My garden is coming along, a bit slower than in other years. Nice days are followed by cooler weather, and we still have the occasional frost. Hostas unfurl, get frost, and turn mushy. It gets warmer, they come back up again, only to be hit by frost again. Not every Hosta turns to mush, some are definitely less tender, but still.

While we have to contend with one more night of 29 or 30 degrees right after Mother’s Day, I started bringing up seedlings from the basement to harden them off. Twenty-five red Celosia plants and five Angel’s Trumpets or Brugmansia are now outside. They got rained on their very first night out and the Celosia looks a bit the worse for wear with some torn leaves, but they are managing otherwise in a shady corner right next to the house.

As I walk around the garden shrubs are leafing out, flower buds are showing on trees (but NONE on my Magnolia) and perennials are reappearing everywhere. A Japanese painted Fern reseeded itself in previous years in unexpected spots; now the small plants are coming up in crevices between rocks, softening them with their appearance. I never would have been able to cram the plants in where they are, but nature found the perfect spot and they are happy. So am I.

Pulmonaria or Lungwort also reseeded itself around my garden, but nicely. I can always find baby plants around the mother, but just as with my Fern, sometimes seeds find a spot further away. One seed found its way to the back of the waterfall, growing in the protection of an evergreen. Another one found its way in the gravel, growing at the foot of the retaining wall, again softening it.

Meanwhile The Spouse and I have been forced to use the garage to enter the house rather than the front door. Several weeks ago, a pair of finches decided the tulip wreath on the door was the perfect spot to build a nest. Once it was built, eggs appeared, one each day until mom was done with five. Now there are five downy chicks growing like weeds. A few more weeks and the front door will be ours again.

For the third year in a row a tree frog is calling the birdhouse hanging from the arbor its home. I do not know if it is the same frog from last year, it could be, but it is fun to see its face peering from the entrance.

The garden snakes are back as well. Not as much fun as the various frogs in my garden, but nevertheless they are welcome too.

Seedlings, baby birds, frogs and snakes, my garden has room for it all. A little slice of nature carved out from an empty lot with heavy, heavy clay, six years in the making. It is just as I imagined it.