Some Modest Tulips

The show of tulips was underwhelming this year. It made me lose hope in tulips, really. Perhaps I just need to dig out the old ones and install some new ones this fall, with a good helping of bulb fertilizer thrown in. Most (non-naturalizing) tulips get smaller and more pathetic after three years, so maybe now is their time to go. It was especially disappointing after not one single daffodil appeared this spring. Oh well. I've had a narcissus skip two years and appear the third, so I won't lose hope on the daffodils.

I like the tiny blue forget-me-nots which have self-seeded themselves around the bases of the tulips. I planted those in the fall of 2008 and am happy that they produced some future generations (they are biennial). In the absence of tulips, what else could provide me with great spring colors? Maybe more Aquilegia? Mine aren't blooming yet, but I think they will soon.

Here's a very hardy clematis, as its survival over this past winter proves:
Clematis macropetala -- a spring bloomer:

My friend Barbara gave me some of her Cypripedium parviflorum (Yellow lady's slipper) orchid this spring. She had "liberated" it from a ditch outside of town where machinery was bulldozing the native landscape to make way for new power lines a few years ago. I am enjoying the yellow flowers, though I am not quite happy with this photo. I have become a bit more of a photography critic now that I am learning the finer points with my new Nikon SLR. I wish I had a greater depth of field in this shot.

However, the no-see-ums were chewing away at my head and hands and the need for escape took priority over photographic perfection at one point. There was no way I was going to fiddle around getting the tripod positioned and all that stuff. I'd have been chewed up and carried away. I hate the bugs. Can you tell?