I am not sure what my garden is doing at the moment because I am lucky to be away visiting in Florida.   Friends report that there has been ice, snow, rain, melt, freeze, more ice, so I hope my plants are safely snoozing.  Here are some lovely local plants I saw on a walk yesterday.

The bougainvillea are stunning.

Red Hibiscus

Orange Hibiscus

Bird of Paradise

Succulent

I don’t know the name of this but I like the two different colored blossoms

And those tulips I mentioned?  There are lots of pretty shells here. The smaller ones are called banded tulips and the larger are the true tulips – one with a tillandsia tucked inside.

The nickname for Platycodon is “Balloon Flower”.  I went out into the garden to capture this wonderful plant in its many stages of flowering.  This particular plant was grown from seed by Garden Club friend Camilla.

The daylily explosion has begun.  There was one very early one called “Elizabeth” that popped a few weeks ago but the real show is beginning now.  There are three that vie for the first June blossom.. .this year “Little Baby Cakes” won the prize.  Here’s a photo of it next to my granddaughter’s favorite rock.

There will be many more to come – perhaps a different bloom every day.   I planted a few new ones this spring, and I can’t wait to see what they look like.

It finally happened.  Jack Frost came by and put his special touch on everything.  In the early morning, the plants have beautiful frosty edgings.

Sunrise on the garden globe

The porch plants came inside to their winter home.. a  shower stall in the downstairs bathroom makes a great little greenhouse

By mid-morning, the sun has warmed things up.  The real cold is coming the end of the week so over the weekend it was time to finish the fall clean-up.  Patio and porch furniture came into the garage for the winter, ceramic birdbaths were emptied and stored away so they won’t crack, trellises/stakes/and supports stashed away and deer fence put up.   I took bushels and bushels of decaying plant material to the compost.  The Sheffield mums are still going strong so I left those alone.

Smokebush leaves continue to change

The gorgeous red blossoms on the pineapple sage remain

The meadow received its annual mowing

One last alpine strawberry

A thrift decided it wasn’t done yet

A leaf hanging on

And a turkey in a ma-a-ple tree……

My garden club maintains a lot of different areas in town and those all required clean-up this week too.  Yesterday we cleaned up the Blue Star Memorial so it would be ready for today’s ceremonies.  Thank you for your service, Veterans.