new growth

Before I share my stuff I wanted to encourage you to visit this blog:
http://midmarsh.blogspot.com/
Located in Lincolnshire in the UK.  I love seeing the different birds they have in the UK, or the same bird species, but with different colors that he posts.  But the best lately has been the remote video of the visiting hedgehogs!

Now for today, there will not be any duck photos, or duck stories.  I promise.
With Spring there is finally more going on in the yard! woohoo!

Let me start by saying, Sister was right.
Last year I was always worrying about whether something would grow, come back, etc.  Not just worrying, but doubts. A lot of doubts. The ground is crappy here to begin with, and I always compare to her yard which always looks so great in the summer.  And she works hard at it.  I can't say I do the same. 

One plant in particular I had doubts about was the speedwell. It grew, but slowly and it never turned into anything close to what she had.  She told me more then once not to worry, that I just needed to wait till next year, it will be fine.  Some times I thought she was just being the nice.

But here it is, in all three spots I planted it, coming right back up.  I'm very excited by this!

These iris are a welcome sight. They survived last years flash flood.

It looks like the pawpaw trees are ok too.  I wasn't sure about the one I'd just planted before the flash flood, since it dropped about 2 feet of silt and rock on that part of the yard.

Cranberry Ice Dianthus.  One plant that really seems to grow well here is dianthus. Any kind of dianthus.  So I embrace dianthus!

I knew what this was when I took the picture, now I can't remember what it is. I know I saw the foxglove coming back, and the burning bush starting to leaf at the bottom of the plant.

  Daffodils are slowly growing.  Bulbs don't seem vigorous planted here.  Maybe I'll get around to enhancing this little area this year.

 Day lilies.  I'm not a fan but my neighbor had planted these a couple years ago. And they have survived so much, it's best to just let them there!

I knew what this was when I took the picture, now I can't remember what it is.

  
 P. x mexicali (penstemon red rocks)

 Rue!  Good to see this coming up so soon. Sister tells me that the black swallowtail is the first butterfly to come back and this was very popular with them last year for laying eggs.

 ahhh more speedwell!!

 Creeping jenny waking up.

 This also excites me. This is my boomerang lilac I planted last season.  Boomerang means it's supposed to bloom twice in a season.

Cat mint!

bath time!

 Singing his little heart out.  The song sparrows have been spending hours singing.  Nice to hear after the quiet time of winter.

 One of the larger groundhogs getting a drink...

 until he realizes he's being watched. Amzing that he notices, from across the stream and yard AND I was in the house, taking the photo through the window.

 A grackle in the tree. I took it through both screen and dirty window LOL But the sun was shining on him bringing out all those colors.

 The birds have a lot of safe places to hang out. Good thing since the hawk has been very actively chasing the birds and he's quite adept at winging his way through all the trees and brush.

 Not sure what was up with the squirrel. I was watching out the window, it saw me and lay down where he was.

 Then went to the other side of the stream and again lay against a tree trunk.

 This tufted titmouse kept flitting around and landing over my head.  May be checking out my hair for nesting. One did that one summer while Sister was visiting, landing on each of us, in turn giving us the once over, looking up at our hair. Then it flew under the porch and came out with some nesting material.  Guess we didn't have anything worthy!

dark eyed junco

 a molting goldfinch