Top o' the Mornin' To Ya!

... more to come after school drop-off.

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Many hours later...

I had an errand to run down in Denver. I always love driving through the city. There were many festive greens: planters, pants, green plywood over a walkway, ties, skirts, etc.

BFJ is 1/4 Irish, and we do like St. Patrick's Day, but I don't have a lot of SPD decorations. We do have a big green living room wall! I am planning to make stew and soda bread for dinner. Hopefully it'll be a hit. I was hoping to celebrate today by potting up a bunch of seeds but I haven't gotten to that yet. Maybe by the end of the month. On the other hand, I was very surprised, and cautiously pleased, to find so much green on the outside of my house this past week. Cautiously pleased because we haven't had much snow; we still have two months before one can confidently plant for summer, and I hope my eager sprouts are not killed by a late frost. I hope that we have more snow, and the plants I see can withstand it.

I think this is my allium, planted last fall. I haven't ever seen a picture of the bottom of an allium, just the top, so I can't say for sure, but I don't know what else it can be.

I thought that Teresa, Natalie, and Sue might appreciate this. I grew up in a parsonage, and there was a beautiful and very fragrant dark lilac between our house and the church. A couple years ago, when I knew my parents were soon to be leaving, I dug up a sucker and planted it in my yard. It is still teeny-tiny, but thriving.

Here we have the aquilegia caerulea 'Red Hobbit'. Since columbines are native to Colorado, I am not worried about this one. The picture of it in bloom is from last June, and it's hairy-looking because we'd just had some breezy days with cotton blowing around, but normally it doesn't have a halo like that.

My mother-in-law lives a couple of blocks away and has ten clematis. (I counted them last year.) I think they are so nice, so I've planted a few of my own. This one is Clematis x durandii, planted last year. It will theoretically grow up the side of my shed. I am very pleased to see it cheerily sprouting up already; last year it bloomed, although brand new and only about 8" tall. I have a trellis for it on my "to do" list.

And finally, I am SO relieved to see that some of my blue tulips survived the dog digging them up five times over the winter. It looks like only half of the twelve survived, but I am glad I made the effort to keep putting them back. I have high expectations. I'm not sure whether I can trust my dog to leave this spot alone, though, so I haven't taken the chicken wire off yet. (By the way, the chicken wire has not prevented her from trying to dig them up again, but has prevented her from succeeding!) I would like to plant some thyme between them to make it less inviting. What do you think? Will that keep her away??

If you could use even more green, visit the green week. Green is one my favorite colors, and I have tons but somehow, but I missed it.