a garden's bubblegum days

I live for bubblegum days like these. The garden is awake from its winter sleep and the garden is painted in a fandango of sweet colors. The orange California poppies dominate part of the garden, although a few  yellow, white and red poppies have also made their appearance. The thousandhead kale and the dwarf blue kale are bidding goodbye with a splash of yellow flowers. Both had been wonderful staples in the garden during the winter months; the dwarf kale for salad and cooking, and the thousandhead kale and its gorgeous green leaves were reminders that winter is just a halfway place to pause and rest until the growing season is here again. I'm letting the thousandhead kale go to seed so I can collect some seeds for future planting. I will be growing both again this season, as well as some red kales.

The garlic chives with its pompom flowers, ever reliable and beloved by bees, grace the garden once more this year.  The border I planted with garlic chives originally came from one plant. Some of them need to be divided this year, so I will be planting the divided plants in a new border.

I did plant a row of Egyptian Walking Onions next to the white poppies, and they look like they belong together. I don't want these onions to "walk" so they've been tied loosely with twine to prevent the bulblets from touching the ground and spreading. The bulblets will be harvested when they're ready and planted separately as starter plants. I remain enchanted by the weirdness of this plant. I can't imagine my garden without them.

The foxgloves (Excelsior Mix of pink, purple, yellow and white) were started from seed last year. As biennial plants, they were busy growing roots last year, and only started flowering in mid-May; they should continue to flower until early summer. They will die after they flower, so I am planting foxgloves every year.  The ones I'm planting this year will flower next year; they're plants of hope.

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