Happy Friday! Spring is less than a month away (by the calendar anyway :) and I’m counting down the days. We’ve had a mild winter overall, albeit a very wet and dreary one. I’m reaching into the archives to pick some garden blooms and flowers around the Potting Shed to share today.
It’s never too soon to dream about flowers and gardening season! Click on the highlighted links if you’d like to revisit a post or more flower therapy.
Blooming Spring Wreath for the Potting Shed and Easy Bow Making Technique
Spring in Bloom
Azaleas, Spirea, Viburnum and Lady Banks Roses in bloom
Fresh Flower Market: Spring Blooms in the Potting Shed
Ball jar bouquets of hyacinths, tulips and iris provide spring blooms along with vintage transferware for some tabletop gardening in the Potting Shed.
Create a Wildlife Habitat in Your Backyard
Certify your garden as a Wildlife Habitat to attract birds, butterflies, and other neighborhood wildlife. It’s fun, makes a positive difference and easier than you might think.
Plant a Limelight Hydrangea. . .or Five
Plant this easy to grow, low maintenance shrub in your garden that will provide you with both beautiful cut and dried flowers
‘Sarah Bernhardt’ Peony
Ball Jar Bouquets and Peony Season
Peony blooms are so fleeting, you have to enjoy the beauty and sweet fragrance while you can!
Spring Flowers Around the Potting Shed
We’re in garden zone 7b in the Southern Piedmont of North Carolina. May to June is when our Endless Summer Hydrangeas, Buddleia (butterfly bush), clematis and roses are flush with blooms.
Find your USDA Plant Hardiness Zone by zipcode, here.
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is the most common butterfly we see fluttering around the garden. This is a female swallowtail, denoted by the large area of blue area on the hind wings, alight on a Soda Pop Butterfly Bush, a dwarf variety Buddleia.
Clematis ‘Bernadine’ is a rebloomer variety with lavender-blue petals and magenta stamens. It’s happy with 4 – 6 hours of sun and hardy in zones 4 – 9 and is bee and butterfly friendly!
Earth Angel Rose is a fragrant old-fashioned rose and with blooms varying in color from white to soft pink.
It’s hardy in zones 5 – 9 and takes several bloom cycles to produce peony-shaped flowers.
If you want a plant that attracts pollinators, self-sows and that tolerates the heat, plant Verbena Lollipop! It grows in zones 6 – 10 and prefers full sun in well-drained soil.
We had several new clumps of Lollipop that volunteered last spring, seeded from the previous year’s plants.
I’m a firm *bee*liever in not being too hasty when it comes to pulling your ‘weeds’ in case you can identify them after a little growth as a flower. . . or that’s my excuse anyway. ;)
We had a wintry mix yesterday of snow and rain but no accumulation. It’s a frosty 29 degrees this morning but temperatures are climbing back to the 50s and then upper 60s by early next week.
“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
– Hal Borland
🐝🌷🌼🦋🏡
Thank you for your visit!
Sharing with: Metamorphosis Monday
OMG!!!!! What a beautiful post! It really uplifted my spirits on a dreary, cold February day.
Thank you so much for the lovely photos. I will be looking at these repeatedly.
Beautiful display! Love It all, especially the Hydrangeas…. it’s been a long winter. Spring can’t come soon enough.
Off to Florida for a couple weeks to get warm…….
Happy Friday!
Have a great weekend 😊
Such a beautiful post – full of color and hope. We had a mix of snow and rain last evening. I’m praying that the new green growth on our hydrangeas will survive. Come on spring!!
Thank you (and Hal Borland) for the lovely reminder that “No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn”! Here in Minneosta’s zone 4b we can only dream for the next few months.
Delightful flower therapy Mary! The sun is finally out this morning after 4 days of gloomy rain…it does have me thinking Spring…except it is 30 degrees 🥶 Your flowers from the archives and the wonderful quote at the end {no winter lasts forever…} have given me a boost! 🌷
Jenna
Your post was a morning boost, Mary!! I’ll bet you can’t wait to get busy in your beautiful garden. Thank you for sharing the beauty with us. 🐝❤️🦋
Thank you for your posts. Such an inspiration.
