Mid May is full of color

We've planted five Clematis in the past couple of years and although everyone says they are difficult to grow, we've found them to be rather carefree. As long as you put them in their preferred environment they grow with minimal care. Unfortunately, two of ours were munched by voles. This is the Proteus variety. It has two distinct  types of flowers on the same vine. This year it had the single blooms instead of the fluffy double blooms. Still very nice.

Coral Bells Firefly (Heuchera) is a nice border plant.  It comes in many colors but I like this variety for the flowers. Plant them in tight clusters and you get a mass of tiny red lights set high on  1 to 1 1/2 foot spines. They bloom for a solid month or so. 

I decided to try orange and yellow Foxglove (Digitalis) because we had such an amazing display with the standard purple mix. I'm not sure but I'm guessing this was the Orange.

This was our display last year (May 2009). All from seed. We just randomly scattered seed and let them grow and compete with each other.

The Rose bed was redone this year. We added Pink and Yellow Knockouts.  We clipped everything back this year and they came back very strong.

This Rose is Mardi Gras. The picture doesn't do it justice. Once established it's a heavy bloomer and the flower changes color as it matures. They glow in the sun.