Spring is Here!!

We barely had a winter at all this year. It did spit snow on us twice but most of the days were quite warm. I have begonias in a pot on the porch that are growing again where usually they would have died off during the winter.
I got out for a few minutes today and planted some things in pots. The pollen is really bothering me this year. I never had these allergies until I got older. I am coughing and sneezing all the time and really the allergy medicine only helps for a few hours. And then there is the small issue of me breaking my big toe last week....these are my excuses for not getting more than this little bit of gardening done today..Anyway, I did get some things potted up.
On either side of the porch I have big pots that used to have chrysanthemums in them but they have died off and this year I am replacing them with an old favorite of mine coleus. I just love all the colors they come in and they do pretty well here in pots, though I will have to keep them well watered when the heat gets here.

 I was not fast enough to plant potatoes in the big pot that I planted them in last year but yesterday I couldn't resist picking up a cherry tomato plant and some basil (pesto!) while I was at the feed store. These went into that large pot. The bricks are only their temporarily. After I planted them I remembered the few chickens that are loose have started coming into the front yard and I don't want them or the cats digging in the pot so I just set the bricks in there for now; I'll find something better to protect it later.

 I'll have to pick up more tomato plants for other pots later as I will never be able to limit myself to just one.

Here is a (blurry) pictures of some of the little babies on the peach tree. It has a lot of them coming but you never know how many the tree will drop so we will just have to wait and see.

I wanted to show you this next picture since our mulberry tree has branches hanging down low enough for me to get a picture this year. These are what will produce the berries on our mulberry tree. Mulberries grow wild here and the male trees produce a LOT of pollen but this is, of course, a female tree which actually help reduce pollen in the air because the flowers draw the pollen in (it doesn't seem to be helping me much). Although I suppose there must be some male trees in these woods here somewhere. I am not really that good at identifying tree so I don't know which ones they are. These trees grow wild here. They grow incredibly fast when young. This tree wasn't even here when we moved here and is now huge. 

This next picture is the fig tree that we had to cut down when the tree fell on the house. I knew it would grow back and as you can see it is definitely making a come back. A year or two and it will be as big as it was before.

 I have saved the flowers for last. There isn't a whole lot of flowers yet but it won't be long.

This first one is a bloom from a little miniature rose bush that Phil bought me for Valentine's day. I nearly killed it by setting it outside. I didn't realize the pot was in a metal pail that had no drainage. Luckily I noticed that one side had some branches that had died off and went to investigate and found the drainage problem. It was full of buds when he gave it to me, but the change from the nursery to my house was a bit much for it, and then I couldn't get it outside because we had a cold snap (a couple of days) and most of the buds died off but a few have remained to flower. I believe I will try to find a spot in the ground to plant it later as they seem to do so much better when I plant them out (I have a tendency to not be able to keep up with watering them if I leave them in pots).

This next picture is one of the first roses on the huge rose bush by the mailbox. It is going to be covered in roses again this year but right now there are only about 5 roses on it. 

And for my last flower I found one of the few violets still in the yard. When we moved here there were so many violets that I made violet jelly every year but somehow our poor grass cutting habits have allowed other....umm....weeds.. to come in and take over and there are still a lot of violets but not really enough for jelly.

I don't mind enjoying them just like this. What is that plant over it? Yes, the lemon balm has invaded the front flower bed finally...oh well...