Welcome home, Margaret!

It looks from here that your trip to Colorado was meaningful and memorable. Family time is often the best of times.

Yes, it is unseasonably cool up here near 49° North! I spent an hour or so outside this morning. It was 39° with a 15 mph wind, so a windchill of 31!! It will surprise no one to say that my tomatoes are purple! I came home to have a 2nd breakfast of hot oatmeal and strong, hot coffee.

Your comment about "blue monet" in bloom gave me pause. I think you may mean mountain bluet but googling, I discovered that there's an iris variety called Blue Monet.

I have thought that "bluet" could have a more reasonable name. My wife was once at the farmers' market and amongst her bouquets were some bluet flowers. She was approached by a pair of middle-aged ladies and one of them asked the name of the blue flowers.

"Bluet," she replied. But as they turned away, the friend turned towards the lady and said, "I don't think she knows the name of that flower."

I once worked for a person who sold flowers to dozens if not hundreds of flower shops. She advised me that if questioned about a flower that I didn't know I should respond, "Oh, that's some kind of Centaurea species!" Her claim was that I would usually be right and that it would sound more intelligent than claiming that it was some kind of Aster which would be even more likely to be true . . .

Anyway, in my searching I was led to Wikipedia to view a blue painting by Claude Monet . . . Did you know that after cataract surgery, Monsieur Monet went back to earlier paintings and added blue to the canvases?!?

Linked below, I believe, is an example.

digitS'

Here is a link that might be useful: Water-Lily Pond and Weeping Willow

They could very well be mountain bluet but that is what I was told (I think!) finding my memory is getting harder to find as time goes by. There is 2 shocking pink ones that I can't remember at all. One I saw at Farmers Market and said aha. But by the time I got home I couldn't remember what the name was. The blue flax and snowball are also blooming. I picked chamomille again today. It needs to be picked every other day or it gets ahead of me and picked 4 trays of parsley to dry. It is cold and windy and I wonder if it is going to be that way all summer?

. . . chamomile for tea?!?

Oh, I guess you didn't hear, Margaret. Summer's been canceled.

Steve's digits, chapped from the cold and a day of rain & wind

Yes, chamomile for tea. It is real easy to grow. Been growing it for probably 10 years. It is a bushy plant with small daisy like white flowers. You pick off the flowers and dry them on a screen. Makes nice tea. Just a pain to pick flowers every other day. I can't justify $70 for a rake that pulls off the flowers. When I get really tired of picking then I pull up the plants. It is suppose to be 45 degrees tomorrow and down around freezing tomorrow night. We have the tender stuff covered but depends on how low it goes. I could lose the fruit if it goes below 28 degrees! Maybe a good thing the beans and corn went in late.

Yeah, I like the tea. The plants were puny and failed to even reseed themselves after a few years in my yard . . . could have been the shady location.

I can see how the job would be tedious. I would have spent an hour sittin' in the dirt on my caboose for a cup of tea.

d'S'

Magaret,
Did you get hit with the snow? We are back to slush /rain now.We were not supposed to have the colder temps you guys were getting.hmm imagine that in MT.
Its chillin out there thinking about setting up the lights on the peach tree tonight its loaded.Hate to loose them
It sounds like parts of your gardens ahead of us,my peonies are still pretty tight balled, even my early ones.Although in Kalispell they are open everywhere.
Matter of fact my chamomile is just starting to grow, been tearing it out by the handfuls,had a few plants make it to seed last year.No flowers yet though.
M

red peonies this week. No sign of the pink ones yet. The early chamomille is in the hoop houses and I haven't pulled it yet. The ones outside have just a few blooms so far. It snowed this morning and didn't stick. We have covered everything we could. It is saying 33 degrees tonight and we are usually colder and 1-4 inches of snow. The biggest worry is that snow will break trees and that usually means power lines too. I have stocked up a bunch of water because when the power goes off so does the well.