Winter

It's been that uncolourful period of the year, between the killing frosts of December, and the first blooms of January... Nothing to shoot with the camera except seedpods and berries...

Yesterday, I finally got a pic of a hellebore bloom!

today, I shot the bloom encased in ice...

Won't hurt the bloom though, hellebore are as tough as nails....

Shot a clematis show yesterday before the storm.... Summer clematis
seeds...

The towhees show up nicely against the ice...

These pics are all clickable.

One last snow picture....

house

Brought out a house...

Put blocks under it... put in a septic tank...

Started planting trees around it... still need to add solar panels...

Monarch butterfly

Monarch & tropical milkweed.

Mid July

Butterflies, lizards and flowers from the moon garden. click butterflies & lizards for larger pictures (opens in a new window)
gulf fritillaries	zebra swallowtails
painted lady butterfly on echinacea	buckeye butterfly
Takes caterpillars to have butterflies, and they have very specific dietary requirements.... In this day & age of endless turf, we all should grow butterfly host plants   << click the link It's no longer possible to depend on the vacant lot down the street to supply us with butterflies for our flower garden.
little gray lizard AKA Eastern Fence Lizard	striped lizard AKA Six-lined Racerunner
These lizards are helpful in the garden, They will occassionally dash out in front of me to grab bugs... I've even had them hang out next to the campfire eating termites while I made coffee & pancakes! I was reading at the baker creek forum (http://idigmygarden.com/forums) where somebody had a squash bug eatin horned toad! Obviously, you wouldn't have butterflies or lizards in so-called "traditional" chemical gardening...

Here's a couple taken at dusk from the moon garden.


flashlight bush

gourd blooms

The June Garden

Everything is blooming!



What were these veggies doing in my flowers?

winter colour

First Bloom... I grew this camellia from seed.... My camellia bushes traveled with me from GA to TN, and back...

Autumn Colours

The sand holly bushes are beautiful! I spent days online searching for the name of this drought proof wonder, using search terms like "red berries in the autumn", "in the fall", & I did find one picture on an Alabama blog, but she didn't know what it was either. When / if I find her blog again, I'll post a link.

The leaves on the Sand holly soon turn yellow and fall to the ground, but the berries persist on the naked branches till Spring. I sampled the berries, hoping for cranberries, and while one didn't make me sick, they also didn't taste good enough to make a meal. It would seem the birds agree.

I finally wrote to the Georgia Extension Service and after a false start, we got it narrowed down.

Ilex ambigua

some additional colour:

maple

Another cool xeric shrub

Tupelo