Promised pictures

As I promised, here are a few of the pictures I snapped from just around the house.
This is a begonia that I absolutely love. I got a small cutting from a dear fellow teacher about twenty years ago. She had gotten it from one of her professors in college. I gave my dad a cutting and he propagated it into several. When I moved them here to Swampland, I brought all his plants here (quite a load too). My begonias like this had all died, so I was given a second chance. I just wish they bloomed all year. It is a "fancy leaf" so the blooms are not what it is used for. The leaves form a pin wheel - if you look closely you can see how they spin around themselves.



This is the standard hawthorn in my neighbor's side yard. It also only blooms in spring. When I look out my breakfast room window (where I use this computer), this is what I see. This picture doesn't do it any justice at all. Her mother and father in law (from Australia) have moved into her house when she moved out. They had just returned to the states. David is not into horticulture - at all. They don't hire anyone either, so the hawthorn has been allowed to become leggy. The branches are from a crepe myrtle that hasn't budded yet, and will become a real problem when it grows into the roof. These are the folks that owned the tree that landed on our garage roof during Ike. Enough said. But this is pretty, and I enjoy it every spring!


Here is one of the three potted amaryllis I have. The hibiscus decided to drop all of its day only blooms just before this picture. Now the other plants are about to open, but I'll try to get the trio later and post them. Unfortunately, I didn't go out to move the waste can from their midst before taking the picture. I was on the other side of our locked gate. Just to prove we do get a little cold, you can see our wood stack in the distance. What you don't see is the pool behind the plants to the right. Only in Texas I guess!

Sorry I missed my azaleas. I don't have as many as I once did. After 35 years, they are dieing out. They are so much trouble that we are letting them go. But even the two plants I have were really pretty again this year. But them were done by the beginning of March.


The pictures I have not taken are the most breathtaking. They are along out highways. The roadsides are seas of blue (the blue bonnets), red (Indian paint brushes), and pinks and yellows. This is the time of year, especially just to our north and west, you really have to be careful driving along the roadways. There are lots of folks that park on the shoulder and put their poor unsuspecting kids in the masses of bluebonnets - with the chiggers and possible snakes get what really is a pretty picture!

Spring in Texas is really a beautiful time. I'm not as sure about the panhandle, but I think a little later they will be just as pretty as it is around here. Spring comes at differing times in this state.

So I have shared some of the sights I enjoy right around me in the spring. I hope to see you tomorrow. I wonder what this new "worm" will do!

Peace.