All these peonies have been scavenged from old houses and tear downs. A new one is just about to open and I am anxious to see what it will look like. It came from a house next door that was once owned by a music teacher. Their garden is now completely overgrown and abandoned. I have been digging out the few remaining flowers hidden among the weeds.  I guess I am not so much stealing as saving them.

This has been one of the wettest months I have ever seen in Edmonton.  My flowers are ecstatic and almost psychedelic this year. They withered all through May and then suddenly exploded in June. There is none of the usual sequence, every one of them is in bloom.

It’s amazing what a little rain can do. I get why water was worshipped in so many ancient religions. It creates miracles.

When we left Edmonton ten days ago there were a few straggly perennials sprouting feebly among brown grass. After a week of rain we returned to an oasis of flowers. I have never seen so many bloom at once. It may end up being a green garden all summer, but oh what a glorious spring!