The peculiar blue berried plant is indeed a leatherleaf mahonia! Woo!
And the peculiar phloxlike flowers today revealed a number of round, flat seedpods–it’s honesty, or money plant, growing wild. While a non-native, and thus not a “WOO!” it’s at least a “Hmm, neat, okay,” since butterflies and birds like it. It’s also, I must confess, rather pretty, since it’s both pink and white, and growing throughout the shaded woody areas here, when nothing else much is blooming.
James made another ID–the small tree the mahonia is under is a plum tree. I don’t actually eat plums much, but that’s still pretty cool.
The Lily-of-the-Valley is blooming, and is lovely (and yes, toxic.) There’s something else that may be a locust tree…or…well…leggy locust shrub. “Tree” would be entirely too grandiose. It needs a good pruning.
I planted the blueberry bush today. Dug a hole and everything. The ground is a thin layer of pine needles and moss over godawful clay. But I perservered, and got it into a decent sized hole (twice as wide, I managed. It’ll have to settle for half-again as deep. I fought the clay and…the clay won.)
My nasturtiums are coming up as of this morning. Woo! I love nasturiums dearly. I’m not sure why. I don’t eat them. They’re just cool.
In non-gardening news, my poison ivy is finally on the retreat (probably because I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.) On the down side, I’ve been havin’ heart palpitations all week. They’re not painful, I don’t appear to be having a heart attack or anything, but they’re godawful annoying. Can’t figure out what they’d be, unless I suddenly developed a reaction to the birth control pills I’m on. They occur whether or not I’ve taken allergy meds, and cutting out caffiene had no apparent effect. They don’t seem to correspond to strenuous activity. I’m hoping the doctor has some ideas, because it’s obnoxious to suddenly have your heart slamming around in your chest when you are doing nothing more exhausting than, oh, taking a nap. *grumble*
