Front Garden

This is a close up of a flowering shrub in our front garden. It's called a Korean lilac bush, or so I'm told. It's kind of like a lilac bush if Jackson Pollack had designed it. Right now it has these splotches of lilaccy purple buds all over the place. Last year that's all we got - buds. Since this is a bush I'm not familiar with, I'm not sure if that's what's supposed to happen or not.

You see, early last spring we had VERY warm weather - promptly followed by 6 inches of snow. This on our then brand-new garden. So, I'm still learning things about the plants in our garden because last year was kind of a bust, garden wise. So, I decided to take a picture of the lilac bush now, because even if these buds don't bloom it's still really beautiful. I love this bush. (and yes I just mixed politics with gardening). If the buds actually bloom, I'll be sure to take another picture of it in bloom and I'll post that too.

The Japanese maple tree are both doing really well, as are the climbing hyrdrangeas. Two of the boxwoods are dying as is one of the lavendar bushes. But c'est le vie. I didn't care for the boxwoods anyway and now I know that growing lavendar is an iffy thing at best in Ohio. Not sure why.

Does anyone know of a variety of lavendar that grows well in Ohio? I'm not terribly concerned about the scent (which I know some are), I'm more concerned about it being winter hardy so I don't have to replant some every year. Happy gardening!