Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, March 2009
Submitted by My Garden Spot Blog
This post took a long time to put together today. Blogger seems to have choked on my pictures. Oh well, here we go!
As a lone bloom, in what was once a bed full of dianthus.. I have to honor this little guy. I think the bed’s been shaded out this winter by the tomatoes. The plants are still pretty healthy, so perhaps later this spring, or summer, I’ll have more of them to share.
Carolina Jessamine, it’s been blooming for several weeks. I had a heck of a time getting a picture for some reason. The camera did not want to focus. Wonder if electronic devices have a form of ADD?
It would explain a lot.
The ham’n eggs lantana is blooming beautifully. I don’t have the heart to whack it back as far as I need to, so I guess it will either take over one corner of my garden…or I’ll wait till it’s out of bloom and sneak up on it.
That’s about 6 feet of blooming bush there, and about that much again out of frame.
No, the ferns aren’t blooming. The sword ferns in one bed have made an invasion of the “dry garden”, where I have some aloe and a kolanche. I will be fighting for the resistance in this war.
Oh, did I mention we’d had a little rain? I’m not sure how much, as my rain gauge never got put back up after we rebuilt the fence. From the feel of the soil, we’ve gotten at LEAST two inches, and from the look of this bucket, maybe a bit more.
The three tiny blueberry bushes I planted a couple of weeks ago are doing okay. This one is blooming, but I don’t really expect any blueberries this year.
Aren’t tomato blooms pretty? Especially when one has set a tiny tomato!
Speaking of tiny tomatoes, here are the seedlings, under a frost cloth, on a wagon outside. I wanted them to get the rain, but not too much at one time. They look very happy under there. No, I don’t know why I started so many seedlings. If you live in the Houston area and need some tomato plants, let me know. Between myself, my neighbor and my mom, I’ll still have too many.
I had to take these shots of the pink jasmine earlier this week. The ones I took today just didn’t turn out as well. The camera and I are having discussions with one another. It was much more cooperative a couple of days ago.
The pinata rose is blooming, but just a couple of buds open right now. I’m hoping the rain will encourage it to do better. I think most of the winter it was recovering from having a fence fall on it. All things considered, it’s doing pretty well. The Golden Showers climbing rose is also blooming, but the rain has beat the two open roses to smithereens. And, I don’t care!! (have I mentioned how happy I am it’s been raining? ‘Cause, for the first time in 6 months.. it’s RAINED!)
One of the few things I’ve gotten done this last week or so has been, with ‘Pup’s help, to put up the wire fencing on the western fence. We made the decision to have the “back side” of the fence for two reasons: 1) it was gonna be a son of a gun to try to pound in the nails for the boards behind the raised beds from this side, and 2) I wanted the boards to be able to put up a trellis of some kind on the fence. I’ll take a better picture of it as a whole on another day. Like when the camera is actually talking to me again.
The hyacinth bean plant is blooming again. It’s entering its 3rd spring/summer now. It’s wintered over pretty well. It was doing even better before I snapped off the top half of the vine accidentally, while I was pulling off old, dead vine. Not a problem, as it will recover. Ah… for anyone who attended the Spring Fling last year… this is the parent plant of the hyacinth beans I included into my little sachet bags connected to my Moo cards.
In the front yard, the little Blue Eyes are blooming in among the weeds. I’m going to be able to clean out that bed now, since the soil won’t be rock hard.
The allysium is still blooming in that bed too. I need to find something that makes me happy to plant into the strawberry jar next to it. Perhaps geraniums or begonias, I’m not sure what I want yet.
Not having learned my lessons, or perhaps in a burst of optimism engendered by the start of the rain a couple of days ago, I bought two more nicotiana plants. Poor things. I wonder how long it will take for me to kill them? Sigh.
And, also entering into its third, or is it fourth(?) spring is the pretty salmon colored geranium. It is a trooper. I may even reward it this season and do something crazy, like.. oh… re potting it, or adding some soil to the pot.
Now, see… I KNOW it’s spring, because the wild onions are up again! I think this calls for another scrambled onion and cheese omelet sometime this week.
The morning glories are opening too. I think this may be one of the better pictures I’ve been able to get of this flower. I love the blue flower, but the vines are threatening to take over the house. If I ever go silent, send help. The morning glories will have won.
I also have some roses beginning to bloom again. The Belinda’s Dream is a reliable bloomer, and my favorite.
The little lavender colored rose (I don’t know the variety for this one), got a little beat up in the rain, but it still has it’s charm.
The Peace rose seems intent on keeping me from uprooting it for nonperformance, by putting on THREE full, open roses. The jury’s still out on this one. I love it, but it’s a pain in the backside. And I know from pains in the back side.
Cherry Parfait is opening. Sorry about the white washout, the interior of these roses are so very very white, it’s hard to photograph them.
As much as I love my Belinda, I have to admit that this lowly, Walmart special, Fragranza rose has the best bloom this week. It’s not only big, and pretty, it smells almost as good as the Belinda.
The bees have continued to enjoy the Mexican heather. Oddly, while we’ve had some colder than usual temperatures this winter, we’ve not gotten quite cold enough for long enough to knock the bushes back this year. They’re going to need trimming too.
The Angel Winged Jasmine also suffers from whiteout, but the buds are lovely.
Finally, the nasturtiums and that rogue petunia are still blooming. along with the calendula.
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day is hosted by Carole at May Dreams Garden. For a complete list of participants from all over the world, go there and enjoy a tour!
