisteria trees have also put on a spectacular show this year. They finally started to flower last year. They say it takes 7 years for a wisteria to bloom and this one has been in the garden for exactly 8 years. Last year it began with 7 panicles of flowers and this year it is covered.
And yes, this is still a knitting blog. And there is some actual knitting going on, it is a little boring at the moment. Nothing momentous to show you. I have started a simple cable ribbed cardigan for myself out of some fantastic RY Silk Wool DK I purchased in Alexandria, VA at Knit Happens while I was in DC. This stuff feels like buttah. I am not sure if I am worthy. I have the back, one front and one sleeve finished. But I have started on another project which is more important and so will have to put this aside for the time being. The new project is in cashmere so not much of a sacrifice but I really need to finish something soon, I think I qualify for a medical condition and startitis doesn't sound serious enough.
This is another reason I can't stop starting new projects. Sundara keeps sending me these wonderful packages. Every time I receive a new Seasons Yarn Club mailing I drop everything, even cashmere to play with the new kid on the block. I never knew I was this fickle. I have been married to the same man for 25 years, I have shown my stick-to-it-tiveness. But show me a pretty new yarn and I am dropping the old like a bag of rocks. Obviously a character flaw I should work on. Right after I start a new shawl. (Oh, it's Sundara's Aran Silky Merino in Charcoal over Blue Lagoon, 50% merino, 50% silk, yummy!)
And this is why I haven't written for a while. I was in Washington, DC attending a conference for Cooperative Extension and then we met with our congressmen. It was a glorious week and the final day on the Hill was magnificent. I even got to go to the National Botanical Garden. (Which doesn't compare with our own Phipps Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, but it was very nice and the weather was phenomenal.)
Our nation's capital... I am patriotic enough that this view always chokes me up, every time. And this was after touring the Botanical gardens for free, what a country.
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