Green Thumb Sunday

GTS - Let me walk you around and hit the high points!

Yellow Pixie Lily

I love this new plant, but feel a bit like I am cheating by showing it as mine, the buds were on the plant when I plunked it in my spring bed two weeks ago!

Buzzin' away on the veronica

D' oh! My coneflower has it's second bloom, which is just like the first, before the petals unfurled. I posted last week with a bit of worry that I had some problem with this plant. We can all see that the problem is not with the plant, but with the gardener. sigh.

Happy GTS! Happy Sabbath!

Green Thumb Sunday

Sunday again, and time for GTS.
Here is a coneflower. I must admit that coneflowers are not my fave flower, but they are growing on me! This one is an odd duck, I don't know if this is the way it is s'posed to look, or if mine is just not blooming right.

Here is one of my 'new' (planted last fall) daylilies. I have the name written down somewhere. Unfortunately this flower is not the best example of the beauty, color and form of this plant,but it is the only one blooming today. The colors are richer than my camera shows.

Happy GTS! Happy Sabbath!

Green Thumb Sunday -Lavendar and dragonfly

Time keeps flyin' by - it is Sunday again!

Lavendar is one of those old reliables in our yard.

It does just fine without any extra attention,
spreads about a bit, but not aggressively so, and the bees love this stuff.

I love the smell, too.

At any rate, I was out taking a few pics of my flowers when I caught this dragonfly enjoying the lavendar, too.

GTS angel face and spuds

Sunday again, our roses are blooming like crazy. This lavendar bloom is called
'Angel Face.' It is one of my favorites. It is also a small plant that is struggling, next to some giant rose bushes. I have been nursing it along, and need to come up with a better place for it, perhaps.
I also wanted to show off a bit - my potatoes are growing 'great guns' as they say.

I'll bet you are jealous of my classy cinderblock look, eh? They are functional if not beautiful. I have them around the potatoes, and plan to add more compost and straw (free straw! somebody dumped two bales at the back of our property!) as the plants continue to grow, and use the cinder blocks to help keep everything in place. The corn is doing ok, it is about 3 feet tall. You can see it behind the potatoes.

Happy GTS!

Green Thumb Sunday thorns amid the roses, or dandelions amid the thyme?

My GTS is just a little dose of reality, which I am constantly getting from my garden:
We have some lovely thyme as a groundcover. Then I see (and today you can see it too!) the weeds amidst the beauty. I haven't even gotten to this end of the garden to weed out the grass, etc. that tries to sneak into the thyme.

Green Thumb Sunday - iris and Japanese maple seed heads

Green Thumb Sunday is here once again - irises are winding down around our place -

this lovely blue one is called Blue Tide.

I have been weeding grass out from under a 3 foot tall Japanese threadleaf maple for what seems like forever. One positive in this endless chore was that I noticed these tiny 'helicopters.' I love the beautiful colors.

Green Thumb Sunday - what is the name of that iris?

I had a lot of fun with my own, self-declared iris week, but my irises are still blooming. I am planting a few, thanks to DH, who found me a deal.

This two toned blue is a nice one, but who knows what the name of it is. I have had some trouble with my recordkeeping. I know I wrote down somewhere what I planted where, but now am having a heck of a time finding that record. urg. Still, I am 'suffering' thru as my irises bloom and bloom, and am trying again to keep track of them w/ a new list, a new system, etc.

Green Thumb Sunday - Iris week begins!

This year I have a lot of new irises blooming for the first time (having bought or been given them last year).

I never tire of walking thru the garden, to see what's new. This is a yellow and white bicolor that I don't know the name of, but I looove looking at it.

I'll be posting every day this week, so I can show off all my new beauties.

Happy GTS!

Green Thumb Sunday

My dogwood is blooming, a bit sparsely this year, I am afraid.

I never get tired of these beautiful blooms, though. They are simple and elegant, exotic without being weird.

Happy GTS! Happy Sunday!

Green Thumb Sunday -violets and quince and columbines, oh my!

We have surely hit that part of the year when so much is happening in the yard and garden that it is overwhelming. I saw these speckled violets at the Ogden Botanical Gardens.

Here is some quince that is blooming in our yard. It must be a plant that is 'planted' by birds, because there is some growing at a few random spots around the yard. Quince fruit can be used

as a source of pectin for jam and jelly-making. I ought to figure out how to do that someday, pectin is expensive!

This last photo is of a mini columbine in my spring garden bed. It is a lovely, delicate pink and white that I am afraid the photo does not do justice.

