Rhododendron in bloom

As if by appointment, all the rhododendron bushes in our front yard bloomed simultaneously, lending to the mostly green landscape a lively splash of color. I'm embarrassed to admit that for the life of me I could not remember what it was called and had to stop my neighbor, Kay, on her driveway to find out.  Not knowing the names of trees and plants puts one in a very disadvantageous position; it's a little bit like traveling in a foreign country and not knowing the language, either written or spoken, or worse, like an illiterate person missing out on all the printed treasures of knowledge.  I can't wait for an app to come out which, by my snapping a picture of a plant, will instantly identify it for me, like one of those nifty music-recognizing apps, such as Shazam.  

Blood Iris

Under one of the rhododendron bushes I discovered some purple (though they look blue in the pictures) iris flowers with "exotic" looking veins, called Blood iris or Iris sanguinea.  It's mind-boggling to learn that there are so many different species of iris.

An update about our wisteria vine: It was pronounced dead by our "resident", International Society of Arborculture-certified arborist, Mr. Gregory Peters of the Souring Eagles Horticultural Service.  He speculated that its having been confined all these years in a tiny corner of the mostly paved pergola and the severe drought last year probably contributed to its demise. The bottom of the trunk had been withering and dying; large chunks of the trunk had fallen off and not enough of nutrient was able to reach to the branches above the pergola.  Not to belie the name of our house, we are considering planting another wisteria vine on the other side of the existing wisteria behind the trellis where there is more ground to grow.  But I don't know if we will still be living in the same house when the new vine grows big enough to bloom.