An Antidote to Winter

I left Little Cuter and MOTG bemoaning their snow covered gardens.  

I hope they are still talking to me after this post.

We left the kids' warm and toasty home at 5:45am.

There was one lonely degree wandering aimlessly in the darkness.

Forty-five minutes later, at the airport, there were two of them.

We left our parkas in Illinois.

I was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and a polar fleece hat, gloves and winter work out pants.

Only my feet, clad in my hiking boots, were warm.

My ankles, rebelling against the low cut toe socks, were a disturbing shade of red.

We flew, we unpacked, we had lunch, and I went outside.  

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

For those of you trapped beneath yet another snowfall, 

I hope this helps.

Just imagine smelling this desert mountain laurel flower

then turning around and seeing this

a volunteer who appeared last year and reappeared while we were gone.

There's another one on the south side of the house

right in front of the only salvia which survived .

I planted five. 

I'm still having trouble figuring out desert gardening.

As we enter our seventh spring, 

I'm beginning to realize that some cacti need more love than others.

The Old Man of Mexico is nearly parallel to the ground, seeking the sun.  

The bluebells are wildflowers which appear every winter.

They are small and pretty as foliage and then they burst into blueness all at once.

I planted none of them.  

Perhaps there is a lesson here?

There was a line of these gopher plants between our property and the street.

This one bloomed, so I've memorialized it

I'm not going to account for all the other ones. 

euphorbia rigida

I'm not a total failure.
I transplanted this aloe and she's doing quite nicely, thank you.
She has lots of babies, too.

Then, there are things that flummox me. 

The hibiscus never froze back this year, and I don't know what to do.

Usually, this is the time of year to prune it to a desirable shape.

Instead, I'm watching all that new growth.

It looks so healthy, reflected in the sunshine.

Yes, denizens, sunshine.

That warm stuff that lets you relax your shoulders and just breathe. 

It's a place where amazing things happen before your very eyes....

like this amaryllis which I planted in October for a December bloom.

It showed up the last week of February, 

and I was glad to see it.

I hope you are, too.