Exotic Love

Siloam Ury Winniford

El Desperado

Strawberry Candy

Startle

 
Sleigh Ride

Blame it on Alice. . . she's the one that turned me into a lily nut. Above are pictures of just 6 of the 47 lilies that I ordered along with Alice. I believe she held her order down to only 19 lilies. My initial order was over 120 but Alice reminded me that I don't have that much room in my yard, so I had to look long and hard at all the offerings and take into consideration such factors as: beauty, when they bloom, if they are re-bloomers, their height as well as price per lily. Even at that I'm not sure right now just where I'll put all of the new 47 lilies, but I'm sure we'll find a home for them somewhere in the yard.

                    BEFORE                                                 AFTER

WHEW!!!  I finished planting the money wort in the new bed at 8:15 tonight.  I started right after it quit raining this afternoon. I can't remember for sure what time that was, but no matter . . . I'm pooped. Surely I will sleep well tonight as a by-product of all that physical labor.  And as an added bonus, I worked through supper time so I'm that much ahead on my diet.

The first picture is of the front of my house. I added Creme Brulee Coreopsis and Purple Homestead Verbeena to the original landscaping.  At first it seemed like the purple homestead verbeena was not going to bloom.  All that work and only one or two spots of color.  Then the very hot weather hit and voila . . . little purple blooms all over the place. I'm sure glad, because it was a lot of work planting all that verbeena and I'd hate to think that it wasn't going to bloom for me.

The second picture is another of the purple hyacinth vine growing on my back fence. I just love how it sends up all those purple blossoms.  The leaves are a very dark green with purpleish veins and undersides. Very pretty.

These two pictures are of my latest project. Now that they are finishing up the house being built next to me and they've got the sod laid for that house, I can now work on the problem I've had with that part of my yard. It's on the North side of my house and unfortunately it's been hard to get my grass to grow because it's in the shade most of the time. Soooooo, I think another bed of money wart like the one on the South side of my house is in order. I planted it late this spring and as you can see in the picture on the right it's already filled in nicely.  Yesterday I pulled up all the sod in the area of the new bed and today I set the stones for the border for the bed. I've sprayed the bed with Grass-B-Gone to kill any risidual Bermuda roots.  I'll wait to plant the money wart until the last part of August to give it a better chance of surviving. Ordinarily I would not plant any at this time, but I have a bunch of "August Bucks" to spend at my local TLC (nursery). I earned the August Bucks all spring and summer and can only spend them in August.  So basically the money wart will be free, but only if I get it in August. So I'll wait as late in the month as I can.

It seems that I have been remiss in posting to Xanga.  You know, you get busy and don't post and before you know it, it's been almost a month since you've posted. So here is a quick look at the color in my yard today. The first ones are Black Eyed Susans (or Rubekia) and the second are Gillardia (Oklahoma State Flower). The next is of some really beautiful Morning Glories that Alice gave me some seeds for. She received some seeds from a friend and shared them with me, and for some strange reason mine bloomed but Alice's didn't. We're going to make sure we harvest some of the seeds from these. The next two pictures are of my miniture rose bushes. They were really bought on the spur of the moment when Alice and I went to get all my shrubs for my back yard. We were at Home Depot and they had these little pots of tiny yellow roses and they were only $5.19 per pot so I picked up three. Alice didn't think they'd do very well nor bloom very long, but they have sure been a delightful surprise. They have bloom ALL spring and summer. I love them. And lastly my purple hyacinth vine that's growing on my back fence. It's a lovely vine that will put on pretty purple seed pods later on this fall.  About the only thing I don't like about the vine is that it leaves behind a woody vine that's hard to get off the fence each season. But such is the price we pay to have beautiful flowers about us.