Garden randomness

I keep meaning to take another set of garden update photos, but it keeps getting put off for one reason or another.  Either it's raining, or I haven't done the weeding, or the grass needs to be mowed, or I don't get home until after dark, or whatever.  I can't seem to get it all together at the same time.  So instead, here are some random shots of interesting things in the garden today.

The pak choi has bolted and is flowering, so its days are numbered.  The leaves aren't bitter and are still very edible, so I plan to pull out the plants soon and freeze them for adding to soup, but the flowers are so pretty and the bees love them SO much that I can't bring myself to get rid of them just yet.  Maybe I'll just cut and freeze most of the leaves, and leave the flower stalks as long as possible.



The spinach has also bolted, but the bees don't seem to care about those flowers, so the whole plants are getting pulled and frozen tomorrow.  So far the lettuce is holding on without bolting.

The peonies in the back yard are starting to bloom, in a rampant explosion of magenta.



Remember the pretty blooming apple tree?  Well, I now have dime-sized baby apples!



The purple irises in the corner of the front yard continue to be gorgeous,



And here's a view of the whole front flower bed where all the columbine are.  This picture doesn't do it justice. At all.  The bed contains columbine, flax, two kinds of iris, forget-me-nots, multiple kinds of hosta, daylilies, lavender, hens and chicks, golden currants, blue-eyed grass, ornamental grasses, rushes, yarrow, four colors of violets, ferns, tulips, daffodils, crocus, bleeding hearts, and I'm sure there are others that I've forgotten.  This bed delights me as the season unfolds.



And the big clumps of iris next to the driveway have started opening!  I had no idea what color these would be, I could just tell from the buds that they would be dark.  What a surprise when they opened this amazing deep burgundy-salmon-purple color!



Sigh.  I love my yard.