Spring Recap Part II

Yay! I found my camera.  This made me very happy.  I also realized that there were a lot of early spring flowers on it that I didn't get to share.  So before we move onto other things you get to see more of what my Mother's garden was like a little while ago.

These first few bulbs are all more rescues from my Grandpa's garden.

Grape Hyacinth

 These guys were kind of funny.  I think they might be a more wild type.  They were much larger with heavier foliage than I'm used to seeing grape hyacinths with.

Peach Daffodils, one of my favorites

More Daffodils

Shhh.  Don't tell anyone, but I think daffodils, or 'Narcissus', were named after my Dad.  Well, at least his personality ;)

Pink Tulips

Top view!

These were quit the surprise!  I found that was half the fun of saving all of these bulbs from my Grandfather's garden.  We had no idea what we would be getting.  I don't think these are something either my mom or I would have picked out but we both absolutely loved them.  They were giant!  Especially compared to the little yellow ones. (remember?  midget tulip?  No?  Go look at the previous post then.)

Rock Cress

Love!  Another favorite.  It's sooo much happier this year.  My mom and I went through the trouble of removing the weed barrier that Dad had put in years ago with such good intentions.  That's whole different post though.  Suffice it to say, the rock cress has been as thrilled to have it gone as us.

A Hybrid Tulip of some kind

Sorry for the poor focus on that shot.

Mountain Alyssum
 

Red and White Snap Dragons

Every year we have snap dragons come up everywhere from seed in all kinds of different colors. It's a fun way to see genetic recomposition in action.  We have blooms that we never planted, or I've ever seen in the stores.  They love to grow up between cracks and between rocks in particular.

But I won't ramble here.  I could easily make a post about the snap dragons in the garden alone.  I'll rant then :)

Tiger Lily

 You know what?  It's nice growing up, having a job, and having money to spend.  Being able to buy this lily and plant it for my mom as an early Mother's day present might have made me even more happy than her!  And she was really happy about it.

Garden Gnomes

And last but not least, garden gnomes!  No, not the creepy plastic ones.  These cute little guys make fabulous ground cover and seem to do really well in our dry climate.  They're another one that we never have to plant because we always get tons of them from seed.

I have to confess.  I have a love hate relationship with the gnomes.  Why you ask?  Because they consort with the enemy!  They hide nasty baby weeds beneath them and say "nothing to see here but us!"  So I don't see them, and don't get to pull them out when it's easy.  Guess the garden gnomes think I should wait until those weeds grow up a bit and pick on some one my own size.  Also, they're learning bad habits from their weeds friends.  The june grass has taught them how to take over beds and even choke out other flowers!  Because their so cute though, I have a really hard time pulling them out.

And that's it for this year's early bloomers.  Admittedly some of these guys bloom all summer, like the gnomes.  But I wanted to share them anyways since they open up so early in the year.