4-24-15

 Garden wire clematis

 Chinaberry flowers

 Mock orange

Red maple

Green mulberries... my mouth waters...

April flowerz

Seeing a buncha butterflies... but most keep fluttering...

Sulfur on coral honeysuckle

Saw a zebra swallowtail flutter through on her way to the paw paw patch... she was in too much hurry to pose for me... I saw a number of spicebush swallowtails also... but... they also had other things in mind... besides my poor blog...

I did see this tiger swallowtail in a native azalea while at work in town...

The tiger that visited my peach tree last month... flew away before I could retrieve the camera...

Gotta have caterpillars to have butterflies... but these cutworms aren't on the list of keepers... Tossed them in a bucket of water...

These cross-vine blooms seem early...

The atamasco lilies are pretty much finished for the year...

 The columbines seem very happy in my sand... 

Small dogwoods are lighting up the brush...

It's Carolina rock-rose time again...

The black walnuts are coming up!

Last Autumn, I spotted a walnut tree in a park in town dropping nuts... Score!

How about this patch of pepperz?

I tossed a pile of pepper plants next to the fence last Winter when planting some kale seed...

The kale seed froze out... But I should have enough pepper seedlings to transplant...

Now... If I could get my maters to do this... My tomato seedlings are kinda sparce...

Spring

It's definitely Spring....

Bridal wreath spirea

 Sassafras

 Redbud

 Collards

 A baker's dozen + 1 Buckeyes just re-potted

 The bloodroot is already dropping petals

 Peach and pear blossums

 Trillium

Trout lily

What's Spring look like at your house?

 Caught a rat in the squirrel trap out in the travel trailer over-night... Brought it in to get a pic...

Kitty can't wait... To feed kitty, I just open the trap doors... The rat makes a dash for freedom... and the cat gets an easy meal.

Frost and Seedpods

Monarda punctata

Frost flowers on verbesina virginica

Last year... The temps got down to 7°  and the frost flowers grew with each day that the temp was below freezing.

Dog fennel frost flowers

The frost flowers on the verbesina are well known and often posted all over the internet... These frost blooms on the dog fennel... seem to be less documented.

Blooms on the plum tree... They're calling for temps in the teens tonight, with chill index in the single digits... How is that going to affect my plums?

The cat has attitude....

This hardy lemon... doesn't seem especially hardy...

Monarda seed pods

Verbesina seed heads

Agalinis purpurea seed pods...

Dog fennel

I hope everybody stays warm in these record setting freezing temps... And... Here's hoping someone collects the bounty on that d... groundhog...coulda done without the 6 more weeks of winter...

Signs of Spring

I'm starting to see colour...
Hate the winter blahs... Even though the people in Florida get 6 more weeks of Florida, after a palm tree saw it's shadow... I'm not as lucky... When I moved South (back in the '80s), I didn't quite go far enough...

Small clump of daffodils In the foundation bed in fronnt of the house...

Daffys n Kitties in front of the garden wire... 

Dead stems are  from the lantana...

Candy striped camellia

 Red camellias

 Variegated camellia...

Last Spring the voles chewed up the roots on this plant... it was laying on it's side when I rescued it... and potted it up... I decanted it... just before it bloomed.

Electricity in the garden...

The winter rains means a chance to do my trenching, and work can be done on 'infrastructure'.

Mockingbird

Plus.. the hellebores are blooming!