Hey Trailrunner! I'll post mine when my peonies start blooming...very shortly! What an exciting time of year. Thanks for posting the lovely photos:)

I don't have a pool but I'm going to play anyway!

These are from last year. Right now everything is budding out and the roses and such are going to be spectacular!

My Peach Rose. Right now it has about a 100 buds on it!

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Carpet Roses

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WOW oakley ! Those are so pretty...can hardly wait to see this years' posies.

doonie: I don't have peonies....will look forward to seeing them. c

Trailrunner and Oaky, my hubby would love all those
roses. We're surrounded by huge oaks, thus our sun is limitted. We get a bit of roses to bloom in the spring
but as soon as the trees get all their leaves and the rose
blooms dwidle -- although he's having a nice showing with
the knock out roses.
video below.

Japanese iris.

rose garden

tuberous begonia

Here is a link that might be useful: backyard retreat.

(Sigh). We are rumoured to be having one of the latest springs in 20 years. Our pussywillows are *just* starting to emerge, and there are places in the backyard where the snow is still a foot deep. I am *longing* for spring and any sign of green!

Carrie

joann....so beautiful . I never tire of the koi !

carrie, I would love to see the pussy willows...I haven't seen them since I was a little girl in OH. Go take a pic and think of Spring :) c

Caroline, your roses are so pretty! I'm growing Climbing Pinkies this year and less than impressed. The buds and first day open they're beautiful ... then not so much. And for a climber that's supposedly "nearly thornless" my fingers tell a different story.

Joann, those irises are stunning!

Here the star jasmine has been blooming and perfuming the air for the past month. A few rudbeckia and echinaceas are blooming. I noticed the first flush of color on the butterfly bush this morning. The cupheas are blooming and hummers already using them. Hydrangeas are starting to color up too. Abutilons are blooming. Had a couple dozen Monarch cats on the milkweed earlier this month. Dh found six pupas in the yard couple weeks ago. This morning all were empty and two still had butterflies drying their wings. A pretty cool Earth Day present!

This is the screened porch bed just starting to bloom. It's home to a gardenia, plumbago, agastaches, cupheas, sweetspire, sweetpeas, salvias (pineapple, Autumn, Mexican bush), purple fountain grass, sedum, Swiss chard, and angelonia.

Here's Indian Pink in the courtyard bed. I moved it last fall from an obscure spot in the back yard where I rarely saw it. Now it's visible from the kitchen window.

Natal that is SO COOL!! So you plant the milkweed just to get the butterflies ??? I have got to try that. Very very nice. I love the beds and all your pretty art too.

BTW I have the real and final sesame seed cookie recipe like Brocatos. DH made the definitive batch last night. They are exactly like the real thing. do you want the recipe ?? I will be glad to write it out for you. c

Natal, That is very cool. We don't have Monarch's here in Oregon.

Joann, I was looking at your photos and thinking wow, this yard looks so familiar and I hadn't read your name. LOL
LeeAnne

None of my Clemmies are blooming yet and roses barely leafed out. Very cold spring here.

Caroline, yup, if you plant it they will come. ;) It's already putting out new growth. Hopefully I'll catch the return migration in the fall.

I think I ended up trying 4 different recipes and dh actually like the softest one the best. Wasn't what I was shooting for, because we've always bought the hard ones like Brocatos, but if he's happy that's good enough. Didn't your dh have to use baker's ammonia or something like that?

Natal.....that is AMAZING!!!

I am going to get milkweed tomorrow!! I love monarchs and so do my daughters.

Beautiful gardens everyone. Very late warming up here in NJ, we are just getting daffodil and tulips blooming. Perennials are just coming up. Flowering trees just flowered this week. Very late this year.

natal yep he uses the bakers ammonium...got it at his chemistry dept :) It makes the very crisp finish. Also he double bakes like a true biscotto. We have decided that the label on the original Brocato's is " wrong". They leave out eggs, but there is no way to make Regina cookies w/o eggs. Not sure how they get it past all the laws but we think they are withholding the true ingredients to preserve the recipe. No matter we are really happy with these. After over 45 yrs of eating them I think we have got a winner.

