Bella, the hodge podge of colors is totally AWESOME!!! Love the pics.

Thanks Deanna!

Wow, those are some amazing gardens, love the peonies and the poppies, and the roses, and the daylilies and the...... :)

I've never seen a better hodgepodge. I noticed last week I still have a packet of poppy seeds and I'm going to have to get them in the ground for next year. My fingers are crossed they look half as good!

Josue, awh, thanks!

Katob, thanks! I LOVE all kinds of poppies. I just winter sow the ANNUAL poppies in milk jugs - see pic below - and they come up all the time. The milk jugs act as a mini-greenhouse. Very simple to do. Good luck! BTW, you can winter sow ANNUAL poppies now in Jan-March and they will bloom the first year.

Came across this early spring shot taken from up on the front porch. Love the green grass, that was short lived.....before the drought set in. Two years of drought! Sure hope this year brings more rain...

Beautiful pics everyone!! Wish I had much to share...

Got a few ID Q's if you guys don't mind:

woodyoak, what is the blue hosta on the left of your first pic?

katob, what are the light yellow and pure white daffs in your first pic?

Josue, what are the really blue succulents in the front of your pic from Jan. 26? I think I see two different varieties of really blue shorter succs--one is between the taller yellow and variegated plants, and the other is a bit shorter to the right of that one (behind the first set of stones).

Apparently I'm still obsessed with really blue hostas and really blue sedums/succulents. And thinking about trying light-colored daffodils again. Last year's attempt was disappointing (only the bright yellow ones came up, and there weren't as many flowers as I expected given the amount of bulbs I planted).

Bella Rosa, just bought some poppy seeds at my local big box for sowing. They didn't have anything fancy. Do you have a source for the fancy ones?

Extrovert- the pale yellow is 'Honeybird' and the white is 'Williamsburg', both seem to be doing well even though williamsburg could hold the flowers a little higher!

Posie there's a reason the 'fancy' poppies are harder to find. Although they're pretty, widely grown, and the source of the poppyseed used in baking, some people may also be familiar with the drug test question 'have you eaten any food items containing poppy seed?'

https://www.livescience.com/59452-why-opium-is-grown-outside-us.html

Posie, a great source for poppy seeds is: onestoppoppyshop.com. Great selection and some really unique varieties.

Along with my poppies, I can't wait to see my lilies this year. BTW, I think this one is

Scheherazade.

Thank you Katob. I was aware of the link between poppies and the drug trade although I found your article about US drug enforcement fascinating and very detailed.

It's unlikely the doubles are being used for the drug trade as plants that are cultivated for ornamental value can become less effective than the species for food/medicine.

Bella, we were posting at the same time! My kids would say "jinks". ;). Thank you for the link!

Make a wish!

Extroverted - the first hosta on the left is Halcyon. Here's a picture of them on June 11 2017 (The big ones are still not at full size....):

This picture is from June 22 - Halcyon is cut off in this view but you can see that the big ones to the right of it are much bigger here:

katob and woodyoak, thank you both for your responses!

katob, I got some unnamed white daffs from eBay the other year, but didn't see any of them come up last Spring. Not sure what happened to them since I don't think any animals would eat daffodil bulbs or flowers, but we'll see if they happen to appear this year. Got the bright yellow daffs from the same seller, and like I said they did have a few flowers but not many. In hindsight, kinda wish I'd not gotten any from eBay at all since I think daffodil bulbs could have foliar nematodes hiding in them, and definitely wouldn't want to add those to the yard. At least I planted these bulbs in an area away from the hostas, but the flower beds are all pretty close to each other. Looks like I need to stop buying plants from eBay.

woodyoak, no wonder that "baby" is so blue! :) I have Halcyon too (only one mature one now, plus two new TC babies). Guess I didn't recognize it since your bigger hostas made it look so small. Most of mine are medium-size, but my original Halcyon is the oldest and tallest with most of the others being new additions in this past year.

All these yards look awesome!! rouge21, "thanks a lot" for starting this thread...now at the very minimum I'll *have to* go out looking for Campfire Rose, LOL! Where to put it though?...

Now I'm really starting to think spring! Last year was the first season where my lilies were really starting to take off, and it's been tough not adding more. Scheherazde will hopefully tower over me next year!

One of the problems with daffodils and the white trumpet daffodils in particular is they are more susceptible to basal rot and may just die during a hot, wet summer or if planted too early into still warm soil. Even a good bulb source can have this problem.

Gardenho- your drought will hopefully end and the garden will bounce back. We had two brutally dry summers followed by a lush, wet one last year. I forgot how nice a garden could be when everything wasn't all shriveled up and brown in August.

That would explain it... I set out to get white daffs and cream daffs, and ended up with bright yellow ones instead. They're my least fav, although the punch of color isn't all that bad either... Would look even better if I still had some red tulips near it, but the deer, rabbits, squirrels and what not took the fun out of tulip-planting.

You guys have quite a lot of color in Spring already. There generally isn't much going on around here till May, which is still a ways away...3 more months of indoor winter torture!

These pics are mostly from last years spring to to comfort one in the drifts of snow.

Taken in June. Second year in my garden.

