Spring came late

I've been bad this last week and haven't written a thing! So a little catch-up is due.

The last few weeks have been filled with rain and simply have drenched everything. Although it's wonderful to see the greenery actually green, and to see the flowers in full bloom, I would love to see them drenched in some sun too!

The hill garden in the backyard is in full bloom! It's so wonderful to see all of the seeds took hold and have turned into such beauties!

I really love how the sunflowers are coming up! We chose a good mix of sunflower seeds, but so far most of them are red.

 



This one is definitely my favorite!

In this same garden, the four o'clocks are in full bloom. I remember growing up a neighbor used to have these all over her yard. I know it's strange, but they were beautiful! I have only seen yellow and pink ones, but we have some really beautiful ones that came up: Yellow, Pink, Confetti (which is pink and yellow speckled all over), and white.

 I also have a couple new bulbs that have bloomed. I have no clue what they are, but they are both stunning. If anyone knows what they are, please let me know.

The first is in the backyard in the second Oak garden. They are not growing like amaryllis, but similar to a small spider or narcissus lilly. They are amazingly fragrant; incredibly sweet and smell similar to Jasmine. The stark, crisp white flowers are delicate and seem to just dance as the breeze tickles their tall stalks.

The other new lilly is in the front of the house amidst the amaryllis gardens. I found them on the back side of our fence and moved them hoping for something pretty. a year and a half later, the first blooms have appeared! The flower capsules open in the same way the amaryllis do. The leaves and bulb look like a corn plant. As the flower capsule opened, I noticed small scarlet buds appear and then a few days later, they popped right open to reveal deep magenta flowers in nice big bunches! At first 11 little buds were counted, but as the days pass, it looks like more and more of them have appeared. Any clue what these might be?

Weeds

Before mom came over on Sunday, Sam and I weeded the hill garden. The sunflowers are growing faster and faster it seems! Surprisingly, we also found a couple wildflowers from last year that are coming back!

As we were weeding, Sam made a perfect comment. "Weeds are just plants that are not in the right place." The more I think about it, the more I think he's right. After all most plants are considered just that until one day someone sees the beauty and promotes it.

Last year at mom's she had some weeds that we actually liked. They were simply weeds to her, but I potted them up and brought them home. And over the weekend, we added the "weeds" into our second oak garden.

I called them wild poinsettias. They look kinda like poinsettias and if you break off a leaf, the same milky sap oozes. The have the same red leaf clusters around the little flowers, just not as big of leaves. Does anyone else know what it is??

Whatever you call this weed, I still like it :-)

Here comes the rain again!!!

Here comes the rain again! And this time it seems perfectly planned! So far we have gotten rain the last three days and everything seems to be happy in the yard without having to run up the water bill finally!!!

Caterpillars ate up the tomatoes, so anything that was on the vine that they half ate, we dropped to the top of the pot, cut down all the vines, covered with compost and allowed the fruit to reseed itself. With all the rain, we finally have baby maters starting again!

We started the oak garden #2 last week by planting shrimp plants, clerodendron (starburst/shooting star), and set out all of the rest of the plants to fill in. There's a wonderful mix of spider lillies, amaryllis, hydrangeas, Hawaiian tai, bromiliads, and aloe just waiting to be planted, but placed where we want them. Although we have yet to plant the Hydrangeas in the oak garden, they have already started to bloom.

And just next to the oak garden # 2 we planted figs. Three of them: Two from mom's old place in Palataka that we have had in pots for nearly a year and one that was from our favorite- the clearance rack at Lowe's! I am so happy that we found a place to get these into the ground. We planted them on Saturday and with the three days of rain, they already have buds that are ready to shoot new growth!

Bougainvillea number 2 from the transplants is starting to fill in. I saw all kinds of green shoots last week and now it has little magenta blossoms starting to find their way out! It will only be a matter of time before the one color panel is covered in a sea of green and magenta bougainvillea!

The first Oak Garden on the south side of the back lawn is finally coming back. The lack of rain and lack of me regularly watering it made it struggle hard. This was one of our gardens from last year. Yet again filled with more amaryllis and other bulb lillies. I also have coleus surrounding the oak tree. Since the rain has come, it looks like everything is springing back!

I am so happy to have rain again!!! It really seems to be making the yard open right up! I can hardly wait to see everything in full bloom!