Spring blooms

There are so many wonderful things flowering in our yard.

Tulips:
Iris:

Redbud:
Our crabapple bloomed for the very first time:


Hellebores (lenten rose):

These guys actually flower during the winter, but we just added these to our shade garden and wanted to share how cool they look.

Last weekend we bought 2 new trees to add to our yard. That puts the total up to 11 trees planted since we moved in. That doesn't count the ones that didn't make it or that we gave away. We got a persimmon tree (I've never tried them, but Lisa says they are good and thought it would be something different) and planted it near the birdbath:

She is leafing out a little; we'll post another photo once she's a little more visible!

We also bought a saucer magnolia, which is more like a bush than a tree. The flowers on it are so beautiful and it smells wonderful.


She is going to go in the front yard, where we have started yet another project. We want to change the placement of the front walkway and create a nice garden in front of the boxwoods. Here Lisa is just getting started with the digging:


And here is our progress:
Slow going, but we're moving along. We just love to make work for ourselves.

Look what is going on in the vegetable garden:

Hooray for peas! We will be eating them very soon...

And our seedlings have gotten so big:


These are our tomatoes, a few daisies (white petals and bluish centers), and lots of dahlias. The dahlias will be the main focal point of the new front yard garden, but we grew a bunch so that we could add them in other places around the yard.

And what would a blog post be without the latest of Vivian's antics? What did she steal this time?
A bag of potting soil,

that she managed to drag all the way

to her bed.

Busy bees

We've had lots going on in the past week and have many photos to share.

1. Trip to Charleston.

We took a little mini-vacation last weekend and explored the city of Charleston. Lisa had never been, and it turned out to be a great time to go down there. Weather was beautiful, and so many things were already blooming.


The city,of course, is known for its architecture, but also its gardens. We loved what they used as bedding plants in one of their main parks:

Parsley! They used swiss chard a lot, too, which looked really neat with all its color.

We took a little jaunt outside of the city in an attempt to find this landmark. I'm amazed that we found it (we had no directions and no good map; it wasn't that well marked and it was down a dirt road) but we did! It is called Angel Tree and it is a live oak that is hundreds of years old. It was really amazing to stand under her -- you could really sense how old she was.


We then returned to the city for some more sightseeing, shopping, and of course good food.
The next day we drove to Cypress Gardens before heading home, and took a hike through the swamp:

There were signs warning us of alligators everywhere, and we kept expecting one to leap out and grab us! A bit unnerving, especially since we were practically the only people there. No signs of alligators until we got almost all the way to the end of the loop:


He didn't look like he was going to do much leaping.

Aside from diligently watching for man-eating lizards, we did get to enjoy the beautiful surroundings. They had lots of blooming camellias, daffodils, saucer magnolias, and azaleas.
I love this photo:


2. Lisa's 30th birthday.

Lisa is 30 (finally)! She celebrated the big day by skipping work and spending time with our seedlings. She got a number of things transplanted (with Caretta's help, of course):


I then came home and immediately started making her cake. I remembered flowers, too (I'm a good one).



Dinner, wine, cake, presents...sounds like a good day to me!

3. Garden

We spent this entire weekend outside weeding, moving and transplanting lots of things. The days are getting warmer and longer and it is definitely showing. Today while it was raining, I swear I could see the yard greening up right before my eyes.
We cleaned up the strawberries and made room for 2 new raspberry plants, and then cleaned up the main bed to get it all ready. We've already planted garlic and beets, and transplanted the little kale plants. Notice the daffodils blooming along the fence?


The peas are looking so good (and you can see one of our young garlics on the bottom right):


We transplanted a lot of our seedlings into bigger pots today, and Caretta decided to join them under the grow light. We think this means one of 2 things: 1. She's jealous of all the attention our plants get and is trying to "blend in," or 2. she wants a base tan before heading to Cancun for spring break. If she starts packing up white t-shirts, we'll know.


Look at our cute little crocus!


We just planted these this fall so it is exciting to see them. The bulbs I mistakenly planted upside down were the first to bloom. Just sayin'.

4. Ice cream!

Here Lisa is "making" ice cream in our brand new maker:


All done! It is like magic...

We put this batch in the freezer to harden a little bit more, but not without a taste test first. Delicious!