Not a whole lot going on out there these days; this is due in part to preoccupation with other projects, but it doesn't help that it's just that time of year. Although this year, despite the seasonal rattiness of the ferns, things are still looking pretty good, so that's progress over my last garden. The climbing rose has buds like whoa - not sure if it just blooms late or if it just took this long to get established. The maple is, well, much the same, but it's not dead, so that counts as victory, right?

I mustered out briefly today to do some poking around and weeding. Pulled a whole mess of celandine out of the corner bed. I also, regretfully, dug out the dogwood, although I imagine it will be back. It's just too big and leggy for that spot, which makes the whole bed look like a mess, and I don't have anywhere else to put it right now. The bleeding heart is having a similarly wild and woolly effect on its surroundings by sprawling all over everything, so my evil plan for a week or two hence is to dig it up and move it further out into the bed. The rhododendron I snapped up on sale, meanwhile, should make a tidier replacement.

To my surprise, there's also an azalea still alive back there, and it actually looks pretty happy. I think it got chewed on in the spring - I suspect the neighbourhood groundhog, which has also snacked on my parsley and canterbury bells; must lay down some blood meal at some point - but it actually managed to flower a little while ago, and is growing busily. Once I get the bleeding heart out of the way it may even be visible.

In my crashing around I startled what I thought at first was a cricket, but it turned out to be a toad - a teeeeeeny tiny toad, about half the length of my thumb. How cool! I hope this means that the big toad I met once or twice has had babies somewhere. By the time I came back with my camera, alas, it had disappeared.