Spring has sprung

I don't know what the weather's like where y'all are but it's beautiful here. Started a little nippy this morning but the sun is shining now so I took some pics of my backyard. It's definitely a work in progress, and I should be out there working right now. I have summer bulbs to plant and some things I bought last Saturday that still need to go in the ground. But I'm waiting in here for a telephone call so the backyard will have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime...

This coral vine is what got me in the mood to share with y'all. Isn't it lovely? What you see in the background is Packsaddle Golf Course. 

And the bottle tree Tom put up last week! I think it looks terrific. We'll be soliciting blue bottles from friends and family for a while cuz I like those the bestest. Meanwhile, though, I still think the green and amber are pretty cool.

Another view of the golf course in the far and my post oak tree in the near. Also a shot of my blue totem, which needs a good wash. (I'll give it one once we get all the mulch down.) In those four big pots I always plant caladiums--Florida Cardinals when I can find them, which put on quite a show in the summer. (The pic below is the online version of Florida Cardinals, but a very good representation. Just imagine that times four.)

The next pic is my herb garden, which is also waiting for mulch.

Have you ever tried salad burnet? It makes a good addition to a bagged salad with kind of a cucumber-y taste. It's looking gorgeous right now. Oh, and there are a few chives edging into the photo there. Photo hogs, they are.

This is Tom's baby, again a work in progress. He only set it up a week or so ago. We'll be putting those tiles on the right side all around with creeping thyme tucked in between. 

As I said, the whole herb bed is waiting for mulch. Tom hated what I put down last year--I rather liked it because it was big chunks of bark that don't have to be put down yearly, but the wind catches it and blows it into the yard and it gets caught in his mower. So he raked it all up and we're putting down a lovely dark bark mulch, which looks a lot like compost, which is better to mulch with anyway only more expensive. (Boy, was that a run-on!)

That's the last of my pics today. Tom's playing poker--yay!--and I have some errands to run. I'm thinking now I won't get that call this afternoon so I may just head on out.

Ta!

P.S. That first photo is crossvine, not coral. Sometimes my rememberer breaks!