Where I am located, the month of May is really one of the most beautiful time of the year. This is the time when every single living plants are sprouting and growing in a hurry to set blooms for the month of June. July will be too hot for most flowering plants and everything including me will just turned limp with the heat and go into short dormancy period until the temperature come down again.Everything is prolific right now that I even have onions growing in my kitchen. Even though they are in a special breathable terracotta container and practically in the dark, that doesn't stop them from sprouting and turning themselves into spring onion!
(left) ornamental garden alium, not edible but also in the onion family.
We call this one Bärlauch, pronounce as bear-lauch with silent C.
Other people call it Allium ursinum or wild garlic. The picture here is showing them already in their flowering stage.
They can be found growing in the undergrowth of damp, cool and shaded woodlands.
I have quite a patch of them growing at the edge of my woodland garden. The leaves smells very similar like garlic but eating it doesn't make your breath smell like you have eaten garlic bread or garlic chips. I'm not kidding, there is such thing as garlic chips. I've never used it in the garden but Cyndy used them to keep the deers from eating her roses. (By the way, Cyndy, its wonderful to see you here. My bareroot Darlow Enigma has gotten to 3 feet tall! )
In early spring, when the "bärlauch" first unfurl their young leaves, we usually collect the very fresh young leaves and prepare them into bärlauch pesto.
It is very similar to making basil pesto, pine nuts and mixed with extra virgin olive oil and eaten with spagetti or any kind of pasta with grated Italian cheese such as grana or parmigiano.
I will start adding recipes to my other blog, so you all can try my cuisine. Very simple and straight forward cooking style.
I am not a couch potato, but I love potatoes. I have planted a basketful of potatoes which sprouted out during late winter, Potato sprouting: Signs of Spring
but every year in autumn, I always forgotten to harvest my own home grown potatoes!
Since I eat a lot of potatoes, boiled, mash, wedges or hash brown which is called rösti over here, my kitchen is never without potatoes. Last week, I bought some more but since the days are getting longer and brighter, those potatoes, even though they are in a special basket that blocked lights, they still turned green and sprouting little growth from the eye buds. When they have turned green, that means they are not more good for eating, due to the high alkaloid solanine contents, which is toxic and can cause gastrointestinal discomfort or even heart damages if ingested excessively. That's unbelievable isn't it? I mean food that give us strength and energy can also kill us!
With so much rain last month, the weeds and the grasses are growing so fast. They have reached up to my waist level. Its like walking in a grassy safari somewhere in the exotic land, but I am still in my own garden reality and I can't see those short rose bushes at the moment. The dandelion are at their peak. Some are already making their fluffy white seed heads. Soon there will be thousands dandelion seed flying around in the air. I have given up trying to eliminate them from the garden. They are all over the place in my neighbourhood.
Sometimes, I wish I have a pet goat or sheep to eat up all the grass and the weeds....
Azalea is working hard making buds...
The Tireless rose or Unermüdliche first bloom. O joy...my rose season is here!
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Wisteria is slowly opening up its pea like flowers
If I am down to just
when used as a long evergreen hedge around the garden, will perforate sweet smelling honey fragrance to the outdoor living space. The only thing about Mahonia is that the leaves are prickly and it suckers like crazy but that means free propagation for making more mahonia plants to make the hedge even longer. Mahonia can take in a lot of shade, even under dense trees. Very easy to grow even on impoverished soil.
The surrounding is looking much more alive today as spring strengthened its foothold in the garden. I'm looking forward to the month of May as this is one of the most beautiful time of the year when everything in nature became most productive. If you've read my earlier post some 2 weeks ago, I did wrote that there are so much colours around me at the moment, I really mean that because there are so much explosion of colours from ground level up to the tip of the tree branches.
Right now, every spring blooming trees and shrubs are showing off their true colours. Apples and cherry fruiting trees and shrubs are all in bloom, so are the weedy dandelions and wild daisies. 
They are difficult to photograph on dry sunny day and they look awful after the rain.
I guess this is what "work on your dream" means...you keep moving....
Even though the 5 petals strongly resemble the wild roses, and its common name being Lenten Rose or Christmas Rose, Helleborus is not at all a rose. They belonged to the family of Buttercup or Ranunculaceae, usually blooming in-sync with the snowdrops and the crocus.
This is another one of those easy care, very well behave plant and requires almost no maintenance. When given the right growing conditions, they will be there forever, slowly multiplying over the years. Some are very cold hardy and able to survive my freezing cold alpine winter climate. The leathery leaves remain evergreen during winter months, though sometimes can look a little bit savaged after getting buried under the snow blanket, and all the freeze and thaw, but that does not affect their ability to produce many beautiful blooms that made me smile even on grouchy grey and dull mornings.
There are so many attractive interesting colours being created by hybridizers.
....or simple plain white like this Helleborus Niger or Christmas rose below. In my garden, this white one is the first one to appear ahead of the other cultivars. This white is the most common one here. Sometimes during mild winter, they started blooming around Christmas or around that time. 
Unlike many flowers with true petals, the hellebore flowers are actually made of 5 sepals which do not fall off . They turn green and stay on the plant, holding on to the seeds pods and remain very decorative for months. 
These are very short plants, a little over 12 inches tall, making it a perfect ground cover plants. The blooms faces outward with a tendency to nod as if very shy. I found them most suitable and effective for my upper slope garden as I could see the face of the nodding flowers by looking up from the patio without having to get down on my hands and knees to enjoy their beauty.
It was a big shock when I came home and saw several of my few years old standard rose trees snapped in half.
but our south aspect sunny exposed garden are now beginning to show some colours and signs of life waking up from a long winter hibernation.
The whole south facing slope is now covered with nodding white blooms of snowdrops.
Crocusus are popping up all over the place enriching the joy of spring arrival with patches of colours, 
....even in unexpected places
This white Heleborus Niger also known as Christmas Rose, seemed to be ahead of Foetidus and the others cultivars.
Miss Spade and Mr. Fork are still waiting for the ground to fully thaw before they can start getting into gardening action, digging new planting holes and uprooting weedy resprouting brambles but Unermüdliche rose, which arrived from Italy in late February, though still living in a small pot, surprisingly made an impatient jumpstart ahead of others.
These are just small signs of new beginning to the gardening year with so many more exciting and promising days ahead. It is the time of year to celebrate growth, to be out and about enjoying the outdoors, the fresh air and a good dose of natural vitamin D from the sun. 
