Mish Mash Monday!

Finally, I have a post to put up! I have almost missed Mish Mash Monday- now made famous by Monica at Garden Faerie's Musing, just getting it in under the wire. :) You would think that I could get more than one a week, but can't seem to manage that along with gardening and of course my favorite pastime which is visiting all of your posts. I do want to make a small complaint though. Just about the time I get all of the new posts from my sidebar read and leave a comment-you post anew and once again, I am behind! (please take this complaint with a grain of salt. I love reading each and every post you write.)



Do you know what this is??


Maybe this will help.

It's a Praying Mantis egg case and these are just a couple of the babies that hatched from it.

The granddaughters found them scrambling out from underneath the arm of a patio chair. There were dozens of them, but most were camera shy and moving way to quickly to get a photo of. We were lucky that one or 2 stopped to take a look around before hurrying off to find protection in a flower filled container.

Even newly hatched, they are perfectly formed and adopting the familiar Mantis stance.

This photo you have to look very closely at to see the wildlife. Enlarging helps some. I was at Rose's last week when I saw this one enjoying her flowers. We were on our way to go plant looking-even I knew we would probably buy some! We did find a sale at a country nursery. All annuals 4' and under were a $1.00. We used some restraint and only bought a few. :) But I did find pink Lythrum and it now has a home near the double pink coneflower I found a couple of weeks ago.

Some of my volunteer sunflowers have started to bloom. I so enjoy their bright faces in the garden. And I am not the only one. Since these have bloomed, I have seen many more yellow finches and several blue jays checking them out. I know they are keeping an eye on them to see when the seeds get ripe enough to eat.

My favorite and the first day lily I planted has started to bloom! It is a Ruby??? Of course I didn't write the name down when I planted it, but I did leave the tag by it. The following year when I went to read the name all that was still legible was the Ruby part.

The blooms on this lily are dinner plate size! This fall, I am going to divide her and maybe even move all of her. The ornamental cherry tree is providing a lot of shade in that part of the garden now.

Several of the rest of the day lilies have started to bloom also. This one is Royal Red.

Peach Delight

Unknown, but I love this lemon yellow with the raised ridge in each petal.

Wineberry Candy.

This is one of the 2 small ones I have. I don't think they are miniatures-just shorter and more petite. This one is Little Business.

Wine Red.

And another unknown one. These with the different color throats amaze me.

I am proud of these! Started from seed I purchased at Dollar General @ 3 for a $1.00. These annual Phlox are Drummondi Mixed. And of course I am very pleased that they are all shades of pink. :)

Now for another mystery or two....

I had been noticing these plants growing along the country roads I take to work. Finally one evening I just had to stop and take pictures. Does anyone have a clue about this one or the next?

These have been blooming for 2 weeks now. The flowers are huge-maybe 6-8" across. They grow to about 4 feet tall and seem to be very sturdy holding up their flowers much better than some hydrangeas I have seen. I hope they can be identified as I was thinking about planting one in my garden.

We had a delightfully slow rain of about 2'" on the 4th and even though it postponed many fireworks displays and spoiled a few picnics, it was much appreciated by me and more importantly- the farmers. Even so, we enjoyed our 4th and did get to watch the parade with our SIL driving a firetruck and a couple of granddaughters riding in it and throwing candy to the children lining the streets. I love these small hometown parades with the local high school bands and cheerleaders; the Shriners' 21 man bicycle; volunteer fireman driving the firetrucks with sirens blaring; locals dressed as clowns; and of course the old restored farm tractors driven by face -wide -grinning young farmers of tomorrow. I hope you got out to see America's freedom in action on the 4th.

Have a great gardening week!

A Walk in My Gardens

Cheryl at My Wildlife Sanctuary suggested that we all take time to enjoy our gardens today no matter the weather. Thankfully, the weather here was perfect. Sunny, a light breeze and a temp of about 60F. My kind of weather!

To all of you who are having bad weather-storms, blizzards and flooding, my heart and my prayers go out to you.



After doing some cleaning and clearing in the front garden beds and picking up sticks and limbs the recent winds blew down, I took my garden walk. And surprise! My vinca is blooming. I know we complain about this ground cover spreading everywhere and choking out other plants, but in the spring it is sooo lovely to see all it's delicate blue-lavender blooms. In a few more days I should have a cheery carpet of blooms against their dark green glossy leaves.

The daffodils are getting so close. I had hoped one would pop this afternoon so I could get a picture. I guess I will have to wait a few more days. Everyday, though I notice more are coming up. I think they are the ones we planted last fall when I had all the help from the kids and grand kids. Some may just be later, but I have a feeling some were planted a little deeper than recommended. Good help is so hard to find. :)

Lilacs are budding! I am so excited and can't wait for them to flower. I love the scent of lilac more even than hyacinths. This is the pale lavender that has the big blooms. Sorry no name.

This is the darker one that has smaller blooms, but oh such a heavenly scent! No name for this one either. I planted these long ago before I knew you were supposed to keep track of the names-silly me. I trimmed each of these bushes drastically last year. They were getting way too tall and all the blooms were high on the branches. I was a little worried they might not do to well this year, but they look great and are both loaded with buds all the way up.

This is oriental lily just pushing through the ground, reminds me of an artichoke!

The purple plum trees is also putting on buds. Soon the dark pink blossoms will appear and we should start seeing bees.

Does anyone else see the ragged edges of these tulip leaves as evidence of critters in my garden??? I shouldn't complain too much as I only saw a couple of these and the nibbles won't really hurt the blooms. But lets not make a salad out of my garden, please little rabbits!

This no name clematis is putting on leaves, another surprise. I hope it blooms this year so we can find out what it is.

The hen and chicks, Sempervivum Brannii I planted last year is a little worse for wear. But I think it will come back and fill in.

And now I need help. I think this was a pass along, but can't remember who or what it is? Anyone??

Same goes for this one.... I know I should have written down names and locations.

And finally we have this very healthy looking plant. It is coming up close to where I had the gorgeous blue delphinium last year. But is that what it is, or... is it just a very fast growing weed?

I hope you enjoyed the walk around my garden as much as I did. Spring is a wonderful time of the year-go on take a walk in your garden today!