Haha...I went out and checked my Hello Yellow and guess what...it is the asclplepsia ...milkweed ! yeah...I got it at the plant sale. Now have 2 of them. Look out Monarchs. I am so excited. Wish I could grow some of the others like cuphea...not in this zone...dies in winter.

Let me know if you want the crunchy form of the cookies. c

No one would want to see NW CT with the new covering of snow this AM!!!

MOre snow !!! This is so insane,,,it is Easter, for crying out loud . I hope Spring comes to you soon.c

I'm so jealous of all of your beautiful gardens. I removed all the plants from my front and back yard and I'm slowly replacing them with roses, daylilies and perennials since I love things that bloom.

natal - I just planted Climbing Pinkie too. The fact that it's thornless is one of the reasons I got it. I'll have to go out and check mine for thorns, but it's only about two feet tall right now. I have it planted in an umbrella pillar and I'm hoping it will look like this one that belongs to bossjim on the Texas Gardening Forum

Trailrunner - Can you tell me what this is?

Laurie

Natal, great pics!!!

Here it is still cold and gray and rainy. I am starting a butterfly garden this year, and the milkweed I ordered (asclepsias tuberosa) arrived bareroot 2 days ago. You have given me the energy to bundle up, don my rain gear and get out there and get it planted.

I also need to plant the Asarum canadense (wild ginger) I ordered for a dark pathway. It is a food source for the Pipevine swallowtail butterfly (I also bought a butterfly book so hopefully I can identify should one show up!)

Natal, I hope that when those beauties of yours fly north, I will be ready to play hostess for them in my garden before they head out again on their travels.

Msrose, that's gorgeous! His whole yard is! I planted two CP on either side of the arbor last fall. One is over 6' tall and the other not more than 2.5'. I've had some blackspot ... not enough to be a problem, but I wasn't expecting any. I don't use chemicals, so spraying isn't an option.

Barb, I Googled your wild ginger. Not what I was expecting. ;) I've only seen the tropical gingers down here. Good luck attracting the butterflies! The majority of my plantings are with them and hummers in mind.

bossjom's garden's are always just amazing !! I have looked at them in the past and it is so breathtaking. I don't spray either but I broke down and went to Lowes and got the new granular Bayers that does a systemic control of everything plus some fertilizer in it too. It is used every 6 wks so will have DH put it on again while I am gone.

Laurie that is Ballerina. She is a beauty this year. None of my roses have any spots or yellow leaves in the pool area this year but the ones out in the other side bed do have some on a couple so that is why I am trying the Bayer. I don't like spraying either.

I will look up the wild ginger. My whole front yard is coming out this Fall and I am doing it in roses and perennials and some edible and hopefully a stress on butterflies and hummers. So much fun to plan while I ride and get ideas along the way. c

Garden? What garden? Not here.

Cloudiest April on record, 8 straight days of measurable rain. Only 33% of possible sunshine so far this month. Don't cross me - I'm ready to snap! Today is the first day we've been out of the 40's for at least 2 weeks and someone had to tell me what that huge yellow orb was in the sky.

I HAD milkweed. HAD Queen of the Prairie, HAD Bugbane. Had a gorgeous Hibiscus. etc etc. Doubtful any of it will survive this. I've battled with my neighbor who raised the soil level when they built their home and the city who gave permission to do it. We always had some water collect in heavy rains but nothing like this - I've probably lost everything back there except the Dappled Willows and the ditch lilies which nothing can kill. Sorry for being crabby - I'm so jealous of all your gardens and flowers.

Trailblazer, I just looked up the Arsarum canadense thinking you are too far south for it, but the range includes northern Alabama. I am just so glad to find a native ground cover for this dark alley I have next to the garage.

Dlm, I feel for you. We've faced similar issues. What was once a natural drainage area between our house and our neighbor's changed considerably over the years for one reason or another. The first was when they erected a hurricane fence and stopped raking their yard. Natural decomposition led to soil buildup along the fence line. Then a subsequent homeowner created a large planting bed along some of that same boundary and the problem got worse. We started getting water in the garage during heavy rains. When we did the addition the garage came down and we created drainage areas. Now I can plant without worrying about things drowning.