The Longest Yard Blog In Existence

It's around 95 today, and although we're supposed to cool off into the 80s later this week, I see the writing on the wall. Most of my blooming plants will be burnt to cinders in about a month, so I'm posting as many pictures of them in their glory until time is out.

The wildflowers will be the first to go once we're consistantly over 100, and they're beginning to get past their peak anyway.

Below are some of the california poppies that are still blooming and spreading everywhere. I may regret planting these, if we have another wet winter I may have a carpet of these next spring.

Same goes for these evening primrose. At least they spread by underground runners instead of seed, so they won't be popping up much farther away next year than where they are right now.

Here's a bloom on my ornamental pomegranate. While I have at least 20 blooms on it, my two fruiting varieties of the same plant are hardly blooming at all. Go figure, I probably wouldn't like pomegranates anyway.

Over on the north side of the yard the creeping trumpet vine is doing more than creeping, it's taking over the tool shed. I can't wait to see this thing bloom again in May/June, the flowers are beautiful. This thing also spreads by runner, I have one I've started to train up my hobo arch, which you can see to the left of this picture, I have another that's started growing at the base of the house (good idea?), and transplanted another one to grow up the pergola off the back of the house.



Here are some soon-to-be-grapes-in-my-belly. I'm guessing May/June, unless the birds get to them first.



More free range golden fleece. I'm finding this thing all over the yard, very pretty and nice that I didn't pay anything for them.

My bouganvillea on the west wall of the yard is actually blooming this year, go figure. Usually it's so much in the shade that it doens't bother.

Here are some seeds that I've started, because I have so much time on my hands. I have one bee balm plant that came up, a ton of chinese lanterns, and two sensitive plants (the leafs go limp when you touch them, or so I've read).

Here are my columbine that I started from seed last November from my mom. They're still surviving, although the heat is getting to them and I'm not sure where to keep them as the temps go up.



Another plant from mom, I have about seven of these coming up in the same place, but I don't remember what these are supposed to be. There appears to be a stalk with a bud in the center coming up, I might know more when it blooms.

Here's a better view of the blooming cats claw. This thing can't spread quick enough across the pergola, I'll be relying on this vine to shade us on the back porch from the relentless summer sun.

This is supposedly a blue emu bush... looks purple to me. I'm just thrilled it's blooming for the first time. The is the most delicate looking emu bush a have, very slender leaves and stems.

Here's another emu that's blooming, the easter egg, named for it's multi-colored blooms. I see purple, yellow and orange in this shot.

I have no clue what I'm going to do with this plant if it survives the summer, this is an Empress Tree that's supposed to grow a foot a month (not a year). We saw some of these in Colorado last September, covered in purple blooms, and I've seen them sold here at our local nursery. I doubt this tree will amount to much in our heat, but I thought it's worth a shot.

I've torn down the arches on the south side of the house, to make it easier to walk through the jubilee bushes, at least until the colapse on top of each other to form a natural tunnel. I'm going to paint the leading arch pictured here black to match the pergola and think I'll leave it where it is in this picture.

Here's the south side of the house, minus the tunnel of cheap five dollar arches (leaning up in a pile in the back of this picture. It won't take long before the jubilee on the right side of this walk catch up with the left.