Ah! The sunshine mimosa is back! It went underground with the freeze, but it was just waiting for the sun.

Wonderful heavy rains -- and in March!

Carl the handyman and his giant shoes are gone, and my plants are all breathing a sigh of relief. Paint spattered and trompled though they are, they are coming back to life. My sea grapes have all new buds after that brief freeze last year.

first bloom on my Valentine's Day hibiscus

I had finished weeding and was heading back into the house when I glanced over and was popped in the forebrain by this giant blossom. Gardens are like babies; there's no Monday through Friday for them.  Time speeds up and slows down and suddenly the unexpected happens.

Marty picked this out for me for Valentine's Day.  Doesn't seem to be a hybrid, which means it may survive what appears to be a bumper year of chinch bugs in 2011.  I love the soft pink; it's the first non blue, white, yellow, purple plant I've put in the front garden. 

Agatha Christie quote on pretentious gardening

"Tush!" said Colonel Pikeaway... "I could do a column on gardening  myself without knowing a thing about it -- just crib from a few luridly illustrated nurserymen's catalogues and a gardening encyclopedia.  I know all the patter. 'Why not break away from tradition and sound a really tropical note in your border this year? Lovely Amabellis Gossiporia, and some of the wonderful new Chinese hybrids of Sinensis Maka foolia. Try the rich blushing beauty of a clump of Sinistra Hopaless, not very hardy but they should be all right against a west wall.' Nothing to it! The fools buy the things and early frost sets in and kills them and they wish they'd stuck to wallflowers and forget-me-nots!"
---- Cat Among the Pigeons, Agatha Christie, 1959.

Some things never do change.  Memo: vinca, Mexican heather, and sweet potato vine in the summer. Purple petunias in the fall.

No new Chinese hybrids of Sinensis Maka foolia.