Got some more blooming things - we'll see if this photo thing works this time.

Begonia Hiemalis - 'Dusty Rose'


Lamium budding - one bud only


trying to catch the butterfly on the zinnia


Gotcha! And I'm keeping the pink zinnias now because .... well, the butterfly among other things.

Carol, you've got Zinnias already? Mine are barely up. Everything seems so slow this year. I keep putting more seed out thinking maybe the birds are eating them. My cactus have been going off. The Epi's are starting up too.

Large Red Epi


Huntington hybrid Echinopsis

Oy, have I got zinnias. Also Celosia 'Flamingo something', cleome and cosmos starting up but not hardly ready to bloom - just babies yet. But I'm in 10b so we've had really sunny, really hot days, then cooler days and cold winds again now. I imagine the plants are a tad confused but as soon as the sun comes back they take advantage.

Tiny little flowers of the Coconut Scented geranium......



I'm just blown away by this plant. I've grown it forever but had no idea it could grow so well here.....figured that the several that I planted out would die in Winter, instead it sailed through hard frosts, just thriving, getting larger, more lush. I'm looking at it now and seeing a lot of bare spots in this bed, waiting for seed grown plants to get large enough to plant out...and the ground looks yucky without mulch, and realizing that this would be a wonderful ground cover in here, especially with its habit of seeding a lot. I think I have several small ones yet in the back that I could put out here...it's really a tough plant...who knew?

The echium wildpretii....these are the two that I did not think would even live, they were really wimpy, but the big, healthy 4' based one went belly up and these two flowered...not a huge tower, but would still be nice in a mixed bed. I put them in my sod mound for good drainage and they've consequently got weeds, brambles and all growing around them, but I mainly wanted to keep them going for seed and to see if they would make it through another Winter....

Love that Waldpretii! Wish mine had made it.