You were busy! It all sounds wonderful. It is amazing how far you have come in one year. I think you're a natural gardener. (Must be your mom's genes!!) Perhaps the birds planted the lemon balm for you. I love lemon balm. There is a huge one in my garden and I just dug up a little volunteer out of the path a couple of weeks ago and planted it in another bed. I thought lemon balm would reseed everywhere, but it hasn't. I mulch everything quite heavily, so I don't get as many volunteers as I used to. We had trouble keeping stuff alive around our pool when we lived in Fort Worth. For a while, we had a pool service company and they were part of the problem. Even though they placed a tarp over the pool when they applied chemicals (to keep the fumes from rising up too quickly and hitting the plants?), they still killed ALL my plants (and I had a lot) around the pool twice. We not only started doing pool maintenance ourselves after that, but also switched from chlorine to Baquacil. I assume the little one is growing well also and hope your sweet wife is perhaps getting a little more sleep. Remind that baby boy to buy his mommy a Mother's Day Gift! (Gotta train them right!) Dawn

Here's a few of my favorite outdoor flowers. Y2K Miniature rose planted while living on the base here. It did not survive its second winter. I love yellow roses! A Yokohama tulip from the same garden. I love peachy coral tulips! Who could be sad when looking at a little viola? I love purple-edged yellow violas! A little wren house, on a 5' pole with a vine (?) growing up, around, over, and through it. I covered the metal pole with a 5" wide sleeve of chicken wire to give the vine a place to cling. I love sweet little vines! And huge Clematis vines! And Morning Glory vines! And Thumbergia vines! And Moonflower vines! And Grape vines! Marquee Moon daylily. It's fragrant! I love fragrant yellow daylilies! Irises, beaten down by a hard rain. Each bloom was bigger than my two hands together. Even on the ground they were beautiful. And yes; I love yellow irises! I guess you can tell I love "yellow!"

Happy Mother’s Day to all ❤️ We had a small group of DH, me, DS2and my mother. The kids nominated DS2 to buy plants for my mom and me. We had a very lazy day, with lunch of quiche Lorraine I had made yesterday, and a dinner of chicken prepared like schnitzel ( cutlets pounded thin, dusted with flour and paprika, dipped in egg and rolled in panko and cooked in the smallest amount of oil possible), on a bed of creamed spinach and mushrooms, served with saffron rice. Watermelon pieces as a salad and coconut cake for dessert, all made by me. Our club restaurant isn’t open for sit down meals yet, and I did not want to risk going elsewhere just yet, so I had this all planned and it took just an hour to put it together. We ate in the informal dining area and I used one of the azalea plants the kids gave me as a centerpiece. Nothing fancy for a change, and I found a box of unused tray liners from Hester and a Cook when we moved and used those as sort of faux placemats. So glad we did not have a big do that required a lot of cleanup, as after dinner DH got a call, his mother died on Mother’s Day evening. She was in her late 80s and had Alzheimer’s for more than a decade, cared for in her own home according to her wish by round the clock helpers. DH and DS2 had driven to Alabama to see her the day before and found her especially frail, so it was not a surprise to anyone. Still, any passing is a blow, a jolt in the road. I’m more thankful than ever to have my mother! DH’s brother, a physician, was with their mom at the end. We will have a very quiet family funeral in a few days. “A life well lived is not to mourn, but to envy and inspire hope.”

Moses,I love your Gardenia story! You did a great job with that gardenia and it sounds like a beauty. I agree August Beauty is one of the better varieties. I had a few at my old house and they bloomed a lot and were easier to care for than some others that I had killed lol! I don't know what variety this one is. It is by the back steps. There's another huge shrub right next to it, that I have yet to identify. That other shrub grows monsterous and tries to shade out the gardenia and I have to continually whack it back! The first winter we were here it rained then froze to 10F one night! Very unusual for us. This gardenia had branches burst open from the freeze. I had to cut it down to a couple feet high. This year it has come back enough to produce several blooms which have begun opening for Mother's Day! Diane, I too, wish you could smell her heady tropical scent! So heavenly.