There are still a few TC blooms today... This white TC is a little messed up because of my kitten. I took this photo a couple days ago, all excited that I finally had Easter Cacti blooms. A couple hours later, I heard a crash, and saw that my kitten had knocked it over and ate the blooms. I still love her, Iol. I recently got a cotyledon orbiculata pig's ear, love the shape. (I keep any could be toxic plants high up away from the kitten). I got to enjoy this spectacular cacti bloom, it's now with wonderful Mike. Yesterday had my first Magnolia bloom. This is 'Jane.' Not mine, but too pretty not to share, I stumbled upon this while out, 'Alexandrina' Magnolia. I LOVE finding mature magnolias in bloom :) -Nancy

Kevin - you mean to tell me you can't find a single place to put them after that big addition?? ;-) What's the deal with pickling anyway? Do you have to put the cukes in brine within a couple days of picking them? itsmce - wow jeez! Some crazy winds there. Sorry to hear about the potted tomato plant, but good thing it was just the extra one that was damaged. I think the onions will pull through, they look amazing! I am very happy to see that you've finally gotten a good soaking rain. Hopefully it continues to come in moderation.

I have been gone for almost two weeks, and much has changed in the yard, thankfully. One of my favorite azaleas is blooming, this view which looks upwards into it. I like for its luminous white-pink blooms and because you can see the topmost blooms from the back deck. These tiarellas were rescued from near extinction last year, and they grew from extremely small starts to what you see below. I think I'm going to add some more for a mass planting. And, I LOVE the cobalt blue of the Brunnera. I will definitely turn that into a mass planting. These were abused by the plowman, and still look good this year. I thought they were goners. Just wish the variegated leaf forms would grow from seed. I bought four Percy Wiseman Rhododendron this year. I LOVE these colors. The buds are bright pink, but the flowers are light pink tinged with yellow. The three colors simultaneously on the plant are just gorgeous. And, ending with a very pleasant surprise. I ordered roughly 15 bare-root peonies last year in the fall from GH Wild. I planted them in rich well-prepared soil, and nearly all of them have buds this year. Did NOT expect that. It's going to be exciting! Below is one with two big fat buds. As a side note, I am realizing that these spring-blooming trees and shrubs are a good color bridge between bulbs and my "normal" herbaceous perennial season. The new azaleas may be off their true bloom time since they were just purchased and I'm assuming are under more of a greenhouse/grower timeline. But, I'm hoping next year they are blooming during this needed "bridge" time.

