Gardening, anyone?

I have white blooms!

There's a seed company in WA that specializes in things that like our cool climate. The name is Territorial Seeds and they test everything in our climate before stocking it. I have also had good luck with Johnny's. I got a catalog at the garden show last year from Hudson Valley Seed Savers. They had a lot of unusual and hard to find seeds. I was impressed that they had milkweed, which is needed by monarch butterflies.

We had a dream trip to France once and saw Monet's garden. I bought a calendar that had a photo taken each week at the garden, beginning with bare dirt and a cat in January. I saved it and every few years I pull it out and change the photo each week. We are on the same latitude as Paris with a similar climate, so our flowers tend to bloom at the same time. The garden was worth the effort to see it. It had a fence of espaliered apple trees that was amazing.

I love to look at the catalogs but I also usually buy at the greenhouse. Luckily we have a lot of good options around. In the spring I love to go out on my lunch hour. I am getting the bug todsy. Its been 60 for two days but of course its not going to last.

Oh my thats is a beautiful amaryllis.

Wren I always wanted to go to Monets garden Thats a dream.

Jazz..Oh my, a retreat..envious but so happy that you had the experience and shared the images. Lovely white blooms to come home to.

This orchid began to bloom last Friday. Its coloring does not show true in the picture. Its blooms are purple.

Thank you, Friends.

I love all the flowers, and I love to see the pictures you all put on of them. These days I can grow only rather low-maintenance plants, but I do admire all the others.

Those purple blooms are my first orchid blooms in about two years. Their last bloom season -- about a year ago -- I had a couple of breast surgeries, and I guess I let my orchids get too dry. They all suffered bud blast then.

Another one started opening a bloom today. If there is bright enough sunshine tomorrow, it should finish opening tomorrow. I will show you then.

Thank you, Scottiemom11. Your lilacs should draw lots of butterfly and hummingbird visitors. This is one of those time windows when we in the South can order plants from some faraway places -- not too cold now, and not too warm yet to have plants in shipment.

This bloom finished opening this morning while I slept. In a few days it will look less yellow and its reddish parts will show a little more reddish. This plant always puts on two bloom spikes.

We went to the Flower & Garden Show today. The huge convention center was full of gardens and people selling seeds, bulbs, trees, and all sorts of garden aids. My daughter calls it "flower porn" because they have every spring bulb and flower in mass quantities. It's not fair to have it so early. Still very gray and soggy - too soon to start gardening.

We had fun yesterday converting what was a coleus garden , into this ...

Wren- I bet that show was great. Give me some flower porn anytime.

My amaryllis is still going, two more blooms left. The other day I turned around to see the light shining through a couple of the flowers and captured this with my phone camera.

Jazz...love your photo. Backlit pics are among my favorites. I wanted to save your pic for my screensaver so cropped it. Thanks for taking your camera out and snapping that photo. Here is my interpretation.

I attended a watercolor demo painting a white flower. You can see from the 2nd photo that there isn't actually a lot of white. Against a dark background, the flower looked bright white.

That is a pretty color - and fragrant, too. How could you go wrong?

Scottie ..I can't wait to see your photos of the roses in full bloom ☺