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...

It's September already?

This summer is flying (has flown?) by. I can't believe it's Labor Day. Things happening in the garden include...

A woodpecker on the sunflower out front! (Sorry this photo isn't so great, I stood out on the porch in my towel after getting out of the shower to try and get a shot, so was in a bit of a rush!)



The pear trees are full of pears, and we have started picking - yum!



The sunflowers are still doing really great!



The peppermint rose is blooming again.



We learned a few years ago how absolutely beautiful cotton flowers are, so each year we grow a few - not only because it's kind of neat to pick cotton in our backyard, but for the flowers as well.



And, we had the most delicious, colorful, local dinner the other night. Everything is local, even the sausage is from the northeast. Green beans, cremini mushrooms, purple potatoes, red and green peppes, onions, tomatoes...yum!

It was supposed to rain today, but it hasn't...

yet. Now they're saying it will rain overnight and clear out by midday tomorrow. I hope so!

Our backyard smells like heaven for two reasons:



The pear trees are blooming.



and what's that behind that pear tree? Lilacs........



Soon we will have a profusion of money blant blooms! There were a few of these in the yard our first summer in the house, I'm assuming Mrs. Pampalone started them. They are biennials, and bloom the second year. (That's what biennial means, right?) They reseed like mad, and we have them in all sorts of places, in the beds, on the hill, it's all good.



So we have this empty spot where we used to have a Carolina Allspice. Mom doesn't think we should have taken it out, but it creeps into everything and we just didn't love it, so out it went. This lone tulip came up there this year, it must have needed the sun.





Here is what is left of the Silky Dogwood from Lisa and Guy's wedding that the tree guy accidentally cut down this winter. I'm still a little mad about that, but look - new growth! I have hope that it will someday come back and be as big and beautiful as it was before.