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!