Spring perennials!

Hey don't make fun of my awful-looking front lawn!  It is a weird type that my neighbor has in his yard.  Extremely hardy and tough to kill, but for some reason it takes a while to green up in the spring!  Besides that, I take no responsibility for our lawns, that's Josh's job!

Today I stopped at Giant Eagle to pick up some cleaning wipes for my desk at work and they had gorgeous perennials out front ON SALE!  I grabbed 3 white perennials, ($2 each) some mini dafodills (also $2), and a bunch of bicolor tulips ($4 a pot).  When I got them home, it was threatening to rain.  Nasty looking clouds.  But I was too excited to wait to plant.  Supposedly you aren't supposed to plant bulbs in the spring, but plant them in the fall(thanks mom).  But it doesn't make sense to me why it should matter.  If you plant in the fall yes they will come up in the spring. but you don't dig them up after they bloom.  It isn't going to hurt the bulbs to hang out in the garden through the summer, they just wont have flowers on them.  Right?

Planting these tulips reminded me of planting purple tulips in my mom's garden as a kid.  I don't think I was nearly as happy about it then as I am now with my own garden!  I tried to remember the advice she gave me about how deep to plant, et cetera.  I couldn't remember much, I hope they live!  If not it will mean I should have taken her advice...

In this garden: I planted Johny-jump-up violas and pansies from seed... but I don't see any sign of them yet.  3 raspberry bushes(2 of them still only look like sticks) Mini Dafodills, the one in the back right didn't have a label. And the three white perennial flowers... I don't recall their names.  Does anyone know what they are?

This garden has lamb's ear, red and yellow bicolor tulips, red morning glory(from seed) and white moonflower(from seed).  I'm hoping the moonflower and morning glories show themselves, they will be so pretty trailing over the wall and up the handrail!

Close-up of one of the bi-color tulips.

Saxifraga.  I know. its fun to say. Say it fast and it sounds like you're cussing but it doesn't count as a sin.

This is what my one seedless grape is doing.  It's sprouting these buds that look like fuzzy cotton candy at first, but then gradually start looking like leaves!  Weird!

In this garden I have large dafodills on the far left, 2 bicolor english ivy plants, bicolor tulips, peas(seedlings), 2 different colors of creeping phlox on the corners(purple and pink), saxifraga spaced in between in front along the wall.  Also there are some hostas that came back from last year's transplanting.  I might move those around, but I haven't decided where I want them yet.  Also notice I have my potted dwarf cherry tree near the stairs, and the other semi-dwarf cherry on the right corner of the porch.  In the fat squatty-looking pots are seedless grapes!  This year as far as fruit goes I am hoping to have 2 types of cherries, 2 different types of watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, blackberries, and 3 different types of seedless grapes.  YUM!  How's that for a city orchard?