Brrr

Despite it being 35 this morning, and it not getting over 60 the last two days, the yard seems to think that winter is over.

The calomonden is loaded with fruit. Pictured here is maybe the top eight inches of the tree, I counted close to twenty in that small area, and the rest of the tree is like this. And it's still blooming.

The hardenbergia are starting to bloom, although this is not unusual, it's typically the first plant of the new year to come back to life with lots of color.

The Valentine Emu bush is nearly in full bloom, a little early for it (given it's name, you can imagine when it's typically at peak). I just love this plant, the shapes of it's tiny leaves, and the color of the blooms. A very hard bush to get a decent picture of.

My lemon tree, which I harvested back in December, is covered new growth. The leaves start out this pretty purple color.

Not pictured here, my pomegranates are also starting to leaf out again, although they only just dropped all of their leaves maybe a month ago. Seems early for it as well.

Coral Gum Blooming

After a year of looking at these pods and wondering if they were ever going to open, they have. Here are a few shots of this odd looking bloom. There are two clusters opening at the moment, with a few more on the other side of the tree.

More January Yard

Here are a few pictures around the yard, winter being over, a little more color is coming around.

A shot of one of my annuals putting out a second color (white) at the bottom of the shoot.

My evening primrose has resurfaced, and will probably cover this entire area by April.

Still one of my favorites, the old Turks Cap continues to bloom, no matter the weather.

A reseeded lupine from last years wildflowers, I have two of them so far, that I know of.

Quick Yard Update

Not much going on in the yard at the moment, but here's a quick shot of some annuals coming up in the middle of the yard. I bought a six back of "mixed annuals", and five of them look like this guy (1 of them pink instead of purple), with the sixth being the one pictured in my last Hoes blog.




Here's an odd volunteer that's come up in the big wooden planter. The leaves look similar to my three leaf sumac, but it's dormant, so surely this couldn't have come from it. Seems odd that something like this would come up in the dead of December, and be thriving through our mild to cool weather. I'll keep posted pictures as we see what this thing turns into.

Unfortunately my cardinal vines, which were thriving back in November, are succumbing to the cool 40 degree nights we've been having these past three weeks or so. They've all turned yellow and have started to shrivel up. In better news, I have volunteer wildflowers coming up already all over the yard from last spring's plantings, including numerous poppies, purple scorpion weed (it's prettier than it sounds), and now two confirmed lupines, one of which is now a few inches tall.

January In The Yard

Here are a few new yard pictures for you. With a Home Depot gift card from my parents, I've crammed a few more things outside, including:

Some winter annuals. The dusty miller were already there, but I moved some lobelia from another planter in here and added a six pack of some other random annuals that didn't even come with a name (just labelled "mixed annuals"). I like the contrast in the silver and purple colors.

Here is the lobelia it's starting to spread quite nicely in this cool, wet weather we've been having since Thanksgiving (now up to 3 1/2 inches of rain in the last six weeks).

Here is the mystery annual, it came in this color, and lighter shade of pink.

With the remainder of my gift card I bought a bareroot asian pear tree (the twig off to the left), and a nectarine (twig not pictured here, the one in the barrel is dormant chaste tree). Emily got me a weather center for Christmas, and I've mounted the wind gauge to the barrel pictured here. It should have been mounted higher, but for it to point north, it had to be mounted pointing in that direction, and I didn't have anything higher, since the house wouldn't work.