One Iris

One of the iris buds popped open overnight. It's the first of a whole bunch of them that are standing up straight--for now. Usually once they open the flower head is too heavy for the stalk and they flop over so I'm taking pictures fast before it falls.

I don't know the name of this new plant but I suspect that it's a kind of perennial Russian sage. I had a plant like this before and it didn't come back last year. They planted three or four of these so we'll see how they go.This is the new purple plant.

The blue plant hasn't bloomed yet but there are flower buds so I have hopes. This is called Blue Star so I'm guessing that the flowers are blue. Pretty clever of me, no?

Then there's the grasses. One is green and the other is blue green. This is the blue green one. I don't know its name either.

 

I like today's drawing. It's out of the 10-Steps: Flowers book and it's a Bird-of-Paradise. It was a little challenging to draw and fun to color.

The Hummingbird showed up just after I washed and refilled the feeder. Naturally after the first sip it moved around to a spout behind the feeder but if you look closely at the left side of the feeder you can see its wing blur.

I refilled all of the feeders this morning and by afternoon the squirrels hadn't found the peanut wreath but the Bluejays had. I was lucky enough to capture one Bluejay on the crook close to the house and the other one is in the background on the peanut wreath.

I pulled out my second (and favorite) Oriole feeder this morning and stuck it in the ground in the cluster of feeders right outside the patio door. So far I haven't seen any bird on it but I have high hopes. I know that the House Finches like the oranges too so I'll settle for one of those but I'd prefer an Oriole. Of course.

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I did my nightly two rounds on the Brioche Beanie, then knitted a few rounds on the Hayden sock, but mostly I knitted on the Punto Washcloth. I've only got a few more rows to get back to three stitches and the end.

This afternoon I took a few boxes of tosses to Goodwill and then went down the highway to Stein's Garden and Gifts for some geraniums and red salvia for the patio pots. I considered leaving the pots empty this year but decided that was a bad idea. Tomorrow or Sunday I'll go to Home Depot to see if they have any Miracle Gro potting soil and some coleus for the pots in front of the house. I looked for the soil at Stein's but only found the 40# bags. Way too much. I'm hoping that Home Depot has the smaller bags. I'm not really in the mood but I might regret it if I didn't plant in the pots.

--Barbara