10 things I love about the garden

Please bear in mind that this is by no means a complete list. But here are 10 things I'm thinking about in anticipation of the growing season. In no particular order of importance:

1. The chance to experiment with lilies like this beauty we bought at a sale at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

 

2. Cold drinks in the "cocktail lounge."

3. Bodacious clumps of daffodils behind ferns.

4. Frogs in the pond.

5. Brian cooking Thai green beans with pork in the garden.

Daffodil mystery

Where did these daffodils come from?

You can just make them out from the kitchen window. A couple of pale spots in the debris of stems and leaves covered by snow just a few weeks ago. I don't remember planting daffodils there. There across the bridge and a few feet off the path to the stream. There among the green shoots of the wild grasses shooting toward the sun.

But there they are.  

 Raindrops glisten on the petals.

I remember planting daffodils on the back hill and along the path that runs parallel to the ditch. And under the birch tree this side of the ditch. Several clumps have performed reliably over the years. A few others have disappeared. And these few -- well, they seem to have moved themselves and settled in. And they look as beautiful there as they do anywhere.

Silly Dog checks out a clump of daffodils along the path.