Spring Blessings

When we moved into our home in December, I knew there would be some surprise flowers popping up in the spring.  I wasn't disappointed!  We have 11 rose bushes along the west side of our back yard.  I trimmed them down in Dec and they are doing great!  Unfortunately, the aphids like them, too, but we're working on them. Here are some of my favorites:

Yellow Roses have always been my favorite rose

Red rose, I'm sure it has another name, it looks a little different than the others.  I will read my Sunset Western Garden book someday.

This pink one has a nice smell to it.

This lavender rose is my favorite for the lovely fragrant. Reminds me of my Grandmother.

And this "orange" rose is my favorite because of it's unique color.

It took awhile for these Irises to pop out in my backyard.  For awhile, I didn't think anything would bloom.

These Bearded Irises (I think) are in the front yard.  They aren't lasting very long because of our hot/cold weather.

Azaleas.  These were perfect for our Botany study.  They came out just in time for us to dissect a couple and look at the stamen and pollen and other parts on our awesome Eye Clops microscope.

I don't know what these are, but there are quite a few of these little bushes around the yards.  The ones in front bloomed the best, so far.  I was surprised to see more purple flowers (another favorite :)  We planted Lavender and another little purple thing that I forgot the name of, nearby.

My favorite (really!) scent in the whole wide world...Orange Blossoms!  I love, love, love, sitting outside in the morning with my cup of coffee and smelling this sweet, wonderful scent.  Spring is such a treat in my area!  Hot, hot summer will be here very soon.  But I will have to wait until fall to see how many oranges we end up with.  It is looking pretty good so far!  It is neat to watch the bees pollinate all of these flowers.  Have you ever looked close enough to see a bee's proboscis uncurl into a flower?  I did just the other day, for the first time in my life.  I am learning so much as a Homeschool Mom!! (Ok, so I'm still learning how to spell proboscis:)

And as an extra special treat from God.... an Apricot tree!!    One of my favorite soft fruits of summer This tree is in our neighbor's yard, but a lot of it hangs over into our yard.  When we moved in, it had lost most of it's leaves.  I thought it was maybe a Cottonwood tree or something that doesn't give off fruit.  We had the prettiest pink blossoms on it.  I might have a picture somewhere.  Then came the leaves.  I thought about cutting it back, off of our shed.  I am so glad I didn't!  One day, the kids came running in and said it was a peach tree!  There were lots of little green fruit all over it.  I hadn't even noticed.  I knew they were apricots right away.  My great-grandmother had one in her front yard and I loved picking them right off the tree and eating them.  Nowadays, I have to buy them at the store, and they are expensive, and the season is so short.  So this was such a blessing to me.  Just a little special treat from God.  This whole house was such a blessing from the Lord. :)

We have tried to plant Pansies, Impatiense (sp), herbs, veggies, but they aren't doing very well.  Oh well, we'll try again next year.