Welcome to JOYFUL REFLECTIONS. Also welcome to MARCH!!!! My header picture this month is a photo I took of the pretty Crocus blooms in our yard... The Crocuses and Daffodils are the first signs of spring here in Tennessee. I am definitely ready for SPRING...

Friday, February 10, 2012

Best of 2011: FLOWERS

This time of year,  when our yard looks bare and brown,  I love to look at some of the beautiful flowers we have grown this past year.   Seeing the beauty of our flowers makes me  yearn for spring...

Today I am continuing my Best of 2011 series...  I'm featuring some of the beautiful flowers that we had in our yard in 2011 ---not counting our Roses (which were featured HERE).  Sometimes,  we talk about our Roses and don't feature these other beauties enough...

Hope you enjoy seeing more of the flowers from my blog posts in 2011.  Hope these flowers are as pretty in 2012...  BUT--I pray that spring doesn't come too early because we have been known to have a BIG FROST in early April... Remember 2007????  All of the spring flower/leaves DIED that year due to the frost... So very very sad!

Above are some of our early Spring flowers:  our Daffodils (I grew up calling them Jonquils),  Hyacinths,  and Crocuses.... The early spring flowers are always so pretty. Be sure to click on the photos to see them larger.




Next came the Tulips.  We also have a wonderful ground cover in our yard,  our Periwinkle.  In Spring,  the Periwinkle gives us lovely blue flowers.  You can also see some Periwinkle in the distance in the first picture above.




When we visited Mt. Nebo, Arkansas last year,  we got to visit the Garvan  Woodland Gardens near Hot Springs...  This is where we saw lots and lots of Tulips --along with many other blooming spring flowers and shrubs. This photo looks like a painting to me.




Next came some gorgeous Irises.   This one is named Autumn Bugler.   We are lucky in that many of our Irises are now re-bloomers... They bloomed for us not only in Spring,  but also in Summer and Fall.




Another gorgeous Iris is one of my favorites...  Can you imagine why????  Its name is Tennessee Vol Iris....  Pretty special,  don't you think?




We had an abundance of lilies and day lilies in our yard in 2011...  This beautiful group of lilies are called Touching... They were some of my favorites in 2011.




And this group (another fav) are called Simplon.  Aren't they just gorgeous???




Finally,  even though there were many more beauties in the yard,  I will stop with this picture of our yard taken from the street during Spring.  It looks so different now!!!  I love winter ---but I really love spring, especially seeing all of the new leaves on the big shade trees... Note the pretty pink Azaleas in our yard, along with that gorgeous green grass.... Awe---Spring!!!!!   I just have to be patient to see this again soon.

On another note,  please say a prayer for us this weekend.  We have MUCH spring growth happening (due to our recent mild weather)---including new growth on the rose bushes.  BUT--our temperature on Saturday night is supposed to go down into the low teens.. IF that happens,  we could lose all of the new spring growth...  SCARY!!!!   But--there's nothing much we can do --except pray!  Thanks!

Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you on Monday.
Hugs,
Betsy