Finally - climbing roses

Well, I've had this climbing rose bush for two or three years now. It grows very long, but I have not had roses and I'm not sure why. It's grown well, but that's it.

In February I decided that I was just going to prune it like crazy and made that would make a difference. Well, evidently it did. I have one full rose (that smells great!) and a bunch of buds. These pictures are not very good, but you get the idea.

These are Lady Banks roses, if you're wondering. I just so excited about my first roses on this bush! Hurray!!!

Pomegranates

My photos are blurry for this (it kept focusing on the leaves instead of on the flowers and fruit), but here are the hopeful pomegranate flowers and fruit in my backyard. The bush/tree is a pygmy, but it's getting pretty tall. It flowered earlier this year and all the blossoms fell off when it rained. This time they are here to stay and I can't wait to taste the fruit - YUM!

New banana babies

Alright. After giving one banana child away, three more have popped up! So, I now have six banana trees. The one on the very left is the third oldest baby, then the little one with the pretty light green leaf, then the little baby one just barely popping out of the ground is the newest addition. They are loving that we have rain again. Of course, so am I. So much less watering.

I don't know how long these will last, but last year they were alive until November or December, I think. A good frost or ice forces them into hibernation until early spring!

Rain Lily and other Blooms

Here's my rain lily - finally! This thing does not bloom often, but it has bloomed three times, that I know of, in my yard! This is one of my favorite blooms, although I didn't think it bloomed in the summer time. Also, it doesn't usually bloom when we haven't had rain - I've been watering, but in the past that hasn't done the trick. Anyway, if you click on the picture to make it super big you can see the little insects staring at it in amazement! ;)

Also, this other one is my Autumn Joy Sedum which is starting to bloom already. I'll try to take pictures of it when it turns to this gorgeous dark magenta color.

Spider Babies!

Okay, you can't see them, but they are in there. This is the sack of babies that appeared after Taxi the Spider Guard Mom went back to her normal size. I don't know where she is now, but I'm pretty sure this is hers.

It's hanging between the overhang of the sunroom and the west side window of Mom's bedroom. When I told her that a spider lived between her windows, she was not happy. I told her that she should be since they eat so many insects!

Here's a link to the kind of spider this is: http://urbanentomology.tamu.edu/spiders_scorpion/garden.cfm.

Argiope aurantia also known as the yellow spider or the writing spider.

More stuff from the yard

These first three are my lantanas in the front yard. I have three different varieties. The lavender one is always the first to come back, but the last to flower. The orange and red were the first to flower and then the pink finally came in. The lavender one actually has lived through the winter in the past. All are returning from last year (or longer - lavender). They are fuller than ever this year - I love them!








This is one of my daisies. They never die down, but only flower in the summer. The banana trees are left from last year also. I started with one and have four now. It's hard to see, but if you look in the middle of the big one it's about to have bananas. Now, these are not bananas that you can eat (they are pink fuzzy ones), but they are pretty! I need to get busy and dig one of these up for Tiffany! If you look behind the banana plants you can see this year's addition of purple fountain grass. I bought it for height and texture - not thinking my banana plants would be just as big as the grass! The bananas die after a freeze and come back when it warms up. I love 'em!






This is a picture of a couple of my jalepenos. They seem to be doing fine. I thought they were so cute that I took a picture of them. :)

This is my backyard protector - spiderguard. This is my attempt to get a better picture of him than a few days ago. I had one just like him/her last year down by my huge tomato plant (the tomato plant that grew huge and gave me no tomatoes :( ... what's up with that?). This year - son of the spiderguard has moved up by the house. He lives above the daisies and in the forsythia plant. I leave him be because he was so good to me last year - even fed him a hornworm that was trying to eat my gigantic tomato plant. Anyway, I like him and should name him. Any suggestions anyone?

Yesterday's Backyard Finds

Here are just a few things that I photographed in my backyard yesterday.