Spring 2014 - My Garden and Its Visitors in Early April

This blog post finds my yard and garden coming alive!  I love Springtime!

 We have 5 Purple Martin families that have taken up residence this year (10 total).  Two brave sparrow families have also moved into the gourds as well.

 

 One morning a few days ago, while I was walking around my backyard, I heard a very high pitched birdsong - I looked up in the trees -

And ... I saw a whole flock of Cedar Waxwings migrating through - their feathers are so beautiful!  I wish I could have gotten closer to get better photographs.

I planted two Texas Gold Columbines last year - these are pictures of my very first bloom.
  I located them in dappled shade as they will not be able to withstand direct Texas sun this summer.

This is a picture of the spring sunrise off my front porch.

 Some pots around my porch.

Guess who visited me yesterday?  A hawk moth (also know as a hummingbird moth).  A beautiful pollinator in the garden, however, before this stage the caterpillar is known as the dreaded hornworm.  I'm personally willing to leave some hornworms around so I can enjoy this beautiful moth sipping nectar from my flowers.

I planted that Lambs Ear two years ago.  I was sure our cold winter would kill it out this year, but it came back!

A Red Admiral butterfly visited my garden yesterday too.

 A Swallowtail butterfly also was sipping nectar from my holly bushes. 

We have 4 grape vines that are starting to leaf out now.

 We have about 10 blackberry bushes this year.  We replanted half of them in March (in front).  We dug up the older bushes in the front because they did not produce as well and their berries were not as big.  They were the thornless variety.  We found that we preferred the blackberry bushes with thorns as they typically produced more and larger berries.

 

 Our cold season crop garden is not as plentiful this year - we had to replant the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage that we lost when the temperature in February dropped over 60 degrees in one night.  This is the first time we have ever lost cold season crops.  Only the onions, garlic and spinach made it and they looked "burned". 

The asparagus is coming up now.  Even though this is a small patch, we have had enough for 4 meals so far and it is still sending up lots of shoots.  This plant is a perennial - it dies back to the ground in the winter and comes out again in the Spring.

Elephant garlic, regular garlic, chives, and trailing rosemary in the foreground.

Oh - there's Merlin.  He loves to visit the garden so he can enjoy his catnip fix.




A Mockingbird is singing his heart out on my roof!

And finally, to end this post, here is the path to my front porch, my little dog Festus bids you goodbye.