bloomin' awesome

The tulips are blooming!

Through the snow. Through the ice. Through the long winter. The tulips in our front yard have finally awakened and decided to brighten my days ... and my yard.

Quick recap: Last October, Aidan and his grandmother spent an afternoon lovingly planting tulip bulbs for us to enjoy in the spring. But after a winter marked by record snowfall, and then a late and unexpected mini-blizzard in April, we sometimes doubted whether or not the young bulbs would make it.

They did. And they're here! And they're glorious.

local color

Quietly tucked away on a back road in Exeter, NH is a nursery that I've been dying to stop at ever since we moved here. It's a place where I could spend hours, and totally lose track of time.

Last summer, it was full of geraniums, hydrangeas, and stars and stripes bunting. In the fall, it overflowed with pumpkins, scarecrows, and Indian corn. At Christmas time, it gloriously displayed fresh wreaths, bright poinsettias and twinkly lights. And now that it's spring time, I was simply unable to resist it's charms anymore.

Churchill's Gardens is currently bursting with color. And on a sunny day, it's completely intoxicating.

my [indoor] herb experiment

Here's my first stab at growing herbs indoors. I'm starting with my two favorites -- basil and cilantro. So far, they love the big bay window in the kitchen. I'm kind of stunned at how well they're doing!

It's been a lot of fun to watch them sprout and grow -- especially the cilantro. We just planted a handful of seeds in a tin container, and voila!

I would love it if they exploded in potential salsa productivity. I've never been too successful growing cilantro in the ground for longer than a month or so. At that point, the Texas sun has always fried the beautiful, tender green goodness. So hopefully, the indoor variety will be kinder and gentler.

My dream would be to have to re-pot it in a ginormous "just for my cilantro" clay pot. A girl can dream, anyway.

We shall see.

oh, snap

My favorite garden flowers on the planet are snapdragons.

I adore this time of year when everything is in bloom and temps are steadily in the 70s and 80s -- sunshine galore.

But the best of the best is the snapdragons ... they're everywhere. Happiness on a stem.

winter flowers

For as long as I can remember, we've had camellias blooming in the bed out in front of the house. In fact, my mother always jokes that you can always tell when the first freeze is coming because it happens right as the camellias start to bloom.

They're gorgeous, and I adore them. To me, they're winter in Texas.

This year, along with the camellia blooms, we added some cyclamen to the bed. The colors are incredible.

Cyclamen thrive in the cold. In fact, they're abundant in alpine meadows where they flower in snow melt water.

The perfect addition to a winter garden.