In Honour of the Rain

There. You can see the eavestroughs in action. It's a beautiful thing, rain.

And yes, now we need rain barrels, but that will follow all in good time. Probably just as a three year drought arrives. But for now we have lovely water spilling over our path and displacing our crushed granite, and I am just FINE with that. Bring on the rain.

Strings of jewels

The Lady Banks Rose was truly adorned in splendour after the rain. All her limbs were sparkling with water diamonds.

Jewel drops of water

Happy plants... bejeweled at the close of day.

Check it out!!!!

Holy Smokes! Look at Testosterone Cactus! I thought it was showing off in May, but NOW, well! There must be a female of its kind somewhere close by that it is trying to impress! I mean REALLY!! He can barely stay upright he is so excited. I know I am impressed.

Lantana

I love how the Lantana flower is made up of all these tiny individual blooms that start out as little pink pillows or origami envelopes, and then they each pop open to make a perky, little flower. I wish I had better success with this plant. I see it all over the place, and in all gardens except mine, it seems to grow gloriously huge and full of flowers but whenever I plant it, it always seems a bit pathetic and small. sigh. Can I make lemonade from this??? Why yes. It must be because I like to focus on the details of individual flowers, so the plant just knows to put out only one bloom at a time....

I know I have already posted pictures about the butterfly 'weed' but I can't help it, I love this plant! I can't get enough of it. And look, there was a BUTTERFLY on the butterfly weed! So it has earned it's name. Plus the light always looks exquisite shining through it.

Yes, the little eggplant grew bigger. And then it was decided by the chefs in the house that it would go well in that evening's curry dish, and so it was harvested.... And it was very tasty. But it did seem a little sad to pick it, after watching it grow from a sweet little baby to a handsome teenager. But I suppose that is the point of a kitchen garden.

Latest Lily

Check it out! This day lily is pretty exotic looking. Think creamsicle in flower form....

Crape Myrtle

This tree is NOT in my yard, just close by. But it amazes me every time I walk past. It's so perfectly symetrical, and look how the separate branches all come down to one solid trunk close to the bottom. It looks like a giant's wedding bouquet. I want to scoop the whole thing up in my hand and put it in a vase.

Blue Daze

I am trying to remember the name of this flower. It is such a beautiful blue! I would like to see a whole carpet of it.
I went out and found it at a garden center and so now it has a title...

Tribute to the Two Best Gardeners I know

Everything I know I learned from my mum and my sister. They are both AMAZING gardeners and one day I hope to be just like them!

Eggplant!

I was going to post a whiny blog about how I have two eggplant plants but they weren't getting any eggplants. But now I have to eat my whiny thoughts because I just discovered this baby eggplant growing in the vegetable patch. Hurray!

(I just hope it gets a little bigger than an egg)

Butterfly Weed

Look at the little pod-like buds of the individual flowers. And then when they open they create these perfect little five pointed yellow stars ready to entice a butterfly. SO, I get the butterfly part of the name, but WEED?????

The intricacies of flowers really amaze me.

Look at these butterfly weed blooms! They are so clever the way the pod opens up and the yellow bloom bursts out.

Day Lily Glory

First day lily to bloom in the new garden! Deee-licious!

Another new butterfly birth!!

You can tell just by looking at this cocoon that the butterfly is about ready to come out, but of course, I had to go in and drink a cup of coffee, never thinking that birth was quite that imminent. Fifteen minutes later my daughter glanced out the window and said, "hey mom, there's another butterfly hatched." Who knew they could get out so quickly.

Now I hear you saying that these butterflies must be twins or something. And they do look awfully alike. But I am here to tell you that they were born several days apart so they must just be brothers.

You can see just by looking at his eyes that these siblings are totally different. This one is obviously more relaxed as he waves his antenae at me. That's always the way with younger brothers, I think.

This one, the more laid back younger brother, was willing to sit for a while with his wings out-stretched so that I could get a nice picture of his markings.

Alamo Vine

The Alamo vine seed pod is as pretty as the flower itself in my opinion. That's why, even though the vine seems not to be returning this year (another casualty of the winter), I can't bear to take the old brown stalks off the fence because of these delicate little dried beauties.
I am going to keep my fingers crossed that the few seeds that I managed to collect and soak and then cut a wee small hole in, will actually sprout. Then I'll have more lovely white morning glory-like flowers, followed by more of these seedpods.

Check out the beautiful butterfly that just hatched. We found the caterpillar in the dill, and put it in a jar. It pooped a lot and ate quite a bit of dill, then became a chrysalis and low and behold....

Rock Rose

A Day in the life of a rock rose: Soaking up the sun. Oh, it is getting to be late afternoon... I better start turning in for the night.... and....

As evening falls the rock rose closes up for the night

Beautiful Bulbine. The name doesn't really do it justice. But it really is very satisfying.

tiny purple beauty

So small, but soooo very pretty. These are only about the size of my thumbnail but look how amazing they are! I have two plants now because the one I bought last year I thought had succumbed to the ravages of our cold cold cold (for Austin) winter. But, low and behold, as I was starting to dig up the gnarly 'dead' stump, I saw some tiny shoots emerging.....