Show us your bloomers!

Well, it's May 8th in my NE Okla. backyard. In the spirit of spring & lightheartedness, I thought I'd post some pix of what's blooming in this little corner of the world. I hope others will post flower pix too. Be they veggie blooms, perennials, annuals, wildflowers, weeds or hybrid tea roses, flowers are always a joy to behold!

I have a variety of flowering plants that come back, year after year, season after season. I do little to encourage them, even the hybrid tea roses. Water, maybe compost if I'm feeling motivated. My mother (lives with us) started buying roses, simply because they are lovely cut flowers indoors. 

The plants themselves are pretty ugly because I won't spray them for blackspot & they are pretty much on their own. We always get flowers year after year. I'm posting the pix in order of what bloomed 1st around here. The dogwood & crabapple are already bloomed out! When the crabapple is blooming, it is always full of bees!

I don't have a dogwood, but my neighbor does. The rest of the flowers are on my property. The first few pix are plants that pretty much bloomed simultaneously. The evening primrose is a wonderfully weedy little plant that is carefree. It's actually pinker than this pic.

The mini-rose is an impulse-buy, grocery store plant that a friend gave my mother. It has been thoroughly abused by me. Had it in the ground for a couple years. Got tired of it's constant blackspot. Dug it up, stuck it in a pot & left it for dead all winter. Yet it persists beautifully.

(Forsythia & Daffodils are usually 1st to bloom around here. They were sooo early this year, I didn't get pix).

This is the first year my peony did really well. It's peeking thru a neighboring chrysanthemum, which are incredibly easy to grow here. I'd moved the peony a couple years ago & it finally got happy in the new location. Last year it got beat up by a hailstorm.

I have to admit, I planted a honeysuckle a couple of years ago. It's ummm, a free spirit...taking over a privacy fence. I'll whack it back every now and then. It was the first plant to draw hummingbirds this spring. They've been around for a few weeks now.

It's almost midnight, my husband is out on the patio, enjoying the fragrance from a honeysuckle that is 15 feet away. It's his favorite plant, besides our magnolia which hasn't bloomed just yet. More pix to come!

Here is a hybrid tea & an iris. Both are currently blooming. I didn't get a pic of the honeysuckle, but that wouldn't capture the sweet fragrance. I wonder...when goats eat honeysuckle, is it like dessert for them!?

These are just gorgeous, Gwen, thanks for sharing! I'd love to see more--from you and others, too. 

Thank you, Jocelyn! I just love having a digital camera. I can remember trying to take close-up pictures as a kid (with a kodak instamatic) and being so frustrated that I couldn't do it. Flowers are truly wonderful things! 

Beautiful Iris !!

Roses by the pig park :



Then I moved in to see what was in the rose...



The star Jasmine and Foxgloves on the way down to the chicken shed :



Clematis and George the Brahma cockerel :

Wow, H.W. Hippy, you must have a fantastic camera, the colors just pop out of those beautiful photos! I love the roses, and the treefrog on the rose is great! Reminded me that I had a similar experience. I checked out your blogspot. What a beautiful place you have. It's like a storybook! Thanks for sharing! Here's my frogflower along with a tiger swallowtail on a lantana, and a few other pix.

Well, it's almost a month since I posted the last pix. The above flowers are either in bloom or will be soon. (some pix from last year.) The red day lily and the hydrangea are in bud.

This Torch Lily has become one of our favorite plants. Yarrow is such a wonderful perennial. The lemony yellow of this yarrow goes well with the plumbago. The red yarrow is a little bouquet all it's own. I love flowers that grow this way!

So now it's fall. It's obvious to many (from my past posts) that winter ain't exactly my happy time of year. Fall has never been my fave either. Recently, I've s-l-o-w-l-y begun to embrace fall...a little! We have had some wacky weather in the past few months, but have been blessed by no freezing temps yet. My garden is still showing it's appreciation for that, and I am truly grateful! I still have tomato plants loaded with green maters. (Sorry, didn't get a pic before the batteries ran out.) Planning to ripen as many as possible indoors, when the time comes.

