Recent Acquisitions

It has been a long week.  Between marble filled children, football and the a-holes at the Securities and Exchange Commission, there has been precious little gardening time.  Never fear, with the elimination of the US this morning, I am now down to one team to root for.  Come on, England!!!!  I do want it noted that a Tottenham striker, not that useless United striker, propelled England out of the group.  I'm just saying...

Anyway, back to the task at hand.  Picked up a few plants this afternoon, since I had run out of booze at noon, which surprisingly opens up one's day.  We picked up a couple of daylillies to go in the front yard.

Hemerocallis Purple Galaxy.

Hemerocallis Velvet Red

The flowers are from the end of the day, but they still don't look too bad.  We'll be getting them in the ground tomorrow, along with some of the other items we picked up.  After England and Germany, of course.

What is This?

No, really, what in the hell is it?  It was here when we got here.  It dies back every year and comes back again in the spring.  It just got going, otherwise, it would be in full bloom.  Speaking of blooms...

That's what one of the blooms looks like after it's gotten itself going.  They end up pink like this, but start like this...

Notice the blooms are slightly purple.  That's how the start before turning pink.

I just have no idea what it is.

Flowery Viney Things

'Scarlet Pimpernel' Dipladenia.  A really little one.  The flowers look pink, but they are much more red and actually turns a deep scarlet as the plant matures.  This is another that we had in our house in Huntington Beach.  Don't worry, I've think we've run out of plants to duplicate here.  It wasn't a very big house.

This one we are going to train to go up a pyramid trellis, which you can't see in this picture.  That's because it's still sitting at the nursery waiting for us to come purchase it.  But fear not, loyal reader, for we will be happy to share once we get it.  These, I think, grow fairly quickly, so that purchase had better be made soon.

P.S.  I failed to mention, due to my refusal to relive it, that our beloved Tottenham Hotspur fell to relegated Burnley last Sunday.  No matter, as Arsenal won, so there was no possibility of third.  We still finished fourth and qualified for Champion's League, which Spurs have never done before.  Congratulations to the lads from the west side of the big land mass west of the pond.

Around the Yard

This past weekend was pretty busy with Banana's 2nd birthday and my son's Pinewood Derby races for the Cub Scouts.  We did find some time to take a quick tour of the yard, though.

Iris

I guess you would consider this the 'before' picture.

Salvia

Ice Plant of some sort

Bouganvilla.  I have nothing but problems with this one.  It's on its last legs this time of year when, I think, it should be going full bloom.  This is when it goes dormant.  Odd.

Arborvitae.

For the life of me, I don't remember what these are.  I'll have to wait for my wife to get home.  She's the memory.

That's a quick tour of the weekend.  Nothing planned for this upcoming weekend, except to get a lot of work done.  Here's a quick shot of the Pinewood Derby cars to leave you with.

April Bloom Day!

From our most recent visit to the Huntington Botanical Gardens.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens has Bloom Day on the 15th of each month.  This is my first month of participating.  Be sure to visit her site to see other participants.

One Little Windstorm...

...and the world goes catawumpus.  Only 15 posts to get to use my favorite word.

New Camera Weekend

We finally got the new camera on Saturday that we have been discussing/researching/pondering for weeks, now.  We don't like to rush into these things.  We got a Canon Rebel EOS T1i.  This is the most complicated piece of machinery I have ever witnessed.  Keep in mind, I am not technologically savvy.  I am completely befuddled by the copy machine at work and if anything goes wrong with the computer that requires anything more than turn it off and then back on, I'm at a loss.  My lovely wife, though, does crazy things like reading the instructions.  I did try that, as well, but then decided the best way to figure something out is to go out and start using it.  So, off I went.

Remember, I was perplexed by the technologically.  Next time I'll remember to dead-head a little.

That azalea actually decided to grace us with more then one or two blooms at a time this year.

I'm absolutely fascinated by our new dwarf pomegranate.

The agave is a little spent.  One of four spikes we got this year.  It's up against the south side of the shed which acts as a furnace and the agave does quite well.

Hopefully, the new camera will better the quality of the photos.  Unfortunately, I cannot do much about the quality of the writing other then promise that things get better with practice.