Early Work

Earlier this year, in March, I did some work in my garden. But mostly I took pictures of all of the spring growth as it was so pretty. Enjoy!

 Suckers from my peach tree. They are a marvelous shade of green.

 My avocado tree. Sadly, the new puppy ate it in his "I'm going to eat every little thing on the planet" phase.

 The poor basil plant that just keeps limping along.

 The broccoli that is there but doesn't really produce much anymore.

 On the left we find the cherry tomato plant that had been raised here in a pot with us for a while before it got too tall and had to be transplanted. On the right is the cherry tomato plant from the store that was transplanted the day we bought it. The left guy doesn't seem to be too healthy here, but he's okay now. I gave him extra special love.

 So I made a mistake. These aren't marigolds. I apparently had planted some cosmos. They are quite hardy and are thriving in their cute little niche of my yard.

 I had a pot of strawberries. It was wonderful and beautiful. And then the puppy got to them and ripped them to shreds. So I planted them here. As you can see, they don't look very happy, but I promise they've been getting better.

 My blood plum tree is sprouting. I love the look of the dead part of the tree in the background.

 My Japanese Honeysuckle before it is in full bloom.

 My dwarf peach tree has beautiful blossoms. Too bad I've only ever gotten one good piece of fruit off of it in 15 years. All of the buds turn into little peaches that never ripen and fall off of the tree to my dismay.

 More beautiful blooms of the dwarf peach.

 Can you find the hidden sparrow in the Cape Honeysuckle

 Oh cilantro. I can't get enough!

 More strawberries added to the patch of the ones my puppy shredded.

 More grapefruit on my lovely tree.

 My wonderful and yummy green onions.

 My wonderfully healthy aloe vera. Apparently I'm pretty good at growing cacti :D

 I love my scraggly lemon tree. Sometimes it makes wonderfully tart lemons.

 Okay, now I'm just playing with my camera's focus abilities on my lemon tree. But it's a pretty pic, so I took the time (20 min) to wait for it to load to this blog.

Yet another pic of new growth on my lemon tree. I love that new growth on things is this purple-ish red color.

Stay tuned for another post soon. Much more yard work has been done. It's actually quite impressive.

Gone To Seed

Yep. Most everything in my garden is now sprung from the seeds of the plants I neglected last year. With a couple of actual well tended plants thrown in (well, maybe just one well tended plant).

The broccoli. I should have eaten it instead of letting the florets actually open and become flowers.

I didn't plant these here. 

 These were once French Marigolds that went to seed, died and the seeds sprouted to become this less hybrid version. They're quite simple and nice. Though I miss my dark red blooms with orange rims.
 

A close up. Isn't it simply cute?

This is my one "well tended" plant. It's my white grapefruit tree. Its fruit is sweeter than any Ruby Red grapefruit I have ever had and I've tried quite a few. These babies get huge too. About the size of a head of iceberg lettuce, maybe a little smaller.

These are the seedlings of my green onion crop. They aren't growing where I initially planted the green onions, but it doesn't matter, I'll still pull them and eat them anyway.

Winter Gardening...

Actually this post should be more aptly named "Not Tending To My Garden for a Very Long Time and Being Wonderously Surprised When Not Everything Died and Some Stuff is Popping Up".

My poor plum tree that almost died on me has sprung forth into bloom. This I did tend to. I got rid of most of the deadwood, though I still have some sawing to do as soon as I actually get my hand saw down from the garage walls. Still, I'm glad it survived. It is a pity that so much of it died though as it had the PERFECT shape. *sighs*

My pretty "crepe paper" rose.

No idea what this is. It's on some sort of vine that serves as ground cover. If you know what it is feel free to comment. *Edit:* Figured it out. This is called "Vinca Minor". It is a member of the periwinkle family.

A bit of growth on one of my roses. I love the purplish red color.

Alright, this is my second go at Nasturtiums. I have actually dug holes this time to collect the water I pour on them. The last time the water would run into the sidewalk because the dirt gets so hard. So, they had sprouted when it rained and rained and rained, but then I couldn't keep them watered. Also, I planted them in February this time, like the package said. Last time I planted them in August and they didn't sprout until November. Hopefully, these'll germinate and sprout in the 8-12 days the seed pack says it'll take.

Some more roses. These are the hardiest bushes I have ever encountered in my life. Thank you mom for planting bushes that can withstand my neglect.

Another hardy plant, the freesia. The blooms look like wheat because they haven't fully opened yet. I believe this is a yellow flowering one, but it could be pink. I'll update as soon as the flowers open.

Some more freesias. They had a couple of beautiful open yellow flowers, that my dog knocked off today.

Above on the right are some freesias that had to be transplanted due to yard work. They look like they're dying, but they should at least pop up again next year. Hopefully, they'll rejuvenate now and send out some blooms. The rose there is on the grave of my hummingbird, Jewel. I learned later that Jewel was a he and that he was an Anna's Hummingbird. I caught him by placing some glue on his favorite branch of the blood plum tree you see at the top of the page. I kept him for a few days and then decided to release him. Sadly the day I was going to let him go he died by drowning in the food solution I gave him. I didn't have a fancy feeder, so I put the solution in a shallow plate. Jewel fell in and because it was so sticky, he wasn't able to stand up. I cried so much when I found him that night. My dad and I made him a little coffin and buried him under the blood plum where he liked to sit. Sad note to end a post on. Sorry 'bout that. His family still hangs around my house though and lives in the honeysuckle bushes and peach trees. They're pretty prolific in fact, so we have about a million hummingbirds around us at all times. I'll try to get some pics and post them.

Random Flowers

Ah, the last of my catchup pictures. These are some very wonderful plants and flowers that reside at my residence.

This is Wild Fairy Iris. I have a TON in my yard. They are cool, but if you let them run wild for fifteen years they get EVERYWHERE! But they're nice and hardy and it's a pretty flower.

This is a Cape Honeysuckle. When I was a kid I would pluck the flowers and suck the nectar. I found that if you plucked a closed flower, there wasn't much nectar. The wide open ones had tons of nectar and were super sweet.

The best smell in the world is in this little flower. This is Pink Winter Jasmine. It blooms quite often in my neck of the woods, but I hear it's even better in regions where the winters are cold. I love the delicate little flowers and the smell makes me so happy every time it blooms.

Oh my radishes, I had no clue the flowers could be so pretty and delicate.

Freesia Day

Well, these are some old "catch up" pictures until the freesias pop up this year. I love them so much. They are a wonderful burst of color in my regularly sandy brown yard.

A purple-ish yellow bud almost in bloom.

A night time shot of that purple yellow one. It has finally opened up.

The purple faded to a wonderful pink.

A  closeup of that pink that used to be purple freesia.

And now for a little bit of another color.

Rose Time

Okay, I have some catching up to do.

Some roses from early 2010:

Pretty in pink.

 Double down.

Here we see a rose at night. I like night shots sometimes

Now for the roses that popped up late in the year of 2010:

 The lighting here was just so perfect. This makes me think of weddings.

I always called this one the "crepe paper bush" because the edges of the petals of the roses looked like wrinkled crepe paper.

 

 

 The flower here isn't as impressive as the bee sitting on it. Next time I'll try to get a picture of a bee on a pretty flower.

My mother's favorite rose bush in all of the garden. It might have been grown from cuttings of the roses my father brought her when I was born.