Flower and Garden Festival Butterfly House

Well, this is actually just outside the Butterfly House, for Winnie the Pooh topiaries, but I just loved the color.

Amarillis is Blooming

My striped amarillis always blooms before my solid red ones.
Naval oranges are blooming up a storm, and the scent is heavenly all over the garden.

The Lavendar Lantana is back with new green foliage. They need to be kept trimmed to be managable in this bed.

Dogwood Blossoms Gone, Allergy Season on High

The Flowering Dogwood has leafed out this week, I hope that I captured some blossoms in photos since the show is only a few weeks long, but is breathtaking. (Our neighbors also have dogwoods in their front lawn and it just multiplies the effect).

Fruits are growing and look pretty even without the ripe gold color.

This here is an allergy nightmare set for next week. Ugg. I don't know why a certain magazine mentioned they were the South's lilacs, as they smell awful, attract bugs and cause havoc with my eyes!

Blooming in Northeast Florida - Camilla, Azalea, Dogwoods

Flowering Dogwood is a it's height, not a green tint anywhere in those bracts .... all snowy white right now. Cornus - Cornus florida


Coral Bells - Rhododendron (Azalea) - Kurume Hybrid


Camellia reticulata


Selection of Camellia japonica


Single Camellia japonica


Flowering Dogwood against the sky

Citrus Shopping on Sundays

We found a lovely little citrus nusery and on the weekend took the kids to experience it. It was beautiful and anyone in the south should spend at least one afternoon just smelling orange blossoms.

The proprietors were three older men, all different characters supported by Honey, the sweetest dog ever. They have have coloring sheets, Woodpeckers and juicers.

We found finding the information on citrus was fun, easy, enjoyable and wandering was magical.
The only difficult task was paying ... there was always another story, another variety, another rare bird that flew by. Paying meant we had to leave,and neither the customers nor the owners were pushing that along.

I recommend stopping by to slowly walk through this little grove of The Flying Dragon Citrus Nursery
.

Vintage Educational Coloring Books

Love these vintage educational coloring books. There are also reprints out there too. These are just so much better than the cutsey character waste of paper that you commonly find.

The drawings are .... gasp .... realistic and show details about the animal you will recognize in pictures, or if lucky enough, in person.

Thrift Store Desk

This would have been my desk if I didn't already have a refinished table for the chickies to do school work on. Isn't it sweet? It was so tempting to buy, I had to take a picture of it to sooth the shopping beastie inside that was shouting at me just to buy it anyway .....

My Turn, My Turn ... Leading Some Little Flowers

I was able to lead the girls' club this month. We made little bright fabric drawstring pouches with tea bags and get well notes inside. The girls were quite excited to choose from various fabrics and try their hands at sewing.

The Works of Mercy we listed on sheets improved immensly by two fanastic images from The Graphics Fairy. Here is the blue label and the pink cherubs.

Heavenly Bamboo

Okay, this photo is of the very top of a 8 foot Nandina domestica. Isn't it gorgeous? Obviously evergreen as it's up and kickin!

Blooming in Northeast Florida

My lavendar Trailing Lantana (L. montevidensis/ L. sellowiana) is holding on through several freezes. It seems that the foliage has become a dark purple color. As much as I do not like Lantana (from childhood) I find this little jewel boldly standing in my garden struck a chord adn it's currently my favorite plant. Of course, it is also the only bloom to be found.

Luckily for lantana, the plant has several things going for it in our area. It loves full sun, needs moderate water (good for those of us that don't turn on sprinkles unless it's for a playdate) and is evergreen until heavy freezes. It is one of those great butterfly attractors, and little girls seem to be drawn to the little clusters of flowers which pull off easily for confetti. The fruit is noted as poisonous if ingested. I also find that any scratches from lantanta branches my my skin itch a bit.