Nearly June

For the first time in five days the sun was out. We barely got a third of an inch of rain this week, but the yard enjoyed the spike in humidity and the lower temperatures.

The first plant pictured here is a chocolate flower, which bloomed just this morning. I started this one from seed back in February. It does indeed smell strongly of chocolate when in bloom, I could smell it from the back porch when I stepped outside this morning. I'm very pleased with this plant, I've read that germinating these from seed is extremely difficult, and out of six or seven that I planted, this is the only one that survived past the sprouting stage.

Another one that's just bloomed from seed are these vincas, which I haphazardly threw into a planter box with some pepper seeds. The entire planter is now crammed full with both. The peppers seems to be outracing the vincas, but this one managed to come up through the peppers and bloom. There are maybe three or four others underneath the canopy of pepper leaves.

The yellow orchid vine that's growing on the front of the house, has transitioned from blooming to putting out these interesting seed pods. In years past, I've been lucky to get a handful of these, but this year there are dozens of them. The plant is on a drip system, so I don't know why this year is any different than last, but I hope to harvest some of these seeds when they dry up, and try starting some new vines.