So colorful

I'm loving the color in our beds right about now.









Tulips from Carrie, therefore I will forever call these Carrie Tulips!



Mom says this is Spirea. I don't care what it's called, I love it. I love the teeny, tiny, perfect little flowers.

Spring has sprung!

I'm tired after a weekend in D.C. with Mom and Christa, but really need to get going with spring photos. So here are a few!

Plumeria, first thing that was blooming this year. This was a "tag along" in a pot of phlox I bought a couple of years ago.



We are 99.9% sure that in that glass block, with the pink flourescent plastic flowers, is St. Joseph.



Love the vibrant blue!



Our pear trees are blooming, yay!



Some new primrose I added this year, with very big flowers. (Along with Mrs. Pampelone's primrose, a columbine and two bleeding hearts I planted last year)



I spent four years trying to rip this out of the bed. Last year I didn't get out there early enough, and it bloomed, it is a Flowering Quince! So, I let it grow...

Lots Going On

Voodoo bulb #2 bloomed the other day. It had started to crack, so we moved it outside before the stench got too powerful!



We have lots of little sunflowers growing where the seeds fell from last year's crop.



The first of the tulips opened mid last week (I am a belated blogger...) and I was so excited to see them! Then the heat hit, and some of them are kind of wilty now. I'll admit, I'm glad the weather is back to normal today!



These are new grape hyacinths I planted along the east side of the house. I like the blue and white together!



Put this in the "what the heck is this?!" category. These little red flowers, which almost look like tulip blooms were blooming over the weekend. They are on the stems of this little shrub that I have been trying to rip out for the five years we have lived here. I have never seen it bloom before! I wonder if it was the insane heat. I don't think I'm usually out working in the beds this early, so maybe it's always bloomed, but I've never seen it. Weird!





Our beloved strawberry patch. Sigh. I weeded and composted, and now I will patiently wait for June. Sigh.



Mrs. Pampalone's Primrose are blooming, and looking great.



And, we have tons of wonderful blooms on the Bleeding Heart I planted last year! I was worried they might be in too sunny of a spot, but I guess not. :-)

Happy June!

Ah, it's June, sunny and 80 degrees. It has been a beautiful day! Here's what's happening in the beds this weekend:

Follow this shot all the way to Flickr and you can see the notes identifying everything in it. There is Bachelor's Button, Lady's Mantle, Echinacea, Geum, Sweet William and Coral Bells. Not everything is blooming just yet. Some things will come along later.



Here's another of Mrs. Pampalone's irises, this one all alone out under the rhododendron and next to the lilies. Hmm, maybe I should move it to a sunnier spot?



This columbine is under the pear tree.



The poppy bloomed! Here it is next to the Bleeding Heart.



And here's an "oops!" Our baby bok choi bolted. Oops! But it's pretty. Steve is going to let it keep going and see if he can save some of the seeds for next year. (Side note: I had a huge sandwich for lunch today of that delectable lettuce you see there to the left of the bok choi. Yum!)

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent a LOT of time gardening this past weekend. We ended up getting more New Guinea Impatiens for out front. We were debating whether or not to get them, and decided we probably wouldn't like it if we just left it plain. So we picked up a bunch of different ones and put them out there between the tulips like we usually do. They usually do well out there, so we hope they'll be big and healthy soon!



The "Steve" iris has started blooming! Thanks, Mom!



Bachelor button is blooming, too.



And even the new bleeding heart is getting in on the action! Lisa told me this weekend that she planted three bleeding hearts in a small space, and that they pushed everything out. Hmmm, I may need to move one of these to a different spot.



We decided to go with red dahlias and blue angelonia on either side of the fireplace again this year.



And who says money doesn't grow on trees? (Well, plants anyway.)

Annuals

I planted a bunch of annuals today. I think we're a little behind where we usually are this time of year. Usually we buy and plant annuals on Mother's Day weekend, but I think it rained that weekend this year? Anyway, I'm trying something new with pots out front. For the past two years we've just had the biggest pot on the whiskey barrel, but I thought I'd try something a little more interesting this year. Hopefully I've got a good balance of plants and good mixed heights in each pot!





In this hanging basket on either end are Black Pearl Peppers (kind of hard to see since they blend in with the soil), sweet potato vine and blue angelonia.



I forget what these are in the two hanging baskets in front of the fireplace. You can see the herbs (basil, sage, parsley, etc.) in the background.



We did some geraniums in the window box on the shed. I love the purple ones!



And these aren't annuals, but the light blue irises behind the yellow ones are blooming now. I'm pleased because I see four stalks with blooms on them that will be light blue, and last year we only had ONE blue bloom.



And the bleeding hearts are coming along nicely now, they're not white anymore! :-)



A woman the next street over from us has beautiful poppies, that every time we drove by I say to Steve "look at those poppies!" so we picked up a couple for ourselves today. They're not really doing anything right now, but when the bloom, I'll take a picture.

We have compost!

We started composting maybe three years ago, and last year we got a little bit, but this year we hit the compost jackpot! Well, okay, not a jackpot, but that big ole' pot is filled with compost we made. I spread it around some select plants in the perennial beds that I thought could use a little umpf. It's a good thing Steve isn't afraid of the critters that tend to hang out in the composter. Twice I have opened the top to find a snake curled up all cozy on top of the compost. Now I bang on the sides a bit and give whatever is in there a minute to get lost before I open the top.



It doesn't look like much now, but I decided to go with Bleeding Hearts and Columbine in that empty spot where we took out the allspice. How strange that the bleeding hearts are white! I'm assuming that's from being in a box too long while shipping? Steve asked me if I was sure that wasn't the root. Um, yeah, I'm sure! There's a little primrose in front, too, that has been there all along but never blooms. I'm hoping next year it will bloom and spread a bit like the others have now that it has sun.





I was VERY excited to see all this new growth on the silky dogwood! Yay! It might take 10 years, but I'm hopefuly it will grow big and strong again.



The azaleas out front have started blooming. It's pretty cool how we can see how much sun our yard gets. Everything on the west side of the front steps is just a little bit behind everything on the east side of the steps, because the east side gets more sun.