I love all the daylily blooms, they all look great. But my favorite is the shot showing all the pots and some of the garden in back of them. I always love to see views of peoples entire gardens. Is that why you didn't take more of your daylilies from your old house? That dormants will not do well there in Sugarland? It looks like you have plenty of room to plant those potted daylilies there and the roses in the back look really nice. Oh, and I love the shots with the green lizard. Great wildlife :-)) I wanted to say I bought SHARK ATTACT from the Shooters also last year but it didn't bloom. So I am looking forward to seeing it for the first time this year.

Your pic of AJ with RL can just about take your breath away......stunning together! I'm not a spider fan, but I'm very tempted to add ALFS to the garden as it has a lot of visual interest. First time I've seen ATTAM......my kind of daylily.....just love that one. I'm going to see the "Cats" musical on Wednesday......will be my third time to see it, and Cowgirl looks good enough to play a lead in that production.....very cute. Linda

Hi, mboston. You have some pretty good birds, all right. Okay, so are you thinking the bird in the top picture is not a brown thrasher? I really can't see him well enough to tell, but the reason I'm curious is because most thrushes are not common yard birds at all. So if it is a one of the thrushes, it would really be a nice surprise. It could be a migrating veery, and that would be fun. They are brown, quite plain, but smaller and more compact than thrashers. All of our thrushes seem to be mostly passing through during migration. Wish I had one to show up here! Yes, that's a mourning dove, which is usually the more common one, by far. Nuthatches tend to run up and down the tree trunks, hanging on like little woodpeckers. They have a short tail and look somewhat stubbier than titmice, plus they don't have the crest. And they're not real common in most backyards. I would be ECSTATIC to have one show up here. I've only ever seen them two or three times. Titmice have the little pointed crest, and are so cute and sweet. A common but always adorable little bird. This is almost as good a time of year for many birds as the spring is. We should start seeing migrating goldfinches again soon, and who knows what! Congratulations on all your wildlife, on your fun photos, and on just knowing how special they all are!! Marcia

I agree with all of you that these guys are so much fun to watch! I'm sure the hummers being chased off have a different opinion, but, at least in the case of my backyard, they do have other nearby options. My neighbor to the north has a rose of sharon at the corner of her house nearest mine, and I did not see my little sentry chase other birds off until they entered my yard. The neighbor also has some sort of bright orange trumpet vine growing along the back fence at the side farthest from me. So, even though the sentry wouldn't let them in my yard there were still other food options only a few yards away. I do have several of the plants most of you mention. I planted four o'clocks behind the house this year. They haven't gotten very tall, but they are blooming. I also have Grandpa Ott morning glories on a 6'x6' trellis intended to shade my air conditioning unit. I have some Cardinal Climber, at least that what I asked Horn for when I bought seeds, although the leaves are not like the original Cardinal Climber I grew. These have palm frond-like leaves. However, these don't bloom much until/unless I abuse them. If I start cutting them back severely they'll start making blooms, otherwise they just grow foliage all over everything around. I haven't tried petunias since I moved into the house. I did grow them in containers, whisky barrels, on the patio at my apartment, but they always withered and died when hot summer temperatures arrived. Maybe they would do better though now that I can plant them in the ground. Of course, the problem with all these is they don't bloom until either late spring or summer whereas the hummingbirds generally arrive in Oklahoma in late March. It does sound like the cross vine Dawn mentioned might be just what I'm looking for, and I would love to plant some native red honeysuckle. Now I just have to find out where I can get them and figure out where they might grow in my yard. Unfortunately, my backyard gets a lot of shade due to tall evergreens that line the entire perimeter. Dawn, how much shade would the cross vine tolerate? Any idea where I might be able to buy some? Also, anyone know where I might find the native honeysuckle? And how much shade the honeysuckle would tolerate? I may have to get creative and figure out a spot to set an arched arbor or something similar just out in the middle of the yard for one of these. The fence from my house to the south property line gets sun in the morning and has a large evergreen branch that was seriously bent by the ice storms in Dec. 2007 that needs to come down. If I cut that branch off it would probably reduce the shade that piece of fence gets during the later afternoon. Might that be enough sun for one of these two vines to be reasonably happy? Thanks for all the suggestions. If you think of more, please let me know. While I'm specifically trying to figure out early spring bloomers for the hummingbirds, eventually I wouldn't mind digging up most of my yards and replacing the weeds with flower beds of various types. Not only would that be more colorful and fragrant, but it would cut down on the mowing. :D Debra