Now I can pretend like I am Aiyana and grow lots of succulents!
It just goes to show that no matter how hard I try they are never gone. I have been trying to weed out the primrose that I had planted in the front garden bed and I found this one (with a few friends) growing in the azalea. I am still weeding out some of the horsetail from around the pond too.
We also have some other guests in the front bed, courtesy of all of the rain that has been falling lately.
Poor Elle is still soldiering on in spite of my benign neglect this year. I have been so busy with work, school and trying to keep up with my baby that roses have had very little of my attention. That combined with all of the rain and dampness have given her a really bad case of black spot.
The 'Husker Red' pentestemon blooms have finally opened up.
And the coreopsis that I bought earlier this year is making after a rough start. It's a good thing that I've been buying tough plants. :) 
Some explaination is necessary. My boss is a pretty flambouyant dresser with a fondness for leopardskin. Aside from that she's a pretty conservative gal which led our planner to make a joke about her being Amish. We started laughing, imagininh an Amish lady in a leopardsin bonnet. So when it came time for her birthday I decided to make her a teddy bear, complete with the aforementioned bonnet, complete with gold ric-rac trim.
We're going to surprise her with it, along with her real gift, an Amazon gift certificate to buy books for the Kindle she is supposed to be getting. It took me forever to make the bonnet and dress, because I had help from a 17 month old. ;) So finally I got it cranked out this weekend since her birthday is Friday. I hope that she enjoys it. ;)
I'm trying to figure out if this is the Ego iris I planted last year. Too bad I lost the tag. ;)
I have a new mother to feature or Mother's Day. Early this morning we were taking the Gnomeslayer out for a walk. I happened to glance over at the fence in the corner of the garden where the Lady Banks rose is and saw a robin sitting there. It finally fell into place for me that she has a nest in the corner where the fenceposts meet. She's been flying around this morning with worms and fretting around when we are back there. Here's where it is:
I tried to circle it but it's still hard to see it. It's where the top rails and fencepost meet. It's a pretty good spot since the rose will hide her nest from just about everything. The only problem is that today was a day that we planned to do some gardening, since it only barely misted. I don't think that most of you realize how small my garden is. It's probably about 20'X20' so wherever we are when we work in it is pretty close to her nest. I'd actually planned on moving some of the plants around there but we decided to minimize what we did around there today. Since it doesn't take that long for robin babies to grow up we're going to leave her alone.
Here is our other buddy living in the garden. I don't know if it's a him or a her, but GS and I see it frequently when we go out to check on the garden. I was able to get a real closeup yesterday, which I'm sure didn't please him.
In other news, here is my new Laura Bush rose that I got this spring. I tell you, living with my $50 plant budget this year hasn't been easy, but this was one exception that I made. It's a really lovely dark orange/salmon color and has a lovely fragrance. I'm still trying to figure out it's final placement, with all of our rearranging that we're doing.
And finally, the blue flax that I planted two years ago finally put on some blooms. It's nice that my garden is maturing a little so that things are blooming more.
It rained yet again today and we had tornado warnings. I heard that a tornado actually touched down a couple of miles from where I work. We had to go hang out in the hallway for about 20 minutes while the storm went over. Definately not my favorite way to spend the day. So on a good note, the plants are still going nuts. The iris pictured above is the deepest purple color that I have seen. Unfortunately it doesn't come true in the picture and looks lighter.
The Peppermint clematis is covered in blooms and they are starting to open up.
And the mountain laurel buds have opened and it is so beautiful. Last year there were three buds total on it. I wouldn't volunteer to count them this year. ;)
It's been raining here since about Wednesday, and it looks like no end in sight anytime soon. Yesterday I went outside in a lull and took the Gnomeslayer for a walk to burn off some of her energy. I found quite a few interesting things going on. My Betty Corning clematis, pictured above is putting on a lot of growth, as well as blooms.
I found this Acadian Miss louisiana iris blooming behind a hedge.
My mountain laurel is getting ready to explode with blooms.
