Alina is the winner of the garden gloves. Her comment number was picked by the random number generator. Thank you to all commenters for participating. I hope you’ll come back again!

Cadie's pair is on the right. My pair is on the left. Mine have been through the wash.

But as the years went by, I came to see that moist earth feels wonderful, but once it dries on your skin, it doesn’t feel so great. And I realized that my gardening time is actually pretty fractured. I go out to weed in between other inside chores, washing–and drying out–my hands each time I go back in. I’ve yet to find a nail brush that does a good job that isn’t also a bit rough on my skin.

Ethel Gloves Are Different

And the world of garden gloves has changed significantly in the last twenty years, which is about as long as I’ve been gardening. Witness Ethel gloves. They are designed to fit women, and they are styled to appeal to women. Okay, so I’m not a fashion queen under the best of circumstances. I’m not looking for high style, but I do appreciate good fit. It’s what makes a glove worth using. (Though if the glam factor keeps any of my boys from borrowing the gloves, it’s served its purpose.) I was interested to see that the Ethel sizing chart was based on the length of the middle finger, and not on the width of the hand. For most gloves, when measuring around the knuckles, I am a medium, but with Ethel gloves I am a small. I wonder if middle finger length is a better determinant of hand size for women?

As they have done with many garden bloggers before me, Ethel Gloves sent me a pair to try. I’ve been wearing them for all the garden chores I used to not wear gloves for: routine weeding, potting up containers, pushing compost through the sifter, digging, raking, deadheading. The palm is simulated leather and seems thinner than the real McCoy. If I need to yank out brambles or prune roses, these aren’t the gloves I’d use, but I think they’d be fine for nettles or wild parsnip. And for really close weeding near tiny seedlings that I want to save, I take them off. They are just a little too thick at the fingertips for that kind of precision.

Since I’ve been wearing gloves for just about all gardening chores, my hands feel better and clean up is a breeze. The gloves can be washed, too. Not too long after I received my gloves, my daughter Cadie was given a pair. She also appreciates having relatively clean hands after gardening is done.

Win a Pair of Ethel Gloves

If you decided long ago that gloves were not for you, it’s probably time to revisit that decision. Gloves have changed, and you have changed, too. I’m giving away a pair of gloves to one random commenter, so you may soon have your chance to see if these gloves change your mind about garden gloves. Leave a comment before midnight Eastern time on Friday July 3rd. One comment will be selected randomly. Only one comment per person. Open to both U.S. and Canadian readers. Giveaway has ended. Alina won a pair of Ethel Gloves.

Buy a Pair of Ethel Gloves

If you don’t win, you can order Ethel gloves online here and save 10% by entering the code Climate10. This code is good through July 31, 2009. Shipping is free.

Planted 6 Henna coleus and the last 2 Mint Mocha coleus and Midnight Lace vine. All annuals finally in the ground. Weeding next.

My daughter just went out to her garden and found all her basil seedlings snipped off and left. Not eaten and not even wilted yet.

In the past 4 days have gotten almost 3in rain. Now it’s supposed to warm up. I see weeds in my future. Weeds and blooms.

Planted Redshift coreopsis and rearranged some heucheras last night and weeded here and there. The coreopsis is a trial plant from Skagit Gardens. On the tag it looks like it has a maroon ring around the center, so I planted it near the purple smoke bush. But in the accompanying literature it is pictured with a bright red ring. So it might not complement the smoke bush. I’ll let you know. The weeding was totally random: every time I saw one I felt like pulling out, I did. No rhyme or reason, and plenty left for another day. Raining again now. All the rearranged plants are getting a good start in their new homes.

Just planted Invincibelle hydrangea and Burning Hearts dicentra, beating the rain by minutes. Both are trial plants and quite small. Invincibelle is from Proven Winners and Burning Hearts is from Skagit Gardens. I removed a huge clump of Siberian iris to make room for these, replanting the irises in front of the single white lilac, where another plant failed to make it through the winter. Sometimes gardening reminds me of furniture rearranging more than anything else.