*sigh*…22 degrees…franki
Beautiful and just what I needed to see this morning, Mary. I am going to spend a bit of time revisiting some of these posts while sipping my coffee. I feel especially lucky to be in the same zone as you so I know that if it works in your garden it should work in mine too. After our drearier than normal winter my green thumbs are getting itchy.
Thank you so much!!! Made my day! What a great start as heard from my granddaughter in Spain & from you with you beautiful flowers. Sun is shining today so it will warm up some for sure. Have a lovely day!!
The snow on the trees and fields was so pretty this morning. Perfect light accumulation which will be gone by this afternoon. Always think of snow like this Gods fertilizer for the spring blooms which will soon be here. Thankyou for all the beautiful pictures of the flowers of past springs.
Iam so envious of your shed and abundance of color by way of flowers and blooms.
So lovely !!!!!!
OH, SIGH! You always provide me with a PIN and a super big smile!!!
Thank you!! after yesterday in Charlotte this is a lovely bit of Spring :) Happy Friday
Beautiful…thank you.
What a wonderful post on such a cold day even here in Florida! Reminding us Spring is just around the corner. Thank you Mary!
Here in the Southwest, we get no blooms like this! I miss my IL potting shed and beautiful flowers! I love your blog, and the beautiful pictures…and your pups!
I needed this post today, Mary. However, the sun is out!!!! Although the temps are freezing, it’s nice to see the sunshine, and hopefully spring will be here soon. Your photography is stunning!
Beautiful compilation Mary! Have a great weekend! Clara ♥️
Once again, you make my day! Spring blooms eternal. Thank you so much.
Oh No! THANK YOU for sharing all these beautiful photos of your flowers. Just what I needed after snow on the ground for weeks – but it’s all gone finally.
Thank you so much for that beautiful post. It’s a wonderful reminder that Spring is coming (even if it takes a bit longer here in NY). Have a wonderful weekend.
– Alma
All gorgeous pics and memories! it is very much spring here, aka drought, mid seventies next week, darn scary winter, WE NEED RAIN! but it’s gorgeous seeing blooms scattered about the property 😁
Love love love this post! We always need flower therapy! The wild poppies and Lupines have begun to bloom out here in the desert!
Spring is coming, and I can’t wait. I loved revisiting your beautiful gardens and potting shed. I must plant verbena “lollipop”, I do have lots of plans, we shall see how much I accomplish. Thanks for sharing garden therapy Mary, so enjoyable !
Just what the doctor ordered. 😉 These pictures are like a good shot in the arm to get over the winter blahs. Plus we had a lovely day with sparkling sunshine and 2 more to follow with temps in the 40’s which is awesome for Michigan in the winter! Thank you Mary, the flowers make me sigh, they are so pretty! By the way, I made the cinnamon swirl apple fritter bread yesterday afternoon and it is delicious! A keeper for sure! Yum!
I made a comment a few minutes ago, but it’s not showing so at the risk of saying it twice (and forgive me if it does eventually show up), this is like a shot in the arm for the winter blahs. The flowers are so pretty and gives us hope that spring will come. In addition to these lovley pictures, we had a great sun-shiney day, with 2 more to follow and temps in the 40’s! A rarety for Michigan in winter. Mary, your new recipe, cinnamon swirl apple fritter bread shared the other day is DELICIOUS! I had a fun day of baking yesterday, a keeper for sure. I have quite a collection of your recipes now and plan on putting them in a 3 ring binder called Mary’s Best! Thanks so much and please keep them coming. 😋
I feel the same just itching to get started.
Thanks for sharing so many ideas,
Wonderful descriptions and many hints.
I’m soooo ready for all of your post today!!! Waiting impatiently!! ♥️🌹💐🌺🌻🌼🌺🍄
This post is just what I needed to motivate me to do some yard work this weekend! Thank you!
Beautiful photographs to start me dreaming about and planning for spring. Going to look for an old watering can and try to decorate my Garden Shed doorwith something similar. Thank you Mary.
Oh your photos are so lovely – those peonies made me sigh out loud! ;) Maybe this is the year I plant some in my own garden. Thanks so much for all the gorgeousness today! ❤️
Such cheerful photos. I thought of you today while in Joann’s Fabric. They have a She Shed sign. If only I had a she shed to go with it !
Please do tell where you found the red bench. Adorable!!
Your garden is so so beautiful. I never tire of your photos.