Flowers all planted. At last.

There is damage from the harsh winds of Wednesday and Thursday and the cold yesterday and last night. My basil is blackened and wilted. Sundry branches have broken off. My lilac has sustained damage.

But today was mostly lovely where I am and I took advantage of it. With the exception of some new basil I am keeping in the kitchen until after tonight, which is supposed to be cold also, I have planted all the flowers that were waiting to get into the ground.

Oh, and the ones I have purchase in the last two days on impulse.


This section has been reworked. One of the bare root roses from last year just was not doing much so I ripped it out. In its place is a Golden masterpiece (just left of center in the foreground). On the right is a Julia Child rose (another yellow rose) that I saw and loved today. Behind and to the left are two Nearly Wild single pink roses to complement the China Doll tree rose in the left foreground. I put lots of annuals around them. Between the two yellow roses is a red knockout double.

When I talked to Kathy today she said that as long as I don't get to thirty roses, I'm OK. The current count is 28.


The color pots I put in for Easter are holding up well and provide cheer right outside the back door.


This is a new crescent of all white flowers planted in front of the grapevine. This went in today also.


Here is a view of the southwest corner. A new semicircle of red carnations and red/pink dianthus surrounds the Singing in the Rain rose in the left midground. The Lady Banks rose in the right background is covered with its butter-yellow blooms. (You may click on any photo to enlarge and see more detail.)


This is a view of the northwest corner with reworked areas and all three peach trees.

Several of the roses from prior years are now full of tight buds. If it really warms up by the middle of next week, which it is allegedly supposed to do, there may we quite a show coming up.

We have had the most dramatic skies yesterday and today. You can look in any direction and be awed and fascinated. Patches of blue break through here and there. White clouds, dark gray clouds, curtains of rain falling though mostly not reaching the earth, awesome mountain vistas, wisps of cloud, pale tattered veils of precipitation evocative of ancient curtains in the breeze or the smoke of hundreds of campfires, every conceivable shade of gray. I cannot begin to express it in words and I could not take videos while driving (even if I had the equipment and knew how to use it). There was an apocalyptic edge to it all as well, with skies this dramatic, snow falling when the ambient air was in the low 50s, sunshine at lunch time. Spring in New Mexico.

And that is the report for today. Time to put my aching, scratched, filthy body in the bathtub.

I hope you are having a blessed weekend.

Христос Воскресе!

It is still Easter. Alleluia!

--the BB