We seem to have the latest-blooming azalea varieties on our block, which leads us to wonder each year whether we’ve done something wrong and the bushes just aren’t going to bloom at all. However, except for immediately following the drought, they’ve always come through; this week the color of the buds is finally visible, casting a faint sheen on the entire shrub.

After a long day of digging out roots and mixing in hummus last weekend, the foundation bed is reasonably prepared for the plants that are due to arrive in the first week of May. I made a date with a friend with a child to plant the bed on the morning of Mother’s Day, and I’m hoping to have the plants well in hand by then. In the meantime the rain is doing a wonderful job of integrating the soil, and the robins are busily attempting to eat all my worms as they come up for air in the exposed earth.

Once that bed is planted, I’ll integrate into it some of the bearded irises I inherited last year. I’ve been marking the stems as they bloom to identify the colors, but haven’t yet decided if I’ll move the white or purple ones. I’ll likely wait another month or so to see how the bed looks when the flowers start coming in; there’s a limit to how well even I can visualize a future space filled with flowers I’ve never grown before!