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?

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!

Hilltop garden

To the north side of the pool there is a small hill. The hill is not tall, but is more of a berm about 30 feet long. Last year we threw wildflower seeds along the hill, and got two cosmos. Nothing else. We also tried gladiolas, but only one took and it didn't even bloom!

So this year there was a new plan!

It took us two weekends to finish the weeding, but we pulled everything out of the hill. Then it took us another two weeks to get all of the compost dirt to amend the sandy hill. And then we were ready. We covered the top of the hill with Mammoth sunflower seeds and then used a red variety mix and a lemonade variety mix of seeds to surround the Mammoth. Below that on the grade of the hill, we staggered about 80 gladiola corms. And then finished with four o'clock seeds and marigolds. We used our broken concrete pieces from around the yard to create a border.

We have been very diligent in watering. After only a week, the first sunflower seeds sprouted. A day or two behind them, the gladiolas sprung up and so did the four o'clocks. It's been about 4 weeks now and everything is coming along nicely! I can't wait to see the blooms across the hill!!!

Long shot of the garden.

Sunflowers

Amaryllis in the Springtime

My favorite thing about Spring is the flowers.

A couple weeks ago, our gardens in front of the house began to burst into bloom with this beautiful double amaryllis. A shimmery white with pink, frilly edges that gracefully dances in the wind. And although the bloom has passed now, it led the brigade of flowers into Spring and now the garden is full of large bright red, white, pink, and candy-striped blossoms.

Just to the front of our Amaryllis gardens, our roses stand tall with graceful, delicate pink blooms that tower over the purple and blue mini pansies and red and yellow snapdragons. And in each corner of the rose gardens there is a daylilly.

This morning when I woke up, I found the excitement of my day! The first daylilly opened it's little yellow face to the world today! We planted them last year, but nothing ever bloomed.

It's so exciting to see the growth in our yard. I can't wait to see what else is due to bloom!