Plants got the vote: thank you, Grannymar! What shall I start with, hmmm…
How about my two Duggar species. So named by me as they multiply like crazy – the violas: 
And the Sweet William: 
That’s a five-foot long shipping pallet, chock full of William. Only just starting to bloom, it will be lovely soon.
I forgot what these are (again). Not as many of them this year, wonder why?
Clematis clematis clematis!
Our robin in the grey willow that the clematis is climbing up. He kept me company for hours as I was moving dirt and finding him all types of tasty bug-snacks.
Planted this last year from seed, and over-wintered it indoors. Now what is it again… oh great, the tag I made has totally faded! Augh! Just spent about 10 minutes looking through last year’s posts, can’t find it. 
Mutant zinnia. The four flower buds are coming out of the previous bloom’s base, instead of on their own stems. Freaky. 
The lavender is happy this year.
The tiny iris are happy, too! 
My native yellow iris (dug out of a bog) opened the first bloom yesterday. 
Also native – Irish common spotted orchid. I just love the spotty leaves! They moved in, I didn’t plant them – these are growing in my garlic planter. 
More common spotted orchid – this is the first to begin blooming and popped up in the raspberry patch. Simply gorgeous. They are more than welcome to live in my garden!
The new ALDI bulbs are coming up!
My front door – white-trash alert! Taken to give the size scale of the black lilies and stargazer lilies, which are well established compared to the new guys. Guess what is in the pot to the far right? TIGRIDIA!!!!
Finally, a rose bud. Lots of buds but none open yet.
ohhhhhh….I love garden posts! I love that you can grow orchids outside there, which does not happen in MN. Very nice work.
Thanks! Ireland has many native species of ground orchids – just love them!
Beautiful flowers great photos
Thank you! It seems things are slow this year, I’m so impatient for more flowers!
You are a bit impatient about a lot of things I know because I am the same way too
Ooo I love the spotted orchid, it’s very pretty. This is like an episode of Heretherebespiders in Bloom!
There will be more! All the lilies and roses and tigridia have yet to open…
The unknown flower looks a bit like snapdragon, but they tend to grow on spikes with lots of blooms. Beautiful garden you’ve got though!
Thanks! Most are in pots as I need a large-ish grass area for the dog to poop in. I wish I remembered what that one is!
It’s lovely, whatever it is!
I’ll figure it out! Eventually…
It is snapdragon! Go figure.
Cool! 🙂
You win 🙂
Wow. That’s an awesome spread of flowers! Not one I don’t like!
More to come, I love my flowers! My bestie called me a witch… I think I love that.
Looking good girl – must have had a few rays of sun in Ireland then? 😉
Beautiful flowers! I love this time of year when it seems everything is full of color at once 🙂
I need this encouragement. Here it’s already too damn hot to get out in the garden and everything is going rank. I wish my Sweet William did anything — well they just dropped in, but if they were like yours they’d have eaten the south forty by now.
I’d say water more, but FFS I’m about sick of them.
We have nearly washed away in the spring rains here, so that can’t be it. Some vagary of climate. The red impenetrable Virginia clay soil, maybe.
Ah, acid vs base thing, perhaps.
You have such a wide variety of flowers – such colors. A yellow iris? Ours are purple or blue…(I keep moving them around trying to find a spot where they are happy. Fingers crossed, this spring they seemed to have given their approval.) Is that big pink one a snap dragon? My sweet william will be cratering shortly from heat/excess sun – the cooler wet spring kept them blooming and happy for longer than usual…I’ll move the pot to a the coolest shady spot and hope they survive until fall, when they may perk up again.
Always love to see your garden ( and local supervising robin)
The yellow ones are native, and will take over an unattended field (or my back garden) if not chastised properly! They do like it wet. Want some seeds? They can and will grow from seed.
Yes, the pink one IS snpadragon! I only had the Latin name, and forgot to trust my eyeballs.
William is a conqueror here. Damn stuff.