IT BLOOMED

Oh My Gosh!  I'm like a kid at Christmas time!  I was bringing the trashcans to the front of the curb and  in doing so, I walk by the lily garden... which is in desperate need of weeding, so I try not to look too hard.  But from the corner of my eye, I saw this Bright color in the depths of the green and stopped.  No way!

But Yes!!  It bloomed.  I have lily's that I planted almost two years ago that haven't bloomed.  This one planted a few months ago and it BLOOMED.  And Wow - it's beautiful - this is the hidden lily that my friend, Kim, gave to me.  LOVE the color!

Unexpected

My friend, Kim, gives me bulbs from her father-in-law's garden.  He must have a garden with a bunch of different bulbs.  Kim pulls out a small section, the small ones that have yet to bloom and she plants them in my garden.  This time, she gave me a small grouping and I planted them.  I saw the bulb start to grow and thought, "OH cool!!  Usually the new plants don't bloom until a year or sometimes two or three years later.  But this looks like a bloom coming for the "hidden lily" bulb."

I was excited and kept waiting for it to bloom.... but was in for a little surprise.

Hidden lilies are supposed to bloom "under" the big round leaves.

This is NOT under a leaf!

I looked closer..... these blooms have a straight thin leaf at the bottom.  It appears my friend have me two different bulbs!  So, I have a surprise lily in the garden and will wait patiently for the hidden lily to make an appearance.  I hope they both survive and come back again next year!

Growing....

If you look on the previous post, you'll see a picture of this plant from Kim.  It's the lily that is supposed to bloom under the leaves.  The shoot at the bottom has suddenly sprouted up.  I know it's not a bloom, but wow, it seems like it shot up over night!

View from my window

I love looking out of my front room window to this view:

There are oodles of butterflies flying in the garden this season, but this time, I saw this as well:

Last year, this plant did well.  It was from Sue's garden.  This year, Sue said it didn't come back from her garden.  But it did with mine and it's blooming very well!

More blooms on the tropical spider lily - Yeah!

This is a new lily that Kim gave to me - it came from her father-in-law's garden.  She said that the blooms bloom "under the leaves."  I can't wait to see it!  the leaves are huge.  There were two bulbs and I'm happy to see new leaves shooting out from the small second bulb in the ground.  I hope both survive!

Tropical Spider Lily First Bloom

I'm so excited, like a child on Christmas morning!  I love surprises :)

My friend, Kim, gave me plants from her father-in-law's garden last year.  We thought one of them was a spider lily.  It was planted in the front garden last year, no blooms.  This year, we created a lily garden along the side of the drive way and moved some of the front garden lilies into the lily garden.

I was praying the lilies would survive the transplant.  So far so good.  We thought the spider lily was the one on the left... but this morning, I woke up to a bloom on the right lily!

First thought was, "OH WOW!!  NEW BLOOM!"  I grabbed the camera and then saw it close up.. but wait... it looked like how Kim had described the spider lily... but it was on the wrong plant!  Lol.  So, I have no clue as to what that huge lily on the left will be.

Here's a close up of the spider lily - LOVE it!

Butterfly Vine

I love the passion flower vine.  Love the blooms.... Love that it attracts the butterflies... Not so keen on the fact that it's a butterfly hosts - for the caterpillars to eat.  Kim, Sue and the garden nursery guy all told me that when the caterpillars eat the passion flower vine, it's a sign that the vine is healthy... even if it looks like crap after the caterpillars get to it.  There are about 20 caterpillars on this vine!!  It was so pretty... Was...

Well, at least the rest of the garden is looking good.  Love this next picture showing a bunch of different color blooms :)

Another First Bloom

When my friends gave me flowers from their garden, most of them didn't come with blooms.  Last year when we planted them, they didn't bloom.  So when I get a bloom this year, it's like opening an unexpected early Christmas gift!

This is the first bloom of the African Iris that Sue gave to me.  My aunt calls irises the "ballerinas" of the garden...

My friend, Kim, came over to help with the crepe myrtle trees.  They were in full glorious bloom.  Sadly though, after a hard rain and heavy bloomage, the trees were bending down so far as to block the sidewalk (and also the view to back out of the driveway into a the street).  One of the branches had snapped in half from the weight of the blooms and the harsh rain.

Below is a picture of my husband and Kim trimming the crepe myrtles.  I was sorry to see all those blooms get trimmed away.

