The mystery shrub in the backyard has been identified! It’s a Carolina cherry laurel, which is a native (yay!) which produces berries that birds like (double yay!) and which are toxic to humans! (Ya–err. Well, anyway.) I’m stoked.
There are not one, but THREE dogwoods in the back (two are less extravagantly blossomed, leading me to believe they’re either a different cultivar or getting a lot more shade.) and something’s got a wee little wisteria, which is sort of a mixed blessing–it’s a beautiful plant, but it’s also invasive and strangles trees. May have to pull that out.
And, the latest exciting discovery, the front of the potting shed had a bunch of plants in front of it. It took me a minute of staring at the familiar shapes before I went “HEY! Somebody’s covered this sucker with clematis!” There are at least three or four clematis plants directly in front of the shed. They haven’t been trained, though–or the renovators saw a generic winterkilled vine and yanked it down–because they’re spreading across the ground. I’m going to put up some twine and nails–it may be too late to train them very well this year, but it’s worth a shot. I’d much rather look at clematis than generic boards.
There’s a bunch of other stuff coming up–bugleweed in a lot of places, and some individual flowers I can’t identify yet–they’re pink or white hemispheres on top of eighteen inch stalks with long antennae sort’ve things. Once we’re all moved, I’ll run around with the camera and post photos, so that if anybody recognizes a species, they can let me know.
