A bright and sunny albeit wind-chilled day marks this season’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day. Spring has been wonderful on the Lot this year with transplants having made it through the winter, insects already busily buzzing about, and a few new feathered friends visiting the garden.

Currently the South bed is empty of blooms, the tulips having recently passed. The sweet william in the bed has not quite opened yet. Only a bit of carpet phlox is left behind in the Southwest bed. However, on the East side of the Lot, a pretty vignette has brightened up the corner of the house near the gate.

The labrador violets are still going, now joined by the purple spear-shaped blooms of bugleweed (Ajuga x ‘Chocolate Chip’). The rock foil (Saxifraga) is blooming like the phlox, but this ground-hugging perennial holds its clusters of white flowers above its mat of foliage. Also blooming in the bottom left of the photo is the pasque flower (Anemone patens). Here is a close-up of the flowers.

Next are the white blooms of the foam flower, or Tiarella, accompanied by the neighbor’s escapee bluebells.

Further down the fence, the cranesbill has seeded into the backyard from the two plants near the compost bin. Tucked around the Lot everywhere are forget-me-nots.

Sharing the bed with the new cranesbill plant are the dwarf iris. I did some major shuffling around of this plant last season when I removed some tickseed. I’m glad to see the iris have seemed to adjust well.

And here’s a busy bee on one of the irises.

The brunnera is in bloom…

…as well as the Jack in the Pulpit. Jack invited along some friends this year.

The strawberries which ducked under the fence from the westside neighbor are blooming.

And the same bed brings our second year of blooms from the Geum triflorum ‘Prairie Smoke.’

Last season I divided the solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum Variegatum) in Loki’s bed. The plants seemed to have weathered the winter well and are currently blooming.

Here is the Mt Airy Fothergilla, looking quite stunning in the late afternoon light.

The lilac is blooming near the alley bed.

The Other Half is not the only one who enjoys sticking his nose in the lilacs.

And the last Bloom Day photo is a patch of violas we are not responsible for planting last season, but have been enjoying nonetheless. The violas are an annual in our Zone 6a garden, but reseed for the following season. I’ve let the generations of the little plants wander about the garden for several years now. The recent cold snaps (we had a frost last night) do not bother them.

That’s all for the Lot this month. Be sure to visit May Dreams Gardens for links to many other May blooms.