Do I see your clematis growing on the fence? It appears quite happy.

Brooke

Beautiful flowers, Kathy. I wish I could grow amaryllis outdoors up here. I usually get one for the holidays to keep indoors. I can't grow LA irises either, so I have a bunch of heirloom tall and intermediate bearded iris. Here's what's blooming in my yard this week:

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Tulip 'Early Harvest'

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Crocus 'Pickwick'

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Mixed purple and white crocuses in the bird feeder bed.

Happy spring!

Laurel

Brooke, That is a climbing rose on the fence in the first pic. But the clematis are doing pretty good, I think. They are much "bushier" than last year and have already had a few flowers. But they are only about 18 inches tall. I replaced their string with wire as you suggested...and I ran the wire to the top of the fence (I have high hopes). I'll try to get a pic later in the year when they are tall enough to show up.

Laurel, I have tried to grow both tulips and crocus...and they do great here...but only for one year. They don't come back. They tell me that if I will dig them up and refrigerate them, they would bloom again. But it's too much trouble for me. So I really enjoy your pics...keep them coming.

I have never been able to get a bearded iris to bloom for me...not once. I've tried and tried...full sun, part sun, full shade. Nada. I can grow pretty green iris foliage, but no flowers. So I gave up on them too.

Guess what I planted last year after looking at all the pics here? A Japanese Maple! Now I know that they are not suppose to do well here, but does that stop me? No, heck no. I got so jealous looking at all your pics! So I bought a small one for myself. It was looking sorta puny after the winter (very slow to leaf out), so I gave it a harsh talking to. I told it that I was thinking about replacing it with a pretty white dogwood which would love my yard...and a few days later it burst wide open with the prettiest red leaves. It's a little bitty thing, but it sure is pretty. I'll just enjoy it for as long as it will grow for me.
Hope y'all have a great weekend.
Kathy

Kathy,

Your wish is my command! More bulb pics, taDAH!

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Daffodil 'Ice Follies'

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Hyacinth 'Chestnut Flower,' my favorite hyacinth, an heirloom.

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Unknown daffodil by my rock wall.

I'm just loving the coming of spring up here. All of a sudden we've got GREEN again. A week ago we had a nor'easter and a good bit of snow - I almost wanted to cry, even though I knew spring was just waiting to emerge on the first warm day. The past few days have been VERY warm, and spring is happening all at once instead of gradually. My daylilies are growing nice and green now. I have a handful that aren't up yet; I hope I haven't lost them.

Laurel

Laurel, Ooooooh ... I want a rock wall! That's something else we don't have here - rocks. I pick one up every time we go on vacation and bring it back to my garden. But it would take me 10,000 vacations to get enough to actually make anything with them. Enjoyed all your pics, but my favorite is the Pickwick Crocus (I am in a purple/blue phase). Here is another LA Iris that is blooming. I stuck my hand in there for comparison. These blooms have doubled in size from last year. This morning on my walk I saw some LA Iris that were planted in a drainage swale and the foliage was standing up nice and straight (unlike my floppy mess). Evidently mine aren't getting as much water as they'd like. So...I told my husband I need a pond. He just rolled his eyes. I told him he could have fish! He said there wouldn't be room for them to swim, because I'd fill it up with plants.
:-)
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Kathy

Kathy I've seen some really great ponds done above ground in big containers using pond liner to hold the water in the container. The best one I saw was done with three whiskey barrels and the water was pumped from one barrel to the next and then back to the top. One barrel sat on the ground, the next barrel sat on 1/2 a cement block and the next on a regular cement block. To hide the blocks, various potted plants were used.

As creative as you are with your garden, I'm sure you could create something interesting without having to dig.

Brooke

That is a gorgeous iris, Kathy. Thanks for the picture!

I had fun with the camera today. Here are some more spring pics:

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Tulips (I'm having a senior moment, and can't remember their name - tulipa clusiana? Lady Tulips?)

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Unknown pink-cupped daffodils.

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Unknown split-corona daffodil.

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Lupine foliage - I love how it catches the water after a rain.

Laurel

Brooke, There is a house in our neighborhood that has a water feature similar to the whiskey barrel idea...except they made it out of three very large clay pots. It's very cool. I enjoy it every time I walk by it. But, guess what? Today my husband said it would be really nice to have a few koi in the back yard! HA! I knew the idea of fish would get him interested. We are going to look at the pond kits at Lowes this weekend.

Laurel, You have all kinds of bulbs blooming! I've never liked the white daffs until recently. They have grown on me (probably because of all the pics I've seen here). I think I will buy a bag of bulbs this fall and add them to my yellow King Alfred type daffodils. And the foliage on your pink tulips looks variegated...love that! Thanks for sharing.
Kathy

Kathy,

I'm glad you like the pictures. I'm like a squirrel every fall, planting bulbs like burying nuts. The wonderful patterned foliage on the tulips is found in kaufmanniana (waterlily) and grieggii type tulips, both early to mid bloomers. I like the foliage as much as the flowers.

