Fleur de Jour

Neither the hubby nor I are the greatest or most enthusiastic gardeners (though he seems to think I have some kind of Earth Mother wisdom about plants that was passed down through the generations...sorry Jack, ain't got it...) but sometimes the garden manages to look nice despite us. Here are some pictures I took this spring:

I don't have a clue what the white flowers are, but the purple stuff is a vine that gets literally EVERYWHERE in the garden if you let it.

The irises look nice every year for about 10 days. Hubby laments every year that they don't last longer. It was a waterfall of roses this year until that crazy storm we had (see the post a few back from this one). This rose bush dates back at least 40 years. I know it was in place when my parents bought the house. It's amazing how it still thrives!He picked the flowers for the box this year. I wasn't totally thrilled with his choice of marigolds...they're nice enough flowers, but I just think of them as being really COMMON. But these particular kind almost look like daisies. We planted way too many (they only came in a flat of 12 plants at Home Depot) but they look so friggin' lush! Though if you went outside right now and looked it would be pretty disappointing, with maybe 2 flowers. But there are a lot of buds, so in a week or so it'll look like that again. See, if we were better gardeners, it wouldn't be just feast or famine all the time, we'd know how to keep it going so it never looked empty.

And currently the hydrangea is in bloom. If it seems a little saggy, that's because it is. Every year it sends up blooms on these long stems that just can't support the weight. Though it's better this year. Maybe it needs to get a little woody to be stronger. (More proof that we're just making it up as we go along... hey! stop trying to peek to the left to look at the dead stalks that used to the iris, and the weeds growing in the cracks in the concrete, and the crabgrass that's starting to outgrow the baby ferns under the pine tree...)