Two Gems to Share

First the early hollyhock is BLOOMING!!!!!!!!!!

Don't you just love the joys of having a garden?

Second a butterfly visited!!!

More Garden Work

These are another variety of Sweet Pea we have about to bloom!!!

The roses are starting to bud out!

The african daisy has got tons of buds! We grew it from seed this winter!

The hollyhock is about to open and you can see it's going to be pink!!!!!!

Gerard is splitting up a couple of rose bushes we had bought it as one plant and noticed that there were 2 different roses in there so since they are dormant we split them now.

He found worms in the pot!!!

Here they are potted up

He even found a tiny one and just set it in the side of this pot to grow bigger.

Pretty Close-ups!

Beautiful yummy smelling Stock.

Viola seeds and bloom.

Sweet Pea buds getting ready to bloom!

Baby Plants

Passiflora Actinia

Passiflora Actinia

Unknown, we think it's the Sacred Datura.

Buds about to Open!!!

EXCITING!!!!!! Honeysuckle blooms popping open!!!

It's still small right now but I know after it warms up it will take off and ramble.

Yes, that is some sweetpea's growing with it at the base!

Overall photo from our sitting area. The stock and petunia's fill the air at night.

You can see the 2 new floribunda roses we planted along this area. The alyssum also smells so sweet! We walk down this area anytime we leave and return home so it's wonderful to have yummy smells along the way.

This is the Don Juan climbing rose, we are going to let him ramble, maybe give him a trellis or a few bamboo polls to hold onto. We'll see what will be best when he starts reaching out.

We put the new Hybrid Tea rose over on this side.

One hollyhock has buds, it's the one freak hollyhock that grew bigger than the rest and is ahead of the class!

The bougainvillea is still resting through the cold, and has sweetpea's at the base.

Sweet Pea BUD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we spotted our first Sweet Pea bud!!! So excited we've been waiting months for blooms!

Here is a photo of Madie waiting between pots for the ball to be thrown!

New Roses

Preparing some bareroot roses to be planted! We recently bought four new roses, can't wait for spring! It's just around the corner for us here in the desert!
We bought Don Juan which is a great red climbing rose we've bought several times in the gardens we've had. It's a beautiful red and smells nice too. So each time we have to create a new garden I look for this one.
Also we bought Paradise which is a pink hybrid tea variety, we've never grown it before but it says strong fragrance.
Then we bought Gene Boerner which is also a pink floribunda rose, we can't remember for sure if we've grown it before.
Dream Waltz a red floribunda that we've never grown, but it says it's a prolific bloomer...we'll see! I hope it lives up to the expectations!

Garden Update

The Society Garlic is blooming!

We added a new Honeysuckle vine.

Garden Update

I normally don't care for orange roses or orange anything but I'll make an exception for this rose! It's been delighting me all day! The sun hitting it makes it glow but I wanted to get an after sunset shot so you can see the color. Don't you just want to wrap yourself up in it? I love how it has gold tones and fades to lighter apricot and blushes pink.

Also we put the perennial Lantana in the ground and potted some yummy scented Petunias.

Our row of Viola's and Alyssum is growing nicely.

We also moved the Bougainvillea so it's along a fence and gets plenty of sun. Plus we will be able to see it while sitting on the patio.

Beautiful Rose

This morning I looked outside and the rose bud that had started blooming was looking so stunning that I had to take a photo!

I also saw the most stunning hummingbird today, but I had just set the camera down and couldn't grab it to try taking a photo! Oh I wish I could have gotten him, he had maroon on the top of his head and a purple stripe along his throat! Just beautiful!

Here is Madie in the garden! The Viola's and Alyssum we planted are doing great!

Fall Additions!

We couldn't resist getting a few perennials for fall planting, since it is the best time to plant them so they have a running start in spring!

We also got some Alyssum and Viola's for winter flowers. I just adore Viola's and they spread nicely and I'm sure will be beautiful during the cold months! Ah you gotta love the deserts year round gardening! We've planted Sweet Peas for winter too.
The perennials we put in this area from left to right are Society Garlic, Dwarf Lily of the Nile, a pink Autumn Salvia, and Verbena(can't really see it back there in the shade). I think the Verbena might be getting too much shade and will need to be moved.

Here is some Bougainvillea on the back wall, which I think is in too much shade! I didn't realize how much shade was there and I thought the Bougainvillea would be stunning on that wall but it might have to be moved and replaced with a shade lover.

A yummy honey smelling yellow Butterfly Bush! This will get nice an big! The hummingbirds will love it and I can cut flowers for bouquets!

We got this pretty red rose! For some reason we've noticed that red roses always seem to do the best. They usually are the most bug free for us. It smells very good too. The name is Olympiad which is supposed to be a good variety and does well in the desert.
Most everything we got is drought tolerant, but the reason we put the rose there is when the grass is watered the water runs to this spot which will be perfect for the rose, but would have been too much water for a drought tolerant plant. The spot also gets full sun!