Flowers for brightening a dull winter afternoon

It's 20 degrees Farenheit in my neighborhood, with snow on the ground. Earlier today, alone in the house and sorely missing my flower garden, I cruised the web to find some comforting photos and videos. I stumbled across these gorgeous pics of a cottage garden in Alaska and then found this video of a garden in Devonshire England:




As you can imagine, those lovely images banished most of my ennui. But what really cheered me up was being surprised by my hunk o' burnin' love, who came home cherry-cheeked from zipping around town in his topless MG Midget and dropped a snugly-wrapped bundle of cream-colored roses on my desk.

And here they are. Sorry about the jacket slung over the chair, the stack of garden catalogues, and that dribble of tomato soup (lower right); I'm afraid this is a typical Saturday-afternoon look for our kitchen table. And yes, the vase is too similar to the tablecloth, but these roses are going to my office just as soon as I give it a few licks with the feather duster and the vacuum cleaner.

If any of you are shopping for bridal bouquets, the creamy roses are Vindela and the antique-looking ones are Sahara. They're both imported from Ecuador.

I'm still in the garden...

Sorry, but I've just been too busy to blog for the past couple of weeks. Here are some more garden photos for those who enjoy them. I hope to get back to blogging about "writing" things in another day or two. Thanks for your patience.

I watched this selfish robin chase away four other birds who tried to interrupt his bathing. He sat there soaking for a good ten minutes, then "posed" for me before fluttering away.

The clematis looks purple in this photo, but it's actually a lovely electric blue.

A very old planter on the garage wall. We can't decide whether to paint it or not. (Suggestions welcome.)

For privacy reasons, I don't like posting photos of the front of my house, but the front garden has been beautiful this spring. The roses have subsided after their first flush and the lilies have begun to open. These are Stargazers, my favorite; up next are the Casablancas (white) plus two other varieties. We'll be enjoying lilies for another month, at least. (Growing tip: although oriental lilies are stunning from a distance, plant them next to a walk so you can enjoy their wonderful fragrance every day.)

Garden photos

Here's what my garden looked like yesterday afternoon: a bit messy, but colorful:

At this time of year, the roses in the bed on the left should be twice that size and have twice as many blooms. But these darlings had a difficult winter (we had to replace several bushes), so I'm not expecting much from them right now. Especially as a small herd of deer has found its way into our urban neighborhood and has been nibbling on the tender buds!

A couple of weeks ago, I planted an entire herb garden in this whiskey barrel: parsley, spearmint, chives, thyme, basil, and rosemary, plus some nasturtiums. Then I added a scented geranium just because I've never grown one (I don't think they like full sun, but we'll see). We love cooking with fresh herbs and dropping mint sprigs into our iced tea and lemonade. The nasturtium blossoms will add a nice peppery taste to salads.

In the pots under the birdbath are some pink zinnias, a yellow primrose, and some red petunias that haven't taken off yet.

Last weekend, my hunk o' burnin' love surprised me with this big pot of pink verbena, "Terra Cotta" million bells, and screaming purple and pink petunias. I set the colorful bouquet on a stand above this lush bed of periwinkle, which gives us masses of sweet little blue flowers in the spring.