Extroverted, I like the white daffodils as well. Have you checked out John Scheepers/Van Engelen, Brent and Becky's bulbs (gosh, there are a lot of sources) for bulbs? Lots of choices and many colors. Try some hyacinths as well as mine are not bothered by deer and squirrels (fingers crossed).

Yeah, definitely last year's photos. Winter is still in full control here but spring won't sit back and wait forever. Every time the snow gets beat back the snowdrops inch forward a little more. Still more snow than drop though...

Josue looks awesome! I saw a few other pictures on the cacti and succulents forum and you have some really cool goodies!

Looking at these pictures was better than medicine for my garden starved heart. I was in Target last week and since their gardening section is in the far back corner of the store, I asked a clerk if they had their gardening stuff out yet. He looked at me like I was crazy and said no, that was a seasonal thing and it wasn't gardening season yet. Says who? My gardening fever waxes and wanes but it is always there waiting for spring.

posierosie, I've not ordered bulbs from any of those. Thanks, I'll check them out!

katob, my new creeping sedums all seem to be half-awake too. It seems like they don't mind the snow cover much. I feel bad for the taller sedums though since they too have started sending new growth up but theirs is more sensitive.

josue, beautiful pics, and thanks much for offering to send some cuttings! I looked up the senecio, and it says zones 9-11, so I wouldn't be able to leave it outside through our winter. Any idea if senecio might make it indoors through the winter? I've tried a few outdoor plants indoors and they were quite miserable. Not sure if these could be indoor-outdoor, but they sure look like the bluest succs around! Wish you knew what the sedum is so I could see if it happens to be winter-hardy. I got several new creeping sedums this last year, and they're all supposed to be quite winter-hardy, but not sure what their maximum heat tolerance is. If you lose some of yours during your summer, then it just might be one of the more hardy ones(?).

Here are some of my wood.

Camp, nice to see your woods.

You have a lovely wood, Camp. Is the structure made of branches an arbor or trellis of some sort?

Not many gardens here. I plan to change that this year.

It's like having two springs

First around Feb - 2017

Second one in May - 3 year old bougainvillaea, goes dormant and re grows.

Thank you, spedigrees. The (ahem) structure is just fallen boughs lashed together. The offspring clamber on top of it and look out over the water meadows, .where barn owls and marsh harriers can sometimes be seen. The wood sits in the sheltered lee of an oxbow, created by the meandering Yare river.

I enjoyed seeing all the beautiful blooms. Especially pleased to see the dogwood blossoms as they were such an integral part of our St. Louis springs.

Light snow here tonight with the big storm skirting our Mpls/St Paul area.

Fothergillia and forget me nots.

Tulips, muscari and dandelions :)

Tgontz, I love the intermingling of the fothergilla and forget-me-nots, and, mazerolm, the colors in the tulips, mascari, and dandelions are perfect. Don't get rid of the dandelions!

The dandelions are amazing.

Corydalis are yet another favorite of mine in the spring.

What corydalis is that, kabob? i bought seeds for Corydalis sempervivens, which is native, and I believe it can spread easily (almost too easily?) by seed. it is also pink, so I'm wondering if you know what your Corydalis is and what your experience is with it.

It's corydalis solida, a perennial from little round tubers which goes dormant just as everything else grows up around it (I consider it the early show). Pinks, purples and white are the usual colors and just like most corydalis, it likes to seed around but the seed needs to be fresh. I bought these as bulbs from Brent and Becky's.

purple

Josue, thanks much for the new/additional pics! The sedum does look like the Blue Spruce I got last year. A lot of the creeping sedums seem to be staying awake or semi-awake through the winter, I'm kinda surprised.

Not mine but a neighbour's up the street.

As it is in her backyard I never noticed it. She is rightfully proud of this plant.

Camp, meant to say earlier how BEAUTIFUL your woods are. Would love to be able to visit and walk in them!

Agreed deannatoby.

We are going to Bahamas later next month but near the top on my "to go to" list would be England (although of course it is so much more daunting to plan than a simple beach vacation). Anyways I am hoping campanula that you might be able to give me a personal tour of your gardens...no pressure as I know you are always busy.

I looked through this thread again tonight and enjoyed everyone's spring photos. Seems I took very few photos of my garden last year as was busy and most of the garden was the same as previous years so little change.

Enjoyed seeing all your spring blooms and still waiting for warmer weather and our spring. Will need to walk some neighborhoods to see what others have planted.

Campanula, planting all those bulbs was well worth the work as they look lovely in bloom. While we have spent some time in GB we did not know any gardeners but enjoyed walking through many public gardens. Also, that was before I became a serious gardener. Now I think I would look for someone local to talk gardening with when I travel. Someone who would not think the glint in my eye was something odd.

Found a few

Ok, it’s technically spring, but it’s also snowing outside right now. So I’m jonesing for some blooms. Here’s a bed of mine in early June last year:

And here’s the same bed in late July:

We moved here 3 and a half years ago, and this is my third spring since starting my garden. I’ve been working hard at it all (we have an acre) and I’m SO excited for this spring and summer. I put in SO many perennials last summer and bulbs last fall, and I can’t wait to see them bloom!