Welcome to all the new Green Thumb Sunday members that I finally got around to adding yesterday! I hope you enjoy our little group.

Earlier this week I went out into the garden with my camera and I took a number of great photos of the plants that were blooming and new ones that were growing, but I’ve had such a busy week I didn’t get around to transferring them from my camera to my computer yet. That’s the trouble with photos, especially if you take a lot of them at once – it takes time to prepare them for posting.

Anyway … I do have some photos to share that I took two weeks ago. Just imagine the plants being bigger or having more leaves now. 😉

This is the Climbing Iceberg Rose that I bought last summer to replace Antique ’89. Antique ’89 must have had too much winter damage in 2007 and died in late spring. Well as you can see Climbing iceberg is doing great:

This rose is over 4 feet high already and I’m sure it will only get bigger in the next month. I have a standard iceberg rose shrub at the front of the house and once it gets going it’s covered in blooms all season so I expect that the climbing version will do the same.

I had replaced a few roses last year and all of the replacements seem to be doing well. The majority of the established roses (2 to 5 years in the ground) all have long green stems and seem to be ahead of themselves in growth compared to other years.

The Astilbe is also growing well. I have several clumps of it in shady areas of my garden. I think I’m currently growing three different types.

Basically everything in my garden seems to be doing well this year with the exception of one rose – Dr. J H Nicholas – it’s struggling. Hopefully it makes it, but if it doesn’t I guess I’ll just replace it with a hardier rose.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!