Wildflowers and Mushrooms

Last weekend, Mike and I took a walk in the woods to scout out morels. We found some other mushrooms, but no morels yet.

False morel (not edible)

Cup mushroom (edible)


Tree mushroom (?edible)

The woods were absolutely covered with Spring flowers: trout lilies, dutchman's breeches, Spring beauties, and some violets and bloodroot.

Bloodroot (Mike really likes this one)


Spring beauties

Dutchman's breeches


You can kind of see all the flowers covering the ground

And I don't have pictures yet, but the outdoors are BURSTING with flowers right now! The blooming trees all along the street are gorgeous- magnolias, redbuds, and other things. And the lilacs are just beginning. I am in love with Spring!

Oh, and we bought a new car today in which to haul all of our plants and dirt and everything else you need to make a yard beautiful! I think it's a good addition to our armament of gardening tools.

Outdoor Living

What a beautiful day today! We found a blueberry bush on sale at Wal-Mart, and I added another peony and some ranunculus bulbs to my collection. I've been hesitant to try ranunculus, as well as other non-hardy bulbs like gladiolus, because I can't imagine digging them up in the Fall, but I fell in love with ranunculus when I saw them in a flower arranging book.

Really, I've decided you never conquer much in the garden if you don't experiment. I've had people tell me every year that strawberries aren't worth anything unless you plant them in the ground, pinch off all the blossoms the first year, blah blah blah. I planted bare root strawberries in pots today. And we're planning to get some berries from them! Life is just too short not to try.

Check out my latest awesome tulips:



In other gardening news, Mike almost finished the vegetable garden fence today- just some chicken wire left!


The strawberries, ranunculus, and peonies were planted. And I'm wrapped in a snuggie (evenings are still chilly!), drinking tea and blogging at my fancy new outdoor furniture!



I am already sooo getting used to this outdoor-living-in-warm-weather thing. Can't wait to use our new firepit!