Our own magnolia tree is on the verge of blossoming:
When I got home from work yesterday I went out to the garden to see how things were growing. To my pleasant surprise, I spied Max, our turtle, out for the first time since last fall. She had dug a hole along the back wall and took a long nap. We had been watching for her since seeing our neighbor's turtle out and about last week.
This morning when I went out into the garden it had been a week since I last had made my rounds to count my bulbs. Today I counted 80, which is the number of bulbs I planted! None are flowering yet, but it is exciting to see their greenery all the same. I hope our turtle doesn't like to eat tulip and daffodil greens!
It was the plan all along to add more to the garden. Even though this is a rental, it seems worth it to make the backyard more inviting. So after a bit of complaining, I dragged Cyrus to our neighborhood nursery. We could have walked, but I was hoping to get a few plants, so we drove. We have driven by this place many times, in fact Eric goes by it everyday when he takes the boys to school, but we had never stopped in.
I had promised Cyrus that we would not be gone for more than 30 minutes, that I often "dragged" Griffin along on outings and it was his turn. Well all I can say is that as soon as we got there, there was a 180 degree change in Cyrus' attitude. We started by wandering around the nursery, looking at all the interesting shrubs and trees, the air filled with the sweet scent of blossoms on everything from the mimosa trees to the magnolias, to so many others that I can only imagine what they were. We worked our way to the back of the property to some old green houses. There were two big cages containing parrots, some kind of miniature guinee-fowl-looking bird, some doves and parakeets. At one end of one greenhouse there were rows and rows of potted lemons, oranges, and Clementine's. Many were tied to wire frames, so that they grew either in spirals or in a flat wall. There were lemon trees with as many as 8 or 10 huge lemons, but the tree was less than 2 feet tall. Many of the lemons were of a grotesque variety, all warty and bumpy.
After wandering around for a while we settled on some lavender, 3 varieties of rosemary, 2 types of thyme, a sage plant, and a red twig dogwood (to remind us of Wisconsin). The boys and I planted them this afternoon.
