Let’s ignore the fact that it has snowed twice in the last week in my garden (I guess it is still May and I’m in Calgary) and check out what has been going on in the garden lately.

Lots of adorable things are showing their faces this week (hence all the close up photos!). There are the pink muscari, a few tulips (I do not remember ever planting bright orange tulips, so where did they come from?! Maybe it was gnomes?), and the big beautiful bleeding heart (I’d love to take credit for this thing but it was one of the very few plants that came with the house. I’ll take credit anyway and show it off in the below photo).

One of my sour cherry trees is also in bloom (photo below), as well as my double flowering plum shrub (which unfortunately does not produce fruit). And I can see my Princess Kay plum tree is about ready to burst with flowers.

Also I seem to have a mystery tree. I originally thought it was a lilac but it is not. I don’t know how I could have a tree growing in my small yard and not know it exists. It was either the gnomes sneaking in and planting things at night, or it came from a sucker from my neighbor’s yard, or it has been there the whole time and I’ve been chopping it down with the perennials each year, except last year when I noticed it was actually a tree and stopped hacking at it. The reason I thought it was a lilac was because it really did look like it had lilac leaves when they were small. But now it has flowered (the first time) and I’m 99% sure it is not a lilac. It has these beautiful fragrant white blooms which are identical to a tree my neighbor has growing in her yard. My hops like to grow over the fence and up her tree in the summer time, and I’ve apologized for it and asked if she would like me to cut out the hops, but she always says no and refers to this tree as a cherry. I knew it wasn’t really a cherry tree, so I did a bit of reading and I think the tree growing in my yard is a Schubert Chokecherry (sort of a cherry, I guess?). Very lovely, but they do get a bit large (like not really large, but not small either), and are infamous for having lots and lots of suckers. Anyway, long story, but I’m still trying to decided whether it is going to stay or not. I hate to be a tree murderer, but I don’t really want it. I kind of wish it were a lilac because I could easily manage its size. What would you do?

I just moved all of these strawberries to this bed, closest to the patio, so I can snack on them easily. Garlic is growing below the strawberry bed.

But one unexpected, and good, surprise was the spinach. Apparently (and I don’t remember this), my past self knew that my future self would be really excited about discovering forgotten spinach growing in the garden. Presumably, my past self planted this last fall. I should be eating this spinach in a couple of weeks.

Aside from all the pretty things and surprises, I’ve been doing a bit of work outside as well. I just planted some radish, arugula and more spinach seeds, and my peas will be going in later in the week. I’m also starting to do a lot of serious planning for the rest of the garden, specifically all of the seedlings I currently have growing in my dining room that will need to be moved outside soon. And I might be feeling a little anxious about it, but hopefully I’ll have a plan set in stone by the end of the weekend (my current plan is “stick them anywhere I can”, but maybe that isn’t the most solid plan). Spring is the most exciting, but the most stressful for gardeners. Well, at least for me anyway. Someone remind me next year, in about March, to chill out on starting so many darn seeds. Megan, you do not need 38 tomatoes, 30 peppers, and 20 squash plants for two people.

Lots of these volunteer pansies have popped up in my shade garden this year and I’m happy to just let them be.

Anyway, I’m really excited for the long weekend coming up – I’m taking an extra day off of work to dedicate to gardening (fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate!), so hopefully sometime next week I’ll be able to tell you that I solved all of my dilemmas and now I can sit back, relax, and watch the jungle grow.