Flowers, flowers, flowers

Ninebark blossoms!

Mock Orange with a tiny spider.

Daylillies

Painted Daisy

The whole batch of flowers.

More painted daisies!

Painted Daisies and Day Lillies

My mom knows that I love daisies and when we first moved in here she helped me plant Shasta Daisies and these lovely Painted Daisies. Too bad that they dont' stay in bloom very long!!!!

My mom had really been kind to me and given me many perenials over the years. Of course I have love in my heart for purple, pink and yellow flowers. I have no clue why those melt my heart more than others, but they do none the less. Here also is one of my first day lillies of the year. They are so beautiful to me!!!

My best flower shot ever...

Beautiful Flower

Here are my attempts at using the gift Minsan gave me for my camera. Instead of buying a specialize (and expensive) macro lens, Minsan found this wonderful Hoya brand Close Up Kit. No kidding it works just like a macro lens for the up close work. It is absolutely wonderful for these close ups. My Canon Rebel can do pretty decent close ups all on its own, but I am still amazed at how much closer I have been able to get with the close up kit. No kidding, if you don't have one and you are wanting to do macro shots afordably, this is really the way to go!

Here are some more iris shots I took this morning too. Irises are very different from some of the flowers in my garden. I actually aquired them from a lady that I buy milk from. She handed me the plants she had thinned out and made me take them... I don't love how the foliage of irises look so I actually didn't want to plant them. But who wants to watch plants die. Well, after planting them last year and watching them just be green (and boring) ...but now they are actually quite beautiful!

Iris

It was rather windy today, but we all noticed that the irises on the corner of our property was blooming. It looked a little wind blown because it was just that, very windy today. But, the yellow and purple was absolutely beautiful!

Bleeding Hearts

I told you I was going to run over to the nieghbors and check out their color :)! Sure enough they have this beautiful bleeding heart plant in their rock garden. I can't beleive that I haven't planted one in my yard yet....it is amazing!!! I took a ton of pictures and loved each and every one of them.

The final stages of my flowering crab...

Here is my flowering crab on Tuesday afternoon...beautiful and more beautiful.
It always brings a little sadness to my heart when the flowering crab starts to fade from dark to light. Sure enough by Thursday now it is already fading to this light pink and many of the blossoms have blown off. I hate that within a weeks time they have gone from gorgeous to faded... I better start looking for the next flowering plant for the spring...I shoudl go and check out my neighbors yard, LOL!

It always brings a little sadness to my heart when the flowering crab starts to fade from dark to light.

Flowering Crab

This is indeed one of the most beautiful trees (in my humble opinion) that I have ever seen! Flowering Crab trees have the most amazing, amazing, amazing blossoms. On top of them being beautiful there is an amazing abundance of blossoms. Only some of them are fully open right now and I can't wait to see it in a few days! Plus, they smell amazing...even the bees think so!

I love the dark pink of the tree in my yard, but the white one at my sister's house has it's own beauty! I may share some pictures of that one in the coming days.

This tree is actually very special too. My step father's grandma was the originator of this special tree. On the family homestead lies the original, but everyone has been able to take branches from it and root it and then plant it elsewhere...such as my very own yard. My step father had tried planting one in his yard at the same time as mine 6 years ago...can you beleive that it started as a twig just 6 years ago? In any case their tree didn't survive, but mine has grown in amazing proportions. Yeah, before you know it they may be back to try a branch from mine to grow one for themselves.

Enjoy the lovely colors though of the one in my yard.

Mother's Day and Amazing Color

Have you noticed how quickly things are changing here in Minnesota? Yep, the leaves are coming and the early flowers are here! I love to see all the beautiful colors bursting forth now. Each week I am sure we will see new wonderful colors coming that will need to be documented :)!

These pictures were taken at my mother-in-law's home. She has definitely given a lot of thought over the years on what to plant so that she can enjoy wonderful, beautiful, amazing color ALL summer long. Of course, I think she did it all for me so I would have them to take pictures of, but that really is a little selfish now isn't it?

What about you? What have you planted in your yard that has inspired your passion for color?

Tulips...finally true signs of spring color!

I have yet to plant the lovely tulips in my own yard (really, I should do this!) to enjoy, but the neighbors across the street have done just that! I asked them ahead of time if I could take pictures of their flowers when they begain to bloom and they didn't mind at all (I am so thankful as they are so pretty in their simplicity!).

Here the tulips are on a Saturday afternoon...just about ready to open up.

The following day, the sun was shining and the tulips had taken over to full bloom! Beautiful!!!! I think that tulips in the spring are such a wonderful love sign from the Lord... especially for us northerners who have been hit with the black, brown, whites all winter!

What I thought was interesting is that with all the blooming tulips in a row, there was still this one lonely one that hadn't experienced full blooming yet. I am sure it was beautiful when it finally opened up, but I do find it interesting that all the others knew to bloom on time and this one didn't!