Nancy, Hooray for blooms on the tomatoes. Today's max wind gusts weren't as bad as yesterday's---in fact, 4 mph lower, so the wind wasn't as bad, but we were two degrees hotter so it still felt warm/windy and sort of miserable. I am sorry to hear that you and GDW have been through the wringer this week. That must have been very scary. My dad and I both reacted very badly to anesthesia. I hope I never have to have it again for any reason. Amy, Congrats on the score! I love it when a gift I've selected for someone else is an obvious hit so I know how you're feeling about that. I hope y'all's Mother's Day gathering with your mom was wonderful. Rebecca, I agree about just how bad this early heat is. I cannot ever remember a year when May was hot and then June turned back cooler, so I'm not expecting it to happen this year. I hate to say I've already lost hope, weather-wise, but I sort of have. Usually, at least we have May, you know? The cold of April is gone, our usual May weather is nice, we might have some severe storm days but we have plenty of other nice gardening days. We work ourselves to death in the garden in May because we know the June heat is coming and this is our last good month to really spend all the time we want in the garden, right? So, to have May feeling more like June or even early July is very discouraging. I'm already working around the heat like I normally do from late June onward. This isn't good. It is bad that your TV meteorologists already are comparing this year to 2011 and 2012.....it was okay when I was doing it because I'm not an official anything...but they are official....so we have to take them seriously. Hailey, Begonias are ridiculously easy and so pretty---I just love them. They are very forgiving of dry spells too---surprisingly so. With the Wave petunias, they are hybrids so any seed you save is not necessarily going to give you identical plants next year--they might give you some plants that look like this year's plants, or they might give you something entirely different. They might give you a similar color, but most people who have tried to grow F-2 Wave or Tidal Wave petunia seeds have gotten a whole range of colors. You might get the color, but not the same growth rate or disease tolerance or whatever. It depends on how the genes resort themselves in the F-2 generation (the plants you have now are the F-1 generation). So, if you want to get an exact color of Wave petunia or an exact growth habit, you'd be better off purchasing F-1 seed than saving F-2 seed from F-1 plants. Even if you have to buy the F-1 seed, it still is a lot less expensive than buying the plants. Petunias are surprisingly easy from seeds. We'd better have a fall! Mother Nature owes us a very nice, beautiful, mild, prolonged autumn to make it up to us for taking us straight from winter to summer with no spring. Actually, that's not a fair statement. At my location in southern OK, this is how the seasons have gone: January & February: Winter, March Spring, April Winter, May Summer. It isn't fair, though, to have Spring followed by a return to Winter. It sure confused all the plants. I blame it all on the convergence of Easter with April Fool's Day. I just knew something horrible would happen as a result, and the April cold is the horrible thing that happened. The whole month of April was one big April Fool's Joke, but then there's May. Who is to blame for May being so summery? I love liquid seaweed. It works great. Tips? Never use it indoors because it is stinky, and that's doubly true of liquid fish fertilizer. Both of them will attract cats and coons, and sometimes vultures, so keep that in mind. Are you rural or semi-rural? Every time I use blood meal or bone meal, I have vultures circling above the garden for days. Also, all of these can attract dogs and cats....I cannot let dogs come into the garden with me or they'll try to dig up the bone meal. You can use liquid seaweed either to drench the ground beneath the ground or as a foliar feeding. It seems to work fine either way (just like compost tea or manure tea). Since the NPK on liquid seaweed is low, you probably could use it weekly if you wish. Jen, Plants always do that. When there's something I really want to take to the SF, those volunteers never sprout until after the SF. Your comment about the doctors in Tulsa is not the first such comment I've seen or heard. When we moved here, we just kept using our Texas doctors because we were so comfortable with them. Nancy, I'm glad your blooms are beginning to appear. It is about time! I still feel like not enough is in bloom yet, but we do have lots of blooms in our garden-just not as many as usual. The wildflowers in the fields are the same way---some didn't bloom at all, some haven't shown up yet but I still have some hope we'll see them, and others are blooming either very or somewhat early---there's no rhyme or reason to it. Blame the weather. The weeds are indeed growing like weeds with many new ones sprouting daily. I weeded most of the asparagus bed today as it is the only one that didn't get weeded during the week, and it looks so much more normal and under control now. Rebecca, Those tomato plants were born in a cabbage plant....no, wait, that is Cabbage Patch kids. Hmmm. Well, it all starts out with one tomato blossom that has anthers and pistils.......hmmm. That might be too boring. Well, where did they come from? Did they fall off the turnip truck? Follow you home wagging their tails behind them like little stray puppies? If you do not know where your tomato plants came from, how are we supposed to know? Let's ask the squirrels what they think. I bet they'll know. Hailey, The bottles of liquid fertilizer ought to have directions right there on the bottles. So, it hit 89 degrees here today and it didn't feel quite as bad as some days earlier in the week, but it was no picnic either. I worked in the garden this afternoon while Tim mowed. I weeded, planted a few things, water those things in well with a watering can, etc. and harvested some more tomatoes---this time Early Girls. I also ate Sungolds while working in the garden---they are a natural form of gardener's Gatorade. Tim broke some sort of belt on the riding mower and didn't want to push the push mower around in the heat, so his workday outdoors ended early. He came and offered to help in the garden and I sent him to the house. I felt like he needed some free time that didn't involve working on anything. Mosquitoes are horrible, horrible, horrible here now. Now, I'm off to bed because I hope to get into the garden early for a couple of hours of work before the day gets too busy. Dawn