Sunday, March 17, 2019

Ms Nature is showing off her new clothes


I have yet to clear off my desk or work tables. While the weather is still overcast and cooler, it has been dry and so I've been working out in the yard Thursday and Friday tidying up the side yard on the west side digging up the walking onions and pulling other weeds (plan to make this a huge shade fern garden since grass doesn't grow there well anyway), planting fern nodules my neighbor gave me and the rest of the phlox Ms Moon sent me but mostly trying to tidy up around the bluebonnets out front. Got the weed eater out and trimmed around them and then when my retired farmer neighbor walked by and identified the grass crowding them out as rye grass which was starting to go to seed...you'll have ten times as much next year he says, just trim off the tops...I got out there with scissors and filled a huge trash bag with the debris, and picked the first of the peas.


Yesterday I trimmed the little backyard as the lawnmower won't fit through the gate and around the flower beds just outside the gate (the evening primrose which hasn't started to bloom yet and I are parting ways, much as I love it, because it has invaded my flower beds and just takes over), pulled up armloads of sticky weed (or cleaver as my sister calls it) and another weed that makes sticky little seeds that get caught in the cat's fur out of the big backyard (did I get it all? oh hell no). Then my daughter showed up for a surprise visit and after she left I took the dog for the long walk where we saw this ornamental plum tree in full bloom



and then filled the tea cup after a cardinal perched on it giving me the stink eye. Unfortunately, it slipped out of my fingers and crashed to the ground breaking the saucer, the third saucer I might add. Squirrels broke the other two by leaping off it with such vigor that it swung right off the hook. So now it's hanging slightly askew til I can get a new saucer to drill.


More yard work on the agenda for today, the main chore being a return to digging up the wild mexican petunias, which I also love but are highly invasive and crowding out stuff I want. You'd never know I spent a good week digging them up last spring as every bit of root left will regrow though they aren't nearly as thick.

these are coming out

The maroon japanese iris are sending up scapes as is the yellow which is the first time this one has bloomed but the white iris and purple iris behind the buddha which were always first have failed to bloom for the third year in a row. I also have a tricolor iris in the front that has four buds on that I noticed Friday and then Saturday two had been munched on so I put aluminum foil strips around the bottom last evening because I read somewhere that snails and slugs won't travel across it and this morning no more munching (no pictures because the stupid camera in the iPhone would not focus on the iris scapes, maybe when they bloom).

More spring porn...

The first poppies are open


and I guess I was just impatient about the bluebonnets which have really filled out 


and the indian paintbrush as the field has also filled out with many color variations.


click to bigify
          
The spirea is halfway to full bloom. It usually blooms with the azaleas but they bloomed early and are done now.


And the baby-blue-eyes scattered around the yard are also starting to bloom.





19 comments:

  1. Geeze, it's all so beautiful. Oriental poppies! My dad would be pleased. It's waaaaay too early here, and I passed dad's plant on to my sister. It wasn't happy, It spent 30 years at the old house, never getting bigger than the day we brought it from the house (garden) we grew up in. And it didn't grow any bigger here, either, so I sent it to her new front yard.
    Did I mention the peas?

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    1. no blooms? there red ones are almost like weeds they reseed to readily. I have a different one coming up, foliage a little different. could be pink or purple. I hope it's a purple.

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  2. The Indian Paintbrush and the Blue Bonnets are just gorgeous.

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  3. So beautiful! That field with the paintbrush is amazing.

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  4. Show! Your springtime shouts- beautiful shots!

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  5. Looks like you're totally back at it! I need to do the same. Just got home from our weekend away and my tung tree is glorious and the azaleas have finished.
    Sigh.
    It never ends, does it? Either the glory or the passing, the work or the reward.

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    1. so much work! I've enjoyed being outside these past four days after being cooped up in the house all winter. I'll be out there today too since there is still so much to do before it gets too hot to do anything and be cooped up in the house all summer! but the body does complain.

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  6. I saw an article that said this was a banner year for blue bonnets so I was hoping your field would fill out. Gorgeous!

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    1. apparently I was wrong about the wildflowers already blooming north of us. my daughter drove up a week ago and said she didn't see much. Big Bend National Park is supposed to be having an incredible bluebonnet bloom this year.

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  7. Just beautiful Ellen. You are way ahead of us in NC. Don't even have peas in the ground yet! I wonder if bluebonnets and paintbrushes would grow here, they are so lovely. I tried to grow Mexican Petunia here. The lady who sold it to me said it was invasive and would take off, It died. Thank you for the pictures

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    1. Hi Shelagh. I'd be happy to send you as many roots and plants as you'd like if you want to try again.

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  8. I've only seen baby blue eyes once in the wild. It's such a pretty plant. I got down to Brazoria yesterday, and there were a lot of nice, fresh paintbrush there, too. I'm so glad your bluebonnets have filled out -- they're gorgeous.

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    1. I dug up a small clump of baby-blue-eyes in a campground on the banks of the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country years ago and they spread all over at the city house. brought some here to the country house and they are spreading nicely here too. besides the bluebonnets across the front of the house which were established when we bought it, we started some in the back and it's a nice big patch this year.

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  9. I may spend all day, looking at these photographs. It will probably do more good than the handful of D3 I toss down my gullet every day. That field of Indian Paintbrush is so lovely.

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  10. Oh my, it is spring there, and it is simply gorgeous!

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  11. Your area must be naturally drier than mine as it is hard for me to keep the poppies I plant. they last only one season...maybe we are too cold? At least your photos give me a picture of what I must be thinking about soooooon.

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  12. We had a field of Indian paintbrush like that a few blocks from our house. Now the field has become
    a parking lot, And that is called "progress". Not. Your flowers are beautiful. Bluebonnet always remind me of childhood drives in North Texas. Fields of bluebonnets for miles. I've never had much luck with poppies. Do love them. Thanks for sharing the photos.

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  13. We have "cleavers" too -- also called "goosegrass," for some reason, and "sticky willy." (Which sounds like a snide name for Bill Clinton.) I wonder if it's the same as yours?

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.