Spring Flowers

Here are some of the flowers we had in our garden this spring. Here's another reason we were so busy.


Narcissus. As you can see, we have a lot of them. They just keep multiplying like crazy! I don't mind. When these come up, I know it's spring.

Narcissus

 Violas. Violas are planted in the Winter time, here. I thought people were nuts when I saw these in the Winter season. They take the frost and look dead. By noon, you'd never know they looked so bad. These even survived an ice storm! They are very forgiving of cold weather. As you see by the date tag, they were still going strong in mid-April. They don't usually last that long.

Violas

 Japanese Snowball Bush. This is a plant that I really love. It is beautiful in the Spring. Summer, Fall and Winter...so, so. It just looks like a regular bush. However, the leaves are serrated, deeply creviced and leathery. I can appreciate the leaves without the snowballs.

Japanese Snowball Bush

 Heirloom Rose. I forget the name of this one. I moved all of my roses out of a corner of the front yard that was being overtaken by poison ivy. This year was really a good year for this one. It must've needed a change of venue, more sun and new soil.

Heirloom Rose

 Mimosa. Here is my Mimosa tree in full bloom. Lovely, isn't it?

Mimosa with Daylilies

 Here's a close-up of the Mimosa flowers and leaves. It looks really delicate, but it takes a beating with our weather. The tree is getting a really nice canopy and is casting shade in the yard.

Mimosa Flowers

Here is a peach daylily that I purchased from one of those sales that pop-up in a field from time to time. I think I paid $3 for the pot a bunch of years ago. I've since divided it. I'll need to divide again. The other leaves surrounding it are from miniature yellow daylilies. Those will get divided this coming Spring, too.

Peach Daylily

 My garden by the back deck and parking lot. Foreground is a hybrid yarrow. It did really well this year, as you see. I have more patches around the yard. Lantana is the little pink flowers behind that. The lantana has since overtaken this whole area and the Yarrow died back a bit. Both of these flowers are really good for our climate. They take the heat and not much water. Butterflies, hummingbirds and hummingbird moths are really loving this right now. An Italian cypress is the bush behind. It is about 20 feet tall and 4 foot in diameter. Another climate forgiving plant for us.

Lantana and Yarrow

 Confederate Jasmine. This is a sickeningly sweet smelling vine. If the air is still and humid, you get a really big whiff of the fragrance as you pass by or sit nearby. It has a really pretty star-shaped flower and is very hardy. I have to cut it back every year otherwise it will grow into the willow tree to the left. It is doing just that, right now.

Confederate Jasmine

 One of my Frankenstein plants. This is a Rose Mallow, which is a member of the hibiscus family. It is also known as a Cottonbush because of the seedpods it makes after the flowers die and fall off. This will bloom clear into December, sometimes. The flowers last only one day. This plant started from seed and I put it where another Cottonbush died off. This year I noticed that it has red and pink flowers coming from the same plant, which is why I call it my Frankenstein plant. I love seeing plants sport like this. Two other Cottonbushes I have, which came from seed, have pink flowers only. Those are gorgeous, too.

Rose Mallow Sport

Now you have seen a bit of the flowers that I love to collect and grow.

Take care.