two things pink

My first bleeding hearts!

Small azalea by the front porch is really full of flowers.

A surprise- I thought this transplanted dusty miller was dead and gone, I was about to uproot the root mass and toss it. But there's young new growth in there!

Two days ago saw a horror- white clumps of mealy bugs all over my two boxwood shrubs by the front porch. I mixed up dishsoap water with a drop of oil, sprayed them heavily. An entire bottle to each shrub. Very satisfied to see white specks littering the ground- as if the bush shook off dandruff- the dead insects. After heavy rain that night, the plant looked a lot cleaner- still some sign of bugs so I sprayed it again the next day. It doesn't need a lot of trimming but I think I'm going to thin it out a bit to let some air circulation in- it's grown pretty dense.

I really need to get another photo of my clematis. More of its flowers have opened, the petals lie flatter now- and some are as large as my seven-year-old's face!