And another gratuitous shot of Joseph's Coat. Yes, I have other roses but they aren't as convenient to take pictures of. ;)
Last year I bought a mixed collection of 25 Siberian Irises from Roots & Rhizomes. I picked out one special named variety but I can't remember what the name was. :( I planted them all around the house in various beds. I was disappointed last year because only one bloomed. I was worried that they would be a bust. And then when I was outside this weekend I noticed that there were buds all over them. They finally opened up yesterday and I got some pictures. I don't know which type any of them are, especially because I forgot where I planted the named one that I got. Maybe I'll be able to recognize the color on it. And maybe I'll start keeping better records. ;)
And last but not least, I had planted a baptisia a couple of years ago and it has languished around and never done anything. Until this spring that is. :)
Way back in the mists of time, when I was pregnant, someone told me about a Chinese superstition. Supposedly if you kill a cricket your cow will give sour milk for a year. At the time we had a lot of crickets getting into our building. So in the interests of making sure that my baby's food supply didn't go sour for a year I would go catch the crickets with a cup and a piece of paper and let them go outside. I did it that whole summer and I am pleased to say that it must have worked because my milk supply has always been bountious. I picked up this guy at a garden place because he reminded me of that time. Yesterday morning at work a cricket came into our office again and I had to smile. :) So I figured that I would go take a picture and write about it again before I forgot again.
Just for Rosemary, here's another picture of Joseph's Coat. :) Not that you need anymore selling of course. 
The Hen and Chicks are looking kind of lanky, I might have to move them.
And the Veteran's Honor rose is covered in buds.
After I got done outside, I came inside and took a long relaxing shower. There wasn't a little girl crying outside the bathroom door wanting to get in. She has been reveling in her new audience. From what I hear she was a little shy and stand-offish until they brought out the presents and now she has new best friends. :) So here's to getting in a little Me Time in the next couple of days, it's been a while!
This isn't Neptune, before I start, it's the Callirhoe that I bought from High Country Gardens last year and planted in my scree garden. It didn't do well in its first spot so I moved it, then couldn't remember if that was where I moved it and that it was actually a weed that I was doting over. But I shouldn't have questioned myself, it was indeed the Callirhoe and it has rewarded me. On to the title. I have been a bad rose custodian of late. Mostly because I was pregnant, then I had a newborn, and now I have a toddler. I've meant to prune them, meant to treat their diseases etc, but it just hasn't happened. My Neptune rose has been drastically leaning to one side since last year. I tried to shape it some as I cut flowers and meant to give it a good pruning later, but alas it didn't happen. So today Neptune got scalped and cut back pretty good. It was leaning into the camellia bush beside it and I didn't want to put it off anymore. 
Angel Face 
Gingersnap
And finally, my ice plant finally got blooms on it this year:
This morning the Gnomeslayer and I went on a trip to Bennett's while DH went to get a haircut. It was a beautiful day to be outside and the flowers were blooming. I noticed some of the detail on the sidewalks that I hadn't noticed before, shown in the above picture. The azaleas were blooming.
As were the hellebores.
This is a Brazilian Glory bush.
The whole morning was kind of ruined because someone was burning something closeby. The smell of smoke was hanging around and it was making me queasy. I didn't want to keep the peanut out in it so we did a quick look around and then headed out. I did pick up a couple of creepy crawly plants to put out in the scree garden, so I have to get them put out later today.
My poor garden gnome fell victim to my 15 month old daughter today. I was cleaning out the pond pump and she was running around while hubby was watching her. Neither of us thought it was breakable, I thought it was made out of plastic. She grabbed him to give him a hug and dropped him. Unfortunately his bird-bearing arm was left behind on the cold uncaring gravel. Now I guess I'll have to be on the lookout for another one. :)
Friday ended up being a very scary day. We had strong thunderstorms roll through, and tornadoes touched down 30 miles away. We ended up spending a good part of the afternoon glued to the TV and weather radio. Thankfully the worst that we got was some quarter sized hail and strong rain/winds. Our prayers are with those that didn't get off so easy. The weather was beautiful after the storm rolled through so I took Quickbeam out to see how the plants had fared. We found the bee above happily working in the bright sunlight.
The tulips are blooming.
Lady Banks still has her finery on.
And the salvia is blooming too. :) Hope that's the last cold snap!
Yesterday was the first really sunny day that we have had free to work outside. We had severe thunderstorms/tornado warnings on Thursday and it was pretty touch and go for a while. So we set out to Lowe's first thing Saturday morning and picked up a new pump for the pond. We started out with weeding out the scree garden. As you can see above, the horsetails have started going nuts. It put out runners under the the landscape fabric and they are popping up everywhere. So I spent a lot of time trying to root up as much of them as I could. Then I pulled out the old pump and put in the new one. Quickbeam kept us jumping, keeping her out of places that she shouldn't be. Then Q mowed the front and back yards. After that I decluttered the junk that had ended up on the back porch over the winter. So by the time we were done, we were DONE. We lounged around for the rest of the evening and today. I had wanted to get my rosebush transferred into the front flower bed but alas it wasn't meant to be. Hope everyone else got to do some gardening too. :)