What's Blooming?

Our backyard is nowhere near what I have envisioned for it and won't be for quite a while but between weeds and scraggly make-shift lawn I love what's been blooming happily. So when I snapped pictures of our knuckle-busting scraping fun, I also turned around to capture a few of my bright happy flowers blooming along the fence.

While we mostly planted bee- and butterfly friendly flowers, and the hive is going gang-buster, we have not noticed an increase in bee activity in our yard. We spy the one or other girl buzzing about the weeds (Spanish Needle and Spiderwort, for the most part), but that's about it, in case you were wondering.

 My favorite corner - Bleeding Heart and a blue Salvia. The colors are crazy bright and contrast so sharply it makes my heart go pitter-patter every time I look at it.

Florida bumblebees are huge, easily measuring two inches, and they are loud. They are also absolutely "NUTSO" about the blue salvia (we also planted another purple salvia and red salvia since they do well in Florida soil, are drought resistant once established and bee/butterfly friendly).

Our Bleeding Heart vine is doing really well in its new corner. After languishing on its trellis in the pot next to our entrance, I moved it out into the backyard. Then I read it loved half-shade. Well, it is planted in full sun, gets more than 6 hours of full sun and is loving it. Weird.

Those darlings with the filigree flowers are a fairly recent addition and I'm madly in love with them. They are "Orange Bulbines" which are great for Florida gardens. Again, they are drought resistant once established which makes them easy to care for, and they are bee and butterfly-friendly.

This year our African Iris finally started to bloom - it's been two years since we planted them - and our red Hibiscus is growing strong. Our banana that I planted last year had her first 'baby' and we have big hopes for all our vines (trumpet vine, Confederate jasmine and Arabian jasmine).

So, what's blooming in your garden?