More Pretties!

Azaleas (and other acid-loving plants like gardenias) do not grow well in Hell's Half Acre, because the soil is too alkaline. Supposedly in East Tejas they grow like gangbusters, but not here. Being from a part of the South synonymous with such flowering shrubs, and having enjoyed them Up North too, I refuse to be without them, though, and have several in pots. I bought these two in bud from Big Box nursery, so they opened up a couple weeks back are are so preeeeeety! The ones I already had from last year haven't quite gotten there yet, so more pretties to come. The pink on on the left is "Hinode Giri" and the salmon one on the right is "Fashion." A. if you ever see the micro-mini "Wren" up there, snap it up for me and ship that sucker!


Here's "Cameo" quince--it bloomed later and not as much as the "Texas Scarlet" but I love the coluh.






This is one of the irises I brought with us in the RV from Up North. It's really big now and currently has three blooms on it. I don't have a label any more, and I've been trying to find one like it on the internet...

And last but not least--yet another Crossvine picture--I just love this! Unlike the one I posted last year and earlier on the other blog which is growing over the fence from our neighbor's yard, this is the one growing over the gas meter in our front yard. When we first moved in, at the end of a drought-y and super-hot summer, it was just a dead-looking vine twining around the meter. You can see that it has recovered nicely:

The mother-in-law planted it there to camoflage the meter--apparently the gas company told her they were going to do some low-profile thing in some less-obvious area of the yard, and then while she was at work, they came and installed this 2 1/2 foot tall behemoth right smack dab in the front of the front yard. She planted this as her revenge, I think, because they now have to burrow through vine to read the meter. I incorporated the be-vined meter in one of the large beds in the front yard It has been going nuts since it got some TLC and water, and as I think I have said before, I've trained it into a kind of Christmas tree shape around three tall garden stakes.