Birds and New Trees

I was delighted to have a cardinal drop by my garden this week.

I couldn't get any closer because I didn't want to open the window and scare him. 

In other news, I got a box of plants this week from my buddies at http://www.forestfarm.com/.  They've sold me lovely plants in the past, including my big Jim Dandy holly and the upright Japanese yew.  They also sold me Mr. Bowling Ball, who unfortunately is pretty much dead.

So here's what's new from ForestFarm:

That's two trees in one pot.  The first is another Japanese Maple.

One of the things I really wanted to add to the garden this year was a cut-leaf Japanese Maple.  This is more of a lace-leaf, but it's just a lovely plant.  It's called "Orangeola."  It loves shade, can grow up to 4 to 8 feet tall, and does well in containers.

It's going to have to grow into this one.

The other plant that came packaged with Orangeola is another dwarf - the Pygmaea Dogwood. 

It's barely bigger than the hostas, and it arrived a little droopy, but I'm hoping some water and sunshine will help.  It can grow to be 6 to 10 feet tall, and can thrive in the shade, though we will see if it blooms in the shade.

And then there's another Camellia:

This is not the Camellia I originally picked from their website, but they turned out to be out of stock on the one I wanted.  This one is called Nuccio's Pearl - my other Camellia is Nuccio's Gem, so whoever Nuccio is, he's popular in my garden. 

And then, after making fun of boxwoods on my blog last year, I figured it might be nice to have one.  He's in a temporary pot because I ran out of pot space!

So here's the garden:

Starting to look kind of good!