Well, it's spring at the House of the Setting Sun (in fact, coincidentally,
it's spring all over the Northern Hemisphere... but I digress) and the plants are all abloom.
I snapped some photos last night to remind myself why hard work in the garden is worthwhile!



The full view of the house in spring, later afternoon, May 8th.




Southwest side, showing the huge rosebushes and tulips.



Northwest side, showing the ivy and holly. The holly has all new leaves, very shiny.



Tulips. I planted 2 varieties of purple, which came out as dark pin and almost black.



The dark pink tulips are bigger. I don't know what the light purple vine at the base of the fence is.



Tulips again.



Here you can actually see the near-black tulips.



My itty herb garden. Against the fence, left to right, there is apple mint, 2 varieties of chives, and lemon thyme. Closer to the bricks, left to right, is a ground-creeper variety of rosemary, golden sage, and another type of sage.



Pansies in the flower box on the porch.



Pansies by the steps. I planted all of these in the fall, and they lasted through the winter!



The purple vine which is ubiquitous. It came from the apartment building next door, and is taking over the yard. Most of the back yard is covered with this.



A close-up of the purple vine. These are in the back yard.



Grape vines, which cover the back fence all the way to the garage.



Tiny grapes on the vine.



I only have one patch of these small, white flowers out back. I don't know what they are, either.



This is the bloom on the scary yellow "rose" bush in the back yard. The branches are literally covered with thorns of all sizes, like a briar rather than the roses I'm used to, but the blooms smell wonderfully sweet and rosy.



More yellow roses. The huge briat conveniently guard my bathroom window.



Rose bush, again, and the old hose wheel.



Pretty, isn't it? I had to use heavy-duty leather work gloves to set up this arrangement, and I still bled! You can see some of the thorns on the stems in the jar -- long, evil, and incredibly sharp. The blooms don't last long, either -- the table was littered with petals the next morning.



A few days later, the yellow roses are in full bloom.



I'm really obsessed with their photogenic nature.



Back in the front yard, my first pink roses bloomed on May 13! These also smell wonderful, although I'm not so excited by the color.



One of my bearded irises. They haven't done extremely well -- one of the pale blue ones is only about a foot high,
this one is a little shorter than I'd expect, and one hasn't got a single bud. However, the flowers have been beautiful.

Back to the Shadow Gallery...