Happy GTS!

Green Thumb Sunday is sponsored by As the Garden Grows. Check out what else is blooming around the globe!

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY -mini iris and LARCH tree, or Learning about Trees, part 3

This little mini -iris surprised me by being in bloom today. I think I'll get more 'minis', because they bloom earlier than the bearded iris, and multiply fast! Love the cheery yellow-white combo!
Also, my larch tree has finally 'leafed' out. Here are the needles in mid-April -

Lousy picture, I know, but those little buds are the needles coming out.

This is how they looked on May 1st -

Here is the tree today - it is a lighter green than the other evergreens nearby, soft and feathery looking.

One last closeup of the needles -

Happy GTS!

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY grape hyacinths

I am so pleased every time I see something 'new' blooming in the yard. I know grape hyacinths aren't that special or unusual, but it is so nice to be out in the yard, enjoying the warm weather, and spot something that wasn't there the last time I looked. I didn't even see these bud, and I have bunches of them all over the yard! Some people don't like these because they can be invasive, but that has not been a problem in my yard.
At any rate, I hope everyone is enjoying spring. Happy GTS!

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY Springtime in the Rockies

When it's springtime in the rockies -
the weather can change so fast,
that one minute it's sunny and the next there is hail!

Our weather today has been fabulous, with a high temp in the 50's, but the last two weeks have been very cloudy, with a few 'five minute storms' hitting us.

Things are starting to bloom here, which makes each trip to the yard exciting. I wanted to show you something that I am particularly happy about- the violets are blooming, and this year I have 3- yes - 3 different colors of wood violets. Last year I saw some white ones, and some pink ones (which I had never seen before!) at a friend's garden, and she was good enough to share some with me. I have been on the lookout for white violets for some time, so I was very pleased to get these starts.

The beautiful blue/violet ones are always lovely.

Here is my white violet:

and the pink! The pic doesn't do the color justice.


I've seen yellow wood violets in the wild, and would love to have some of them, too. Any other colors out there that I don't know about?

Green Thumb Sunday - spring bulbs

Spring is slowly coming along here in Utah. I saw these chinodoxia out my kitchen window today!

The crocuses have been blooming for a few weeks.

Here is a closeup of these oh-so blue flowers -
Happy GTS!

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY Marching on

These crocuses (crocii?) have just hung in there, and have cheered me everytime I've seen them. I have crocuses blooming, and mini-daffs (note to self; get more mini daffs!). This weekend has been cold with some snow blowing around, but I know spring is here, and don't mind a few wintery days.

Go to As the Garden Grows to see what else is blooming.

Happy GTS!

Green Thumb Sunday, another A. Violet

Well, it is a good thing I have African Violets. They are blooming and blooming as winter ebbs. This is a relatively new one, I am having trouble describing the color - a rich purple w/ white edges.. It is a happy color that I like very much. Happy GTS.

Green Thumb Sunday - African violets, an antidote to winter

We are getting another storm o' snow today, it's good to have African violets to enjoy when it looks like we may have moved to Iceland or something. (This is the third storm this week, we will probably get another 1o inches. )

This is a pretty deep pink violet, and I am looking forward to its' blooms.

Happy GTS !

Green Thumb Sunday early Jasmine bloom

Well, it is a great surprise to see that my pink Jasmine is about to bloom! It is sitting in front of a window with it's larger cousin, glad to be in out of the cold. Yahoo! I love the wonderful smell of jasmine. Don't know why it is blooming so early, but I am not complaining. Happy GTS to all!

Green Thumb Sunday same old, same old

Not many changes for this Sunday: the rosemary is still blooming,
the poinsettia is the last Christmas decoration up, and the African violets are blooming, but looking a bit faded. These mums are the last of some lovely flowers I received earlier.
It is great to have seed catalogs to study through and dream about spring!

Check out others who are particpating in Green Thumb Sunday.

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY - rosemary

This little rosemary plant stayed in the 3" pot I bought it in. I don't know if it will make it thru the winter, but so far, so good. It is a nice surprise to have it bloom! When we lived in CA, we had some type of trailing rosemary that always bloomed, but I haven't had a rosemary bloom (or live) here in Utah before.

This is the view from our driveway, east towards the mountains. We have had snow fall almost every day since Christmas Eve, so there is quite a bit more, now. We are at 5, 000 feet on the 'bench', so if the valley gets 3 inches and the mountains get 2 feet, we get somewhere in between those two numbers. It is lovely. Maybe we'll go sledding today (I don't ski, unfortunately).