Yesterday morning's sun lulled us into a sense of complacency, in the belief that the preceding days of unrelenting rain were finally concluded. How wrong we were. As soon as we returned home from our morning walk in the woods, the rain resumed throughout the rest of the day. There has been so much rain the ground cannot absorb it, and the forest floor is steeped with pools and mud puddles.

Each succeeding day's rain events simply adds to the saturation. So the hillside slumps are guaranteed to continue. We did see yesterday the first of the horsetails erupting out of the rich humus that has accumulated over the years in the forest. The absolute least favourite of the plants for me, those primitive horsetails. There was a time that only one discrete patch was present, but over the years they have steadily extended their range, and now cover quite a bit of the forest floor, interspersed of course, with other plants.

I began to notice a hint of competition last year, however, when I noted that the growing proliferation of an introduced species, dog strangulation vine, was edging out the horsetails from areas it had previously colonized. The vine on maturity throughout the summer months can bring down erect plants with its weight and its clutching, smothering habit is no boon for other plants.

In our garden, the heucheras, which always come through the cold months buried under feet of snow and ice, are beginning to thrive. One of my favourites, with bronze-gold foliage, looks in fine shape. It was planted several years ago and as it spreads I will be able to take pieces of it to plant elsewhere as I've done with others of the same type.

The Japanese spurge is now in flower, one of the earliest of the garden plants to do that, other than for spring-blooming bulbs, but even our tulips haven't yet bloomed. I'm hoping that some of the white trilliums that we discovered on a hillside in the ravine far from the trails, will make an appearance in the garden, since I transplanted a few last spring.

Things are coming along very nicely in the garden, so far. Even one of the peonies has, surprisingly, a Carl Rosenfeld type, has already made significant presence in the front garden, I was pleased to note. Right beside it is an old tree peony whose huge, fringed pink blooms are absolutely magnificent, is just beginning to show signs of new life.