Another Bloom

I planted a few new lilies in the side garden.  Most of them are day lilies, quite a few are transplanted lilies from the front garden.. but this one is a new one:  Joie de Vivre.  Here is its first bloom :)

What is it

Our dog, Penny, was playing with this in the front yard.  What is it?  (It's upside down.)  It's a fairly large bug, kind of creepy looking.


Ok, for something nicer to view... the red passion flowers are blooming a lot!

Half of a Holy Spirit

I bought this lily because I liked the name... ok, silly reason, right?  It's called the Holy Spirit Lily.  It bloomed today in my lily garden for the first time.  But only with half a bloom??

I'm also happy that both passion vines survived last year's winter.  I planted them so that the blooms would mingle and they did :)

Picture share

I mentioned in the last post about planting small flowers around the trees....

I look forward to the plants getting bigger and the trees going into pink and white blooms!

In the previous post, I also mentioned a plant I want to dig up.  In the below picture, it's the one to the right:

I want to put a hummingbird plant (which blooms red/orange flowers) in its place....

The "before" shot of the driveway garden

The "after" shots... I have lilies, iris and agapanthas growing..

What's really neat this year in the front garden (which was planted last year), is seeing how the plants that survived the winter come up - what they look like.  The caladiums came back :)

Most of the front garden came back... love the blue black salvias:

The Monarch butterflies have been visiting regularly.

I'm also trying a few new plants in the front garden.... Kim said the blue one (picture below) is not an easy one to keep... it looks good in this picture, but it's a couple of weeks since I planted it and already it's a little icky looking..

Another butterfly bush (purple - below) - bought this at Lowe's on sale.  It was mostly brown.  We'll see if it makes it.

And this pink one was on sale at Lowe's too.  Kim said they should be easy to grow.

My husband and I also found some great deals on Zinnia's this year.  This is just one picture, but I have them planted throughout the front and side gardens.  I love the bright splash of colors!

One plant from last year, which Kim and I wondered if it would take... the purple passion flower in the front garden.  I have a purple and red passion flower in my backyard that took off very well this year from last year... but the one in the front garden was a tiny little sprout from Kim's garden and the bugs got to it last year... but it came back.. and THIS year for the FIRST time, it bloomed!  Just beautifully!

The Grounds Keeper

The weather took a turn for the cool side... in May!  in New Orleans!  That's unheard of.

But good for gardening, in long pants.  But I still pulled up my hair and had on a short sleeve shirt.  I worked in the garden with my friend, Kim, for about 6 hours on Saturday.  And that is how I ended up with a sun burn on my arms and face and OUCH - on my EARS!!  Never had that happen before.  It hurts!

We pulled up weeds and planted a few new additions to the big garden, such as Zinnias and a purple Butterfly Bush.  The cost is normally 8 dollars for the Butterfly Bush, but there was one on sale at Lowe's for 2 dollars.  True, it looks a little on the unhealthy side, but heck, that's how I bought the firecracker plant last year and it's blooming like crazy right now!  I'm praying the Butterfly Bush comes to life like that too.

Another addition to the gardens ~ around the four crepe myrtle trees, we weeded in a circle and planted marigolds and other pretty flowers.  I like it :)  My mother-in-law said that I'm painting with my flowers :)

Something I wanted to do last year, but never got around to it, because of the pregnancy and well, mostly, because of the heat...  I'm starting on a lilly/iris garden.  It will be located on the small strip of land between the driveway and fence in the front yard.  Such a bland little piece of grass and I'm eager to fill it with bulbs and blooms.  I might even try for something to go up the fence.  First though, to tackle the grass being pulled up!

Oh and there's a tree/bush thing along the side of the house that I found out my husband doesn't like.  I only kept it, thinking he DID like it.  But when he said he didn't like the looks of it, both Kim and I cheered!  We're going to up root that sucker soon and find a pretty replacement.

I'm thrilled that almost all of the plants survived that are supposed to come back each year.  It tickles me to see them sprouting up from the ground. :)  It's God's garden... I'm just the grounds keeper :)

New Bloom

With the birth of our son, our first child and most likely the only, as this was a miracle for us... my garden went along the wayside.  The last month of pregnancy, I was on strict bed rest.  Then the recovery of the c-section (due to pre-ecclampsia) took a while.  We hired someone to weed the garden, because it was breaking my heart to see the garden suffocating in weeds.

I haven't been inspired to spend any time in the garden until this unexpected bloom.

This is a lilly my friend Kim gave to me from her father-in-law's garden.  We planted it last spring but it didn't bloom.  I didn't know what color it would be or even if it would survive the winter.  Imagine my surprise when I saw this beautiful red bloom!  It feels like a message from God, "It's time."