Late spring flowers - lots of daylilies in this post.

I'm posting about my day-lilies today because their blooms will soon be disappearing.  I ordered all of mine through the mail from Gilbert H. Wild and Son because they had so many colors and varieties.  They also run really good sales.  http://www.gilberthwild.com/DAYLILIES/products/18/

I'm also posting additional pics (besides day-lilies) of some plants around my yard.  My asparagus fern lived through the winter in my garage.  It looked pretty rough when it got set out on my back porch in March, however, it has grown like crazy and looks beautiful.  It is very full now.  See my lemon tree in the foreground on the left.  It overwintered in my house that had morning sun.

Cuban Oregano in pot - very fragrant on my back porch.  Note large rosemary behind it.  It had lots of blue blooms in the early spring.

Trumpet Vine - hummingbirds love it.

My Cow's Tongue Prickly Pear - in bloom

Bee on orange prickly pear bloom

Day-lilies

Echinecea - note small (and different) crab like spiders on each of the photos.  This flower is also known as purple coneflower.

Vitex in my backyard - attracts lots of hummingbirds!

More day-lilies

Blue Salvia

Baby birds and bunnies in our North Texas backyard

I decided to do a post about all the baby critters that have come to our yard over the past 10 years.  This was prompted by baby mockingbirds, not yet ready to fledge, that we saw hopping on the ground yesterday.  My daughter put them safely back in their nesting area (blackberry bushes) and away from the dogs.  Both parents divebombed us until the babies were safely tucked away.  They are very protective.

We also have a nest of baby sparrows on our back porch now - I copied a pic from a previous blog of the parents building the nest earlier this spring.

My daughter checked (her annual ritual) and she found the first baby that had hatched!  He is safely back in his nest now.

When my daughter was younger she started feeding the sparrow babies on our porch harlequin bugs that she caught from the garden. 

After a violent storm last year we had purple martin babies thrown from their gourds onto the ground.

We picked them up and put them back in their nests.

In past years we have had a lot of killdeer nesting in our yard - This is a pic of my daughter with a courageous mother that refused to leave her nest. 


Here is another kildeer nest.  The babies hatched before our eyes!  They started running almost immediately!

Here is a nest of barn swallows she found - they were also safely put back in the nest - she loved them so much.

And finally - we continually have baby cottontail bunnies - some are orphaned due to unfortunate circumstances (we have dogs).

 

This was a bunny from a later year.