April Snow

 There is something so charming about April snow... a light dusting on spring blooms.***

***There is nothing charming about shoveling snow in April, mind you. Let's not get carried away.

(Top picture: cherry tree; bottom picture: Dead Nettle, my second favorite ground cover)

Saturday Sampler: Late Spring Edition

It's been too long since we've had a Saturday Sampler. Let's look around and see what we can find.

First, a very special finish. This little Texas sampler was designed especially for my Texas basket by Holly DeVivo of Misty Hill Studio. It depicts some of the state symbols of Texas: the guitar, the jalapeño pepper, the Ruby Red grapefruit, and the Monarch butterfly. Check out this cool website to see what your state symbols are. Thank you, Holly!

And speaking of my Texas basket, more stash!

Gorgeous Texas wildflower fabric to be used for backing my finishes. Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, Primrose, Mexican Hat...

Here's what's blooming around here. This is Scotch Broom that I planted the first year we lived in this house. Seven years later, it's huge. I didn't know they got this large when I planted it by the sidewalk! 

Speedwell:

Calibrachoa: 

A beautiful, soft, late spring evening...

Have a lovely weekend, y'all, and happy stitching!

Color

Oh, hi. I was supposed to be posting wildly, wasn't I? Well, I have been--as we say at our house--OBE... overtaken by events. Mr. Wonderful has been incredibly busy in the last couple of weeks, and I was swept up in his busy-ness, so we're blaming him for the lack of stitching and posting, okay? Right.

One thing I have been doing is playing in the dirt. Every spring I look forward to getting outside and fixing up the flowerbeds. We live in quarters, so I'm limited to the beds (in other words, I can't do any landscaping or any other alterations), but I try to make the most of the flowerbeds. We had a long, hard winter and I wanted lots of color this spring. 

Scotch Broom

Dahlia

Lantana: This is my favorite variety and a little hard to find up here. It grows quickly, spreads and trails beautifully, is deer and drought resistant, tolerates full sun, and blooms constantly from May until the frost gets it in the fall. Pretty much perfect.

Coleus: The back yard is shady all day but I wanted some color back there, too. I'm a big fan of coleus in all its varieties, and I think it looks so great when lots of them are planted together. I'm trying to resist the urge to buy tons of them and do a huge container, but I couldn't resist this one. So pretty.

And now for the hosta. We call this "Scary Hosta" because it is gigantic and a little intimidating and looks like it's trying to engulf the yard, small animals, possibly the neighborhood. Mr. Wonderful also refers to it as "Franken Hosta." It's almost 5' across. I know I should have divided it this spring, but I was really busy getting ready for my trip to Texas and just didn't get it done. It looked normal when I left. When I got back, it was way too big to divide. Now we're afraid if we fall into it we might not get out.

Another variety of hosta... not quite so scary.

So that's what we've got at the end of May. I'm waiting on the day lilies to bloom, and I've got some Speedwell that's between blooms. I also rescued a sad little Mexican Heather plant that was needing a home (love, LOVE Mexican Heather). I'll post some updates throughout the summer when everything really gets going.