How is your garden looking today?

This is a picture of a garden near my house today (azalea)..

Ah, another beautiful picture! This one too brightened my day. Thank you for posting it.

satt : wonderful picture, thanks ! springbulbs have started to break open in our garden and provide some colour. maple-trees are starting to open their buds, causing much sneezing and wheezing ... atchoo ... !
picked a few chives("schnittlauch" in german) from the garden as a nice pungent addition to the salad we had for lunch. hbg

Oooohhh...Azalea jealousy here!

I pulled my first dandelion today.

Eyed some crabgrass, too (where does it come from?!).

nice shot, Satt. Those brilliant azaleas blooms are well set off by the rocks and the tree trunks. Is that an old pine with the reddish bark?

Piffka..
Yeah, its a pine tree (probably Pinus densiflora).

I'm having so much fun!

Tulips in the backyard, dastardly deer chomped most of 'em in the front yard but one bright red one came through yesterday, love it. Daffs and crocuses seem to be over. Grape hyacinths and virginia bluebells are main bloom in backyard. (Thanks again for the ID, J_B! :-D) Mystery tree flowering now, will have to take more pics (having fun with the pic-taking itself, nothing developed yet tho.) Red bud trees (?) going. Lilacs waiting in the wings. Irises waiting. Bleeding hearts!! (Not columbine.) Love 'em. Vinca looking hale and hearty and flowering all over the place.

BBB
I finally finished planting my strawberries in between thunder-lightning storms. Some are in strawberry pots and some join others in my raised planter box. Now if the dogs will leave them alone I will have strawberries this summer.

I still have calla lily bulbs, dahlia bulbs, and peonies to plant.

BBB

I went back to the plant nursery and bought some lamium and and and..... oh, yeah, lady's mantle. The land lady wants to put in some shrubs! Yay!

Bought a new birdbath. Cute cute cute. Haven't put the tomatoes and peppers in the dirt yet. Letting the seedlings acclimate to the new environment. Geraniums, coleus and pink dragonwings waiting to be planted too. Filled the pots on my front porch with pre-potted combinations from Lowe's. They look lovely. And still waiting for the roses to bloom.

It's spring. Hallelujah.

Pink dragonwings? Never heard of 'em, sound very cool.

Neat to hear all this & I want to hear more.

BBB How many strawberry plants did you plant? My calla lilies are up... yours are still bulbs? Must be the difference between high desert & temperate coastal gardens.

Littlek -- The silver leafed lamium? I have some from a couple of years ago. It escaped the porch garden (is not there at all anymore!) for a sunnier place near the horse fence.

eoe -- Tell about the birdbath? I think Dragonwings sound cool, too. Is that begonias? Love 'em! I had a yellow one a couple of years ago that was my favorite: dark leaves, prolific bloomer, really big... but it died inan early freeze.

Sozobe -- I noticed a few bluebells in my wild yard, I wish there were more. In Kew Gardens is a storybook cottage -- abandoned and all around, for 37 acres are woods filled with blue bells. It's a magical place to take a child.

Piffka
Piffka, I added 50 more strawberry plants to my garden this year. I also planted 3 blueberry plants; first time I've tried them.

My bulbs have not been planted yet, which is why you are ahead of me. I can plant in pots, but not able to dig in the ground, so I'm dependent on my contractor having time to do that work.

Our Albuquerque planting season doesn't start until the middle of April, due to frost probability at our high desert 5000 foot altitude.

BBB

Lovely picture, Piff...KA!

Mid-name, I just realized I've been there!!!! Spent a lovely day at Kew when I lived in England. It looked vaguely familiar, and then suddenly rearranged itself into an image from my mind's eye. Cool!

I'm now even fonder of my bluebells. They're awfully pretty, glad I can keep them.

Yes, I believe that the dragonwings are begonias. I had one last year that grew HUGE but it did die at first frost. It's an annual.
My new birdbath is a cheapie I'd been eyeballing at Kroger's for the last three weeks. I just liked the simplicity of it. Not overly ornate. Very clean lines.
Looking out of the window this morning, I noticed a little sparrow sitting on the wrought iron ornament I have near the birdhouses. One birdhouse fell over the winter and I haven't put it back up yet and I wondered, while watching that little birdy perched there, if she could possibly be the girl who had her babies in that birdhouse last year and if so, how disappointed she must have been to find her house gone. I've got to get it back up there tonight. Hopefully she'll come back.
Finished my work for the day. Heading outside...

The scillas are really naturalizing through the front now. It's wonderful! Yellow and bronze striped crocus and some of the teeniest pale lilac crocus are showing up each morning as I leave for work. Things are turning green, with red buds. There is hope, though there is goofy weather heading this way.

On my way home, I spotted one of those giant twig deer that people have in the yard at Christmas. Someone had put it out for recycling. I grabbed that sucker (about 5 feet high at the antlers and about 4 feet long) and toted him home. He's propped up in the backyard now - next to where the lilac may be getting ready to bloom for the first time.

ehBeth, my ex-MIL had a recipe for 'hen tea' that she swore made her lilacs bloom after years of merely thinking about it. Make an omelette, or souffle, or anglefood cake and throw the eggshells into a rinsed out mayo jar (or other similar jar). Cover with water and close up tight. Leave it in the dark for a couple weeks. Pour the 'tea' into a watering can and fill with water. It must stink to high heaven from the sulfur, but it's a great fertilizer for the lilacs.

My moss phlox is starting to bloom. It's a carpet of pink.

What lovely thoughts now that the season is upon us!

Strawberries...yummm! I have them all over my back yard and a few places I get a few berries that start but, nothing after that...my back yard is the worst nightmare you could imagine so, no one does anything and, I've tried for year but, I'll just do my pots by my door and try to clear out by my windows for a bit of sunshine at least.

Anywho....
I decided to try the seed thing this year and AM I SURPRISED! I planted Morning Glories only 2 weeks ago and they are 6" tall already...have to get those out shortly.
I have Bells Of Ireland coming up about 2" now and a few sprouts of Impatients and 4 O'Clocks starting as well.
Hopefully I can keep them going....wish me luck and send me some of your green thumbs!

Beth--what a find!! And lilacs...very nice!

Hello Miss QThing!

The lilac has set some buds, so I am hopeful that this will be the year for actual lilacs in bloom.

This afternoon when I got home, I saw the first signs of the Solomon's Seal getting ready to break the surface. It's probably my favourite plant in the front - or is it the lungwort? or the heuchera? no - it's the Solomon's Seal. Love that baby. I can hardly wait til it's really up and hanging over the ferns that are still teeny tiny but a few fronds have started, tentatively, to unfurl.

Don't tell anyone it's going back down to 0 celsius tonight.

0 celsius...is that cold???



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