Spring garden pictures

It's been a while since my last post.  I have been busy at work and have volunteered to help my friend Jim coach both his daughter's 8 and under Challenge Team, and also her Rec league team as well in softball.  We did the Rec league together last fall and had a blast, so here we go again. We have a wonderful group of girls again this year. Four of them were on last years team.
 So anyway, let me take you for a little tour of what is flowering in my gardens.

These are the jonquils which were actually blooming last week. The yellow one is Golden Dawn and the lower one is Avalanche aka Seventeen Sisters. Both are very fragrant Tazetta type Nacissi. They do quite well here in our area and in five years have multiplied enough that I will need to divide them soon. 

My photography skills aren't the best but I hope you can make out the Prairie Fire Crab Apple tree in the 2nd picture, with a close up after. This tree grows right outside our large family room window. When viewed from inside the house, it is super imposed upon a group of native dogwoods (1st picture) which are in the background. I really enjoy the two weeks when these trees are in bloom.

These are some Hyacinthoides hispanica Excelsior also know as Spanish Hyacinthes. I have them planted in front of my antique rose Penelope. I will be sure to post some pictures when it blooms. It is a very tough plant and requires little care. It is like a knock out in that it doesn't suffer from leaf spot or other diseases. 

This is my table of transplants getting hardened off. I have tomatoes peppers and a bunch of flowering annuals. That is my Cardone plants in the bottom picture. I am going to use some of it for ornamental use, and some I am going to grow for eating. The stalks, after boiling for an hour of more to get them tender, and then fried, are reported to be tasty. We shall see.

In this picture of the back corner of my yard has Red Flame honey suckle in the foreground, with forsythia behind that and a Cloud Nine dogwood behind the fake rock which covers my wellhead.

These are some closer pictures of the Red Flame honey suckle. It is not fragrant but it does bloom repeatedly all the way through  spring-fall. If you want to attract hummingbirds to your yard, this is the plant to have. It is not invasive like the fragrant asian type is. I have been layering it every year to make more to plant along the fence. I hope someday to have the Gold Flame honeysuckle at the top of the yard to come all the way around the fence to meet the Red Flame someday.

The top picture is a Korean Spice Viburnum which is planted in front of a Chocolate Crape Myrtle, a dwarf tree with dark leaves and white blooms. That is a batch of daylillies in the front. The bottom picture is a Akibono Cherry tree that I raised from a small stick. 

The top picture is my dwarf white weeping cherry tree. I had always wanted one of these trees and so I planted one. The bottom picture is of my Burkwoodi Viburnums. They are very fragrant, so much so that some people may not care for it. I, and my DW love it. It is at the corner of the garage where we walk past it when we go to the mailbox.

These are the two varieties of loropetalum that grow in my yard. The bottom one has orangish leaves with pink blooms, and was supposed to be a dwarf variety. But as you can see, it is now over 6 ft tall. I am going to prune it hard after the blooms die back because behind them is an American fringe tree that needs some sun. I will be stuck with pruning every spring until the tree gets above the loropetalums. 

This is the Osmanthus fragrans, I don't know if you can tell from the picture but it is still blooming and the fragrance comes out later in the day.
 I have more pictures, but that seems to be enough for now. Go out and enjoy the weather and if you live in the Charlotte area, the Rhododendrum at the U of Charlotte have started to bloom and the gardens are worth the visit.