Yes Kat, it is Dame's Rocket (hesperis). It does self sow quite freely, but doesn't seem to escape from gardens much around here. As a matter of fact, everything blooming in my garden right now, other than the peonies are self-sown. I did transplant the ox eye daisies from another garden bed behind the house, but they were self-sown seedlings from a plant I dug up from a cow pasture a few years ago. I have seriously neglected the garden this year--didn't thin, haven't fertilized, spread compost, or even done much weeding. The little red poppies should be 3-4 feet tall with blooms a good 4-5 inches wide, and the larkspur is puny also. But the wonderful, tough little plants somehow manage to survive and set seed. Once the weather really heats up, though, it is going to look pretty dismal.

We are having serious drought conditions here this spring, on top of a dry winter and fall. I pulled all my soaker hoses up in early spring. Anything still alive at the end of the season--well--I'm gonna plant more of it.

We got hit by three days of a hard, very late frost in early April that froze the rosebuds. Normally there would be roses blooming along with the peonies. (tiny, new buds are just now forming.)

The frost killed all the leaves on a hackberry tree in the back, killed the unfurling leaves and flowerbuds on the pecan, and all the leaves and buds on my best, biggest mophead hydrangea, which I just cut back to about 12 inches this morning.

Instead of working in my own garden, I've been picking up some extra money gardening for well-to-do people in town the past several weeks. A couple of them are gardens I have been dying to see for a long time, and now I get to work in them! Hillsborough is full of beautiful gardens.

Janie