Here are pix of what's still blooming around here. Mums are a given in my backyard. They love the sandy loam here, and are a no brainer. Ditto for the 2nd pic of Scarlet Lady-in-Red Salvia. One of my fave flowering plants of ALL time. It self sows here, I planted the original seeds ONCE. They will tolerate light, SHORT frosts & keep blooming for months if it doesn't freeze hard. They attracted hummingbirds earlier in the season and now Clouded Sulphur butterflies are regular visitors. The nandina is a reliable producer of bright red berries which will maintain that color for weeks.

Fantastic colours to brighten up this time of the year! (Today here it was so dreary.. )

The Nandina is a plant which has been on my wish list for a while. I'm going to an internet friend's garden centre (20% off) with a few other people from the same forum on Friday and I'm hoping she's got one. It's lovely to see it in a real garden.

I hope you are successful in your search. Just another thing we take for granted here in the states. Nandina's are practically a dime a dozen around here. In some neighborhoods, you can throw a stick in just about any direction and hit one! They are a hugely popular landscaping plant here. Practically carefree is why, I guess.

Thanks again for your compliments!

I am jealous of your nandina berries. the berries are the best part of those plants and our new place has tons of nandinas but they didn't develop any berries.

Are you just a little jealous, or are you berry, berry jealous!? (Sorry...you know I can't resist a good pun! )

Seriously though, did your plant flower this year? If not, I bet it's in need of a little rejuvenation thru pruning. Or perhaps the previous owners pruned it at the wrong time of the year.

Here's some helpful info on pruning them:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/county/smith/tips/trees/nandinaprune.html

berry berry berry jealous!  thanks for the link! I haven't pruned them at all. I didn't notice blooms. the homesite has extremely poor soil so they might need a boost also. I will start tossing some bunny poo their way. 

Your plants will be so hoppy to get some bunny poo! 

hopefully they won't 'poop' out on me next year if I give them some manure.  maybe a little phosphorous in the way of some bonemeal will keep them from looking so 'skeletonized' in the fall.

my iceberg rose is incredible. it was dug and moved into crummy shallow soil in the spring. at which time it lost all its foliage. it was eaten down completely by goats twice and been munched on more then that. and now it is covered in buds in mid nov. 

That is a great pic & I'm so glad you took that rose with you! 

A quick pic of my Thanksgiving cactus. Starting blooming last week as if on cue. I've had it for a few years now. Did nothing special to time this bloom, except water it like I'm supposed to. Last year I neglected it water-wise, and most of the buds fell off! Oops.

wow! it really went crazy! do your cats leave it alone? I don't have or want many house plants but a christmas cactus is one of two on my wish list.

You know how I have that little garden window above my kitchen sink? That's where I have the cactus, and they don't bother it at all. For some reason, the cats don't bother plants up there. You could also have one in a hanging basket (I've seen them that way in the stores), the cats would have a hard time getting at a basket, depending where you hang it.

Since last spring, I've kept this cactus outdoors in dappled shade. When I saw it was getting buds, I brought it in. Karla gave me this plant a few Thanksgivings ago. It really needs to be divided, so I will do so and you can have some if you like. 

Would you like a boston fern? I have a giant one at the barn and one here too, and they both need to be divided.

heres mine

just joking here my flower

and where did you get the seed for that beauty?

no seeds just love:)

Hahahaha! I was wondering how long it would be until someone would post some undies on here! Great sense of humor, Charles, and your "flower" is beautiful!

Bird, your "seed" comment, didn't slip by me. I love playin' with words too! 

thanks i love my Holiday

Hey Charles,

Just now got a chance to listen to Tones of Home. That's a great song! I couldn't place the title of it when I posted earlier today. I have the Blind Melon Classic Masters cd, Tones of Home is on it. Such great stuff! Thanks for reminding me of it. 

thanks its one of my favorites