I just did a little planting. I dug up a bunch of Lily of the Valley. It will be back. My hope is that by aggressively digging it up, eventually it will stop coming back. However I have my doubts. Lily of the Valley may be pretty but it is almost impossible to get rid of once it has taken hold.
I plants a line of Wild Geraniums along the fence in front of the house. Behind that a line of Wild Columbine, and behind that some Barren Strawberry. Hopefully, in a few years the Geraniums and Columbines will have filled out to be small bushes, (like the 3 year olds that I have in other places) and the Barren Strawberry will have spread out as a ground cover.
In the back I planted some more Broad Leafed Waterleaf, I like the way the look and they filled in really nicely in just one year. I also picked up a few Maidenhair ferns for the fern area, to go with the sensitive and (what I think are) Cinnamon ferns.
All the bushes from last year are starting to show new growth now. The Spicebush did its flowering, and the red elderberry has its flowers opening now too. The others are getting the leaves, although the Maple Leaved Viburnum is growing new shoots from near the ground, not much from last years branches. Although all the shrubs were planted last year, so they are still getting started. It looks like most of the stuff that I planted last year survived. Although there are still a few plants that I don't expect to be up yet.
Of the older plants, many are coming back with a vengeance this year. Our May Apples are at least 45 cm tall, most of them are two leaves and thus should flower. The Bloodroots are starting to form nice clumps, and the Wild Ginger are also spreading nicely. The front yard Canada Anemones are coming up strong and probably cover about 50% of the 2m x 2m areas they are planted in. The Wild Strawberry has covered 100% of that area, although it seems happy to live between the other plants. There are also Heart Leaved Asters growing in there and they are certainly spreading out. As all these plants are sharing a contained area, I am interested to see how they will eventually stabilize. There are a couple other plants thrown in the mix too, although nothing that is spreading as aggressively as those first three.