I didn't plant as many bulbs as I usually would last fall (health issues slowed me down), and I won't plant many this year either, because it looks like we'll be moving next year (house hunting, at least). I'll top up the front yard for a nice display during the spring selling season. It will be hard to leave this yard, but I'll make sure I have it written into the contract that certain things (all of the daylilies, a handful of the peonies, a handful of other things) will go with us.

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Laurel

Good luck getting your pond Kathy. For koi, you need a fairly big one with LOTS of filtration. Down there you would probably have to clean the pond year round. Up here we stick a heater in the pond in late fall and wish them well. Try to talk him into fancy goldfish - they are just as pretty but are not as picky on water quality. They also will stay smaller although some of my old ones are 7-8", koi can get well over 12" Can you tell I am too lazy to have a koi pond?

Brooke

Laurel, I dug up everything I intended to take to my new house and put it all in pots. Then I put my house up for sale and told potential buyers that everything in the ground stays...I'm taking everything in pots. What could be more clear, right? I was hoping to avoid all the dickering and negotiating and offers and counter-offers (which I hate). It helped some, but not entirely.

Brooke, Hmmmmm..."Kathy's pond"...uh, oh... wait a minute. I don't want a fish pond - I don't care if it's koi, or goldfish, or catfish. All I want is more water for my iris. I wouldn't clean the aquarium when it was set up in the house, so I surely wouldn't clean a pond. I have enough to take care of already. Now I'm thinking maybe this project should wait a few years until after my husband retires. That way he'll have plenty of time to enjoy HIS fish pond. Still - it wouldn't hurt to look at a few kits and get an idea of what kind of fish pond HE wants. I'd be glad to tag along and offer suggestions if he goes shopping this weekend. That's the kind of wife I am... thoughtful, generous, helpful... (How am I doing?)
;-)
Kathy

You're doing great Kathy BUT be warned - the pond was my husband's idea, project. He dug it by hand, did all the prep work, used big rocks for the edge and gathered all those himself, kept it in primo condition for a few years.

Somehow it is now my responsibility.

Brooke

I found this in the old greenhouse when we bought the house it did not do anything for a couple of years then I took them out of the pot now they are doing great for the last 3 yrs. But I would like to know the name of it, would you happen to know? I know it is an amaryllis but which one?
Jill
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I found this in the old greenhouse when we bought the house it did not do anything for a couple of years then I took them out of the pot now they are doing great for the last 3 yrs. But I would like to know the name of it, would you happen to know? I know it is an amaryllis but which one?
Jill
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Hi Jill, What a pretty flower! I don't know the name of it. You could check the amaryllis forum and ask for an ID. Also, it could be an unnamed cross. You can hybridize amaryllis just like you do daylilies. I have about 50 amaryllis seedlings, but it will be at least 2 more years before they bloom.
Kathy

Kathy, not sure how long the irises have been in the ground but after the 2nd year you should really see a big increase in the amount of irises and they'll get much taller and fuller. They'll be supporting each other much better and won't look so floppy. Before you know it you'll have more irises than you'll know what to do with. You also can't water them too much.

gsonnier, thanks for the info. My blue LA iris are 2 years old. The dark purple ones are 1 year old. After they finished blooming I cut all the foliage back to the ground. Do you know if this will hurt next years blooms? They have already started growing new foliage...it's about a foot tall now. I do love the flowers and hope that the foliage will improve as they get older. Actually, the foliage is pretty...just floppy and messy. I would like it if it stood up straight.

I have been researching bog gardens (instead of a pond). I'm going to make a small one out of a plastic tub about a foot deep. It will be sunk in the ground so that the tub doesn't show. It will have small holes in the bottom for drainage...but slower drainage than my sandy soil. I'm going to put some native plants in it - a FL panhandle spider lily and a pitcher plant. If the plants grow well, I may do the same thing with my LA iris. That way I could flood the tub once a week and the plants would get more water. The sprinkler hits them every other day, but it's not enough for the water lovers. I'll let y'all know if it works.

Kathy

Kathy, Are you becoming like Lucy on that old movie called longest trailer or something like that where everywhere they visit she picks up a rock? Here are a couple of picks of some rocks that were already here when we bought this place.Have over 30 of them.
Jill
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Jill, Are those geodes? I love them! My grandmother used to pick up rocks on her vacations. That's where I got the idea. She had a special little place for her "Holy Land rocks" from a trip she took to Israel. I can just imagine her flying back on a plane with her overnight case full of rocks.
:-)
Kathy

Kathy, Thats what they look like. These were already here when I bought the place, they are really pretty when I clean them up with water.
Jill