Lavender, Virginia Bluebells and Butterflies

A few random photos from Southeast Tennessee Garden - featuring lavender, bluebells, and butterflies.

One of my very favorite plants to grow is lavender.  I love the way it looks in my garden, it fits in perfect in my wannabe cottage garden.  The cut flowers smell divine and, as I discovered when I forgot to keep the vase full of water, they dry beautifully right in the vase!   Then as if that wasn't enough, I use them in cooking and cocktails.  It's a win, win, win.  The above variety is not one of my favorites, but it is very prolific!

When we bought our home some 20+ years ago, we were fortunate in that the builders of the subdivision left many mature trees in the neighborhood.  Our backyard has it's on little wooded area.  It's filled with hickory, dogwood, and oak trees.  Those mature trees are now even more mature, which means my backyard gets more and more shaded by the year.  I've had lots of luck with shade plants though and one of my favorites is Virginia Bluebells.  They start out with with tiny pink buds which turn from lavender to blue as they open.

They pop up in early spring making their way through the pile of oak leaves that we leave to cover the bed all winter long.

This last photo is not from my garden, it was taken during a recent high school senior portrait photo shoot that I did.  This is right next to a creek.  I'm not sure what all the butterflies were doing, but they stayed like this for quite awhile before flying off.

That's my garden, what is yours looking like this spring?