I Love Yellow!!!

Regular old daffodil

I really do love daffodils.  And anything else yellow in the early spring!  Every year in January I start looking forward to spring.  New flowers and new leaves....every thing is so pretty and fresh.  Yellow is such a happy color.  It really helps bring up my mood during the cloudy, gray days right before spring starts.  I was really excited to start seeing the daffodils we planted last fall pop up.  Now that they started to bloom the yard is looking more like home.  I am already looking forward to planting more in other parts of the yard.  Also, I am interested to see how quickly the ones that are planted will spread out! 

Grape Hyacinth

Yellow violas

  I really like yellow and purple or blue together.  I planted some grape hyacinth and Tete a tete daffodils together to achieve this color scheme.  Tete a tete is a dwarf form of daffodil only grows about 6-8" tall.  In order to get a naturalized effect I scattered the bulbs on the ground and planted them where they landed.   They are coming up and blooming together so nicely.  My plan worked...Mahahahhahhahaha.

Tete a tete and Grape hyacinth

Another early spring bloomer is the Lenten Rose.  Here is the only one that decided to bloom this year.  I planted 5 and only this one bloomed.  Well this one and one other that never made it into the ground.  I am kinda disappointed with the others but they seemed weak when I planted them so I guess I am happy they even made it this long.  jerks...(muttered under my breath)  

Now I am just sitting back and waiting to see what comes up and blooms next!!

Play on Plant Names

Next Tuesday is Valentine's Day and we hope that you have plenty of love in your garden.  You will be in the 'Winner's Circle' if you take care of your 'Lovebug' by offering her some 'Midnight Wine'.   You might even make her 'Spellbound' with a 'Evergold' necklace.  Her heart will definitely be 'Frost Proof' when she sees how much you have done to make her Valentine's Day special.   And ladies, don't forget your guys!  Get him a new 'Mr. Bowling Ball' or let him get the 'Mohawk' he has been wanting.  

This is something that I wrote for work.  I have told little stories like this before, but they were much risque.  I may start writing them down as the stories pop into my head.  They would be fun to post!

Her favorite flower....Daffodils!

When I watched the movie Big Fish, I loved the scene where he filled the courtyard with daffodils to propose to the girl.  I wanted that so bad.  So one of the first things I did when I bought a house was run out and buy Daffodil bulbs.  I thought about where to put them for a long time.  And lucky me, just like in the movie, I have some giant Oak trees in my yard.   One Saturday Dave cleaned up all the leaves under the one Oak in the front yard, and I got a bright idea.  I went and got the bulbs.  I began throwing them around the tree and where ever they landed is where they were planted.  This type of planting is called naturalizing, for the simple fact that it looks very natural when they come up.   

The bulbs were planted in the fall and now they are growing!  They are up about six inches and I am starting to see buds!

At the same time that I planted those I also planted some Dutch Iris and a dwarf variety of Daffodil called Tete a Tete.  Those are both coming up as well.  The Tete's are even starting to show color!  Pictures soon.

Hot Flash!!! The good kind...

 

I finally decided what to plant in front of the house.   I was riding around the nursery the other day and this beautiful flower caught my eye.  So I did some research when I got back to the office and found out it is Camellia 'Hot Flash'.  It was a sport off Camellia 'Shi Shi Gashira'.  It grows to be about 5' tall and 6' wider, possibly more, and this growth pattern makes it extremely similar to Shi Shi.  The big difference is the color of the flower.  Shi Shi Gashira has a bright magenta-pink flower, and Hot Flash has a wine-red flower.  

I have room for three rows of shrubs on the left side of the porch.  I have planted one of the Camellia 'Hot Flash' close to the foundation.  In front of that I will plant two shrubs, then in the very front row I have already planted three Peach Drift Roses.  The middle row of two shrubs is going to be a new type of Abelia called 'Radiance'.  It is a white variegated form of Abelia, but the new growth has a butter yellow edge that later fades to white.  It still blooms white just like most Abelia's.