The Garden in Spring

My first early irises are in bloom.  

I love this purple colour.

Here is more purple.  I wonder if this is telling me to get creative and make a purple quilt.  

This is Lunaria.  Its common names are honesty, money plant or silver dollar plant.  In the summer this plant produces round seed 'packets' that look like coins, hence some of the common names.  Lunaria is a biennial, much like Forget-me-nots.  I usually don't let many of these plants produce seeds.  They provide a great deal of colour in the garden in spring.  But if I let them all go to seed my garden would soon be overgrown with them.

When they have finished blooming I pull them out, leaving only as many as I think I will need to keep this plant producing each year. 

The interesting part of Lunaria is that it can come up in white.  

My neighbour gave me a few seeds many years ago.  The plants have never failed to inspire me.  

Originally the flowers were all purple.  Then one spring I had a couple of white ones.  

I guess it was a dormant gene or something.  

Now I pull some white ones out, but always remember to leave a few to go to seed.

I sprinkle the seeds from both varieties in the garden during the summer.  They will start to grow, producing little plants.  Then the next spring they reward me with lots of colour!

I think the reason I have so many this year is because last year I was not able to look after them properly.

The following plants are a kind of Euphorbia.  This is a very large genus of plants. 
There are about 2000 members.

This is Euphorbia polychroma.  It's common name is Cushion Spurge.

The gorgeous yellow colour is not produced by flowers.  They are actually bracts.  Other plants in this genus are Poinsettias and Crown of Thorns.

This lovely hint of purple is my garden chive.  The interesting thing is that it is not growing in my garden.  It has actually taken up residence in a crack in the patio.  I have tried to move it but have had no luck digging the whole thing out of the ground.  So this is where it is going to stay.