Spring Has Sprung!

It's officially Spring, but I've heard that a lot of people in different parts of the country are still having winter weather.  Here in Southern California, we've been having great weather in the high 60s/low 70s.  For awhile, we'd been having cold & rain (and even snow here in my town!) one week and then the next week it would be in the high 70s/low 80s.  It was like that off and on, but lately it's been very nice.  I wish it would stay this way forever - ahhhhh....

I took a peak around my front and back yards and you can definitely see signs of Spring showing up.
My pink & white Salvia is already sprouting lots of little flowers (so far, they are mostly just pink).  

All of my Calla Lilies are blooming - love these!

My neighbor's trees that overflow into my backyard are really pretty right now.

My Society Garlic bushes are just starting to bloom their little purple flowers.

My Hydrangea's leaves are coming in.  I wonder if this will be the year the flowers will come back?  Probably not. 

I don't know the name of this guy.  It blooms really pretty yellowy-orange flowers, but it (obviously) hasn't bloomed quite yet.  This one didn't show up until after I had been in the house for a few years, so it was a bit of a surprise.

My Sweet Gum tree is on it's way.  All of the old, dried & annoying, prickly seeds haven't even completely fallen off yet.

This looks like it's my last surviving Gerbera Daisy.  This particular one hasn't bloomed any flowers in a couple of years, but it has 3 buds coming in!  This little guy surprised me.  The other two Gerbera Daisies in the other planter haven't even started growing in leaves yet, so I think they're goners.  Poor guys - they tend to get lots of bugs eating them, so I'm surprised they bloomed and survived as long as they did.

This is one of my favorites.  It's my purple Delphinium (Larkspur).  They get really tall after the first couple of blooms.  I thought this was a goner too.  Last season, the last bloom started coming in and then one day all of the flower heads just disappeared like maybe something ate them (which is strange because where I live, we are pretty safe from critters eating any kind of blooms or garden veggies).  I was very happy to see that it's making a comeback.  It's really teeny tiny, but I'm glad to see that it's back.

These are my purple Dutch Irises.  They were actually the first ones to die and the first ones to make their return.  I wasn't sure if they would come back or not - I bought them last year and so it was their first go-around.  They started growing back in a couple of months ago and I've been patiently waiting to see if the actual flower would also make their return and it looks like they are (in the middle).  

I've noticed that bulb flowers do really well on my property, which is nice because I really like a lot of different flowers that happen to grow from bulbs.  Eventually when I re-do all of my landscaping, a lot of these plants will get torn out (hopefully, I can find new owners for them) - like the society garlic (I have a lot of these and they grow like crazy and spread), the pink & white salvia which also grows like crazy, and some of the other little trees growing around my property.  I don't have the best green thumb, so I'm going to try to stick with things that grow easily (like the bulbs) and that are easy to care for (I'm thinking, lots of succulents and also lots of Birds of Paradise, maybe some Banana trees, and tropical type of flowers & plants).  But, for now, I'll just enjoy watching these guys grow.

Originally posted by Adventures in DIY