In My Garden This Morning...

Gardening is one of my passions. I love to plant new things, rescue dying plants, fill my garden with fragrance, color and texture. I love the feeling of seeing a flower bud open for the first time, I love the first time I get to smell Confederate Jasmine in the spring. I head out to my garden often to pull weeds, trim plants and just see how things are growing, today I wanted to invite you along...

This is what I see when I am at the computer or at my sewing machine, this "butterfly garden" sits in front of the windows. I have witnessed many birds bathing, and butterflies fluttering here...

Early morning is the only time that I can catch these pretty little blue flowers, as soon as the day heats up the flowers close ... This honeysuckle vine curls up right next to my garden swing, where I can pluck a flower and taste the sweet honey-like nectar...

The tiny orange and yellow flower of the ground orchid plant is so delicate, and sits up high on tall stems ~ I love the bright, happy colors in this flower.....Sweet Pink Plumeria (or Frangipani) flowers are wonderfully fragrant and pretty to look at. These tropical flowers come in many colors and are used to make Hawaiin leis...

I have had the same Hibiscus plant for about 14 years and it occassionally sends off a "double" bloom, like the one shown here. I love the ruffled look...and apparantly the squirrells love the taste, they will clean the bush off in a day...This little white begonia is a hardy plant that is very forigiving when I forget to water. It has died down to the soil before and comes up after a good batch of rain...

I have completely forgotten the name of this plant, maybe someone out there in blog-land can help me out???? I love the little snapdragon type pink and white blooms, very delicate and pretty....I have two clematis vines at the base of two of my rose bushes and they rarely ever bloom, I was surprised to see this peeking out at me the other day....

It is really kind of late in the season for Gladiolus to be in bloom here, it's too hot, but we have gotten a LOT of rain and it has brought up several of my glad that I thought weren't going to bloom at all. I love the golden red of this one....This bright orange and yellow "happy" Lantana is what I call a "volunteer". I never planted this one, it came up near my back fence one day (no doubt planted by a bird), and it has become huge plant that needs constant cut backs. I can't get rid of it though, as I have terrible "plant guilt", lol - besides I love the flowers and the strange pungent scent of Lantana...

After a gentle rain everything looks so refreshed... Here a Venezuelan Buttercup is happy for a good watering (this is another volunteer plant of which I have TOO MANY)... This is one of my favorite flower photos, I love the way this Mandevilla sort of just said "take my picture"... :)

A freshly opened bud of Carefree Wonder Rose is happy to have a little sun-shower...My big yellow Plumerias are unbelieveably fragrant, they smell like Coppertone Suntan Lotion!!!

If there is a "scent" that I could associate with what I think heaven will smell like, it would have to be the freshly opened flower of Butterfly Ginger ~ I wish you could smell it...I can only describe it as a mix of gardenia, honeysuckle and jasmine - beautiful.

Have a blessed day!