To every plant, there is a season, and I find that pretty much the same plants are blooming that were blooming last year and the year before at this time. So even though I’m intoxicated with my peonies and wowed by my poppies, I’ll use this post to showcase some of the other plants that are blooming.

Last year I grew two pansy seed mixes on trial from Renee's Garden. These black pansies wintered over to bloom another year.

This is Sooty Sweet William. My sister grew it from seed. It is a deeper red than appears in this brightly lit photo, but isn't black by any means.

A gift from a friend last year, this white bleeding heart is blooming in my garden for the first time.

This plant is easy to take for granted, growing almost anywhere with little care, so I just wanted to give a shout out to Geranium sanguineum var. striatum.

I received three Flirtation Orange diascias from Proven Winners to trial, and they perfectly matched the passalong canna I had wintered over in my basement.

First blossom of the year for William Shakespeare 2000. I received this Zone 5 hardy rose as a trial plant from David Austin Roses, and buried it deeper than usual to help it through the winter

Yes, it really is that blue. Jay Bird Siberian iris is starting its fourth year in my garden, and has become a worthy escort to my peonies.

Plants That Should Be Here But Aren’t

No bearded irises this year. Their buds were all blasted by the untimely freeze, and some of the leaves were damaged as well.
No foxgloves, either. I had blooming size foxglove rosettes when the snow receded in March. They were gone by May. Why? I’m not sure. Could be too wet, could be too many surprise low temps, perhaps a combination of the two. I have seedling foxgloves that, if all goes well, will bloom next year. There’s always next year. I need that as a Latin motto.

Also Blooming Now

• feverfew
• catmint
• ‘Bev’ peony
• ‘Rozella’ peony
• ‘Aimee’s Petticoat’ peony
• other peonies
• a creeping sedum with yellow flowers
• miniature hosta ‘Crown Jewel’
• golden variegated thyme
• ‘Crater Lake Blue’ veronica
• Oriental poppies
• Telstar picotee dianthus
• yellow flowered ornamental onion
• Cynanchum ascyrifolium
• German catchfly (Lychnis viscaria ‘Plena’)
• perennial flax
• various columbines, including the native one in our field
• maiden pinks
• ‘Joan Elliot’ clustered bellflower
• garden heliotrope
• ‘Miller’s Crimson’ primrose
• Lady’s mantle
• native rose (probably Rosa virginiana, photo here)
• dames’ rocket
• ‘Black Stockings’ thalictrum
• ‘Concord Grape’ spiderwort
• Johnny-jump-ups
• mockorange shrub

Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the world publish what is currently blooming in their gardens, and leave a link in Mr. Linky and the comments of May Dreams Gardens.

Just found 6 valid comments in my spam catcher. My apologies! If you ever write a comment and it doesn’t show up, please alert me via email or contact form. Sometimes my spam catcher is a little too zealous.

I finally uncovered my ‘Endless Summer’ and ‘Forever&Ever’ hydrangeas. I had discovered that dumping a bunch of dry leaves over them in the fall was sufficient to protect them from the erratic spring freezes that we have. The old branches help hold the mulch in place, and I cut them down in the spring when I remove the mulch. You can see a few of the old branches in the photo above.

We have had frost in the first week of June in other years, and even though none was predicted for this week, well, we’ve had frost before when none was predicted. I’d rather uncover them a week later rather than have all their new growth blackened after weeks of waiting. That’s a certain way to lose a season’s bloom.

You can see the small, pale leaves that have been hiding under the mulch until now.

This ‘Endless Summer’ now has some size to it. I had two very small trial shrubs, and when we had our hard freeze on May 19th, one got killed and one got severely damaged, despite having leaves mounded over them and plant containers covering them. If you tend to get lots of “surprises” during spring, you almost can’t protect them too much.

I have some organic fertilizer for acid-loving shrubs that I will scratch into the soil as soon as the rain stops.

How are your hydrangeas faring?