Does this mean...

we will have blueberries this year?! I certainly hope so!



Every day we come home from work, pull in our driveway, and this is what greets me.



These little guys are on the west side of our front yard, where everything is always a little behind, I think due to lack of sun.



This color combo is my favorite right now, it's hard to capture all of it in a photo, though.

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. :-)

Today was the day...

that we woke up to the "funk" of the voodoo bulb!





I moved it out to the patio, and we can still smell it out there!

Daffodils and hyacinths are blooming nicely now:







And...I found my vegetable peeler that disappeared last year! Right where Mom said it would be, in the composter. :-)

It's April, and dry

I had to water the beds earlier this week, we have had 12 straight days now with no rain. Steve surprised me, so I have a funny look on my face, but here I am! It is way to early in the season to be watering...and of course it's supposed to rain this weekend when our book group is coming to hike Dennings Point...grumble, grumble.



Finally - the grape hyacinths out front are catching up with the daffodils. :-) I am an impatient gardener, I tell ya.



I love the front beds right about now. So colorful! I need to add more tulips to fill in where we took out the holly bushes (trees!) last year, and to fill in on the west front corner, it doesn't look nearly as good as the eastern front corner:





This is one of my favorite spots in the backyard right now. I planted the one batch of red tulips two years ago, then added the daffodils and grape hyacinths last fall. That is our second "little white flower" shrub that is just starting to bloom there, too.



And....the azaleas are starting! Yippee!

It's too nice out to blog

The grape hyacinths on the east side of the house are in full bloom now. Still waiting for the ones in the front beds to bloom. They'll look great with the new daffodils I planted if they ever catch up!

The hosta and Steve irises are significantly bigger now!

The myrtle is blooming really well this year. I think it's because we lost a big piece of the rhododendron that used to shade this area.

I love this flowering shrub with it's petite white flowers. We actually have two of these - I don't know what they are, they were here when we bought the house. One is in full bloom now, and the other hasn't even started! I don't know why they're not blooming at the same time, but it's nice that they'll be staggered and we'll get to enjoy them even longer.

I'm so excited there are buds on the rhododendron. It had a terrible fungus last year (we saw many others in the neighborhood with the same problem), and we had to cut out big sections and spray, but it seems like it's bouncing back this year.

I am (im)patiently waiting for the azaleas to bloom! We aggressively pruned them last year, and I'm hoping they'll be phenomenol this year! I'll have to do a post when they are in full bloom and show you the before and afters.