Spring Makes Me Smile

Well, I'm jumping in again. Somehow the warmer weather encourages me to spend exorbitant amounts of money on plants for my yard despite my distaste for actual gardening.

Something New
This year I have a few plants that need replacing (whether my lackadaisical watering habits or survival of the fittest is at fault is still up for debate) so I bought a couple of new bushes and a yellow forsythia that should grow up to 8 ft. tall. Hopefully it will block my view of this:

You can see my forsythia bush waiting to be planted. Also, that
pool to the right? Nothing but a mosquito breeding ground since
I've moved in. Makes being in my backyard almost unbearable.

I've thought forsythia is pretty for a while, but I didn't have a good place to plant it in my yard. Then PSO came out and massacred my trees (you may remember me posting about that here) and now my back fence-line gets a lot of sun! So this year I am planting forsythia, sunflowers, blackberries and my tomato and pepper plants along the back fence. The positive effect of my trees looking lopsided?

I'm really excited to try blackberries. A Southwood's employee found a plant for me that should produce fruit this year and told me how to train the plant to grow on my fence. He also suggested using some peat moss when I plant it, which is perfect since I have an enormous bag of it left from when I planted my azaleas. I'll have to stay vigilant with my blackberries or they might take over the whole yard.

Random Fact: Did you know blackberries only produce fruit on second year vines? After it produces fruit the vine dies.

Enjoying Past Picks
While it's fun to plan new things to plant, I'm also excited to see some things I planted in the past couple of years start to come back.

I bought these daffodil bulbs last fall from a co-worker. Her kids were selling them for a fundraiser and I wanted some daffodils anyway.

For a few days I only had three flowers and I worried I would only have a few flowers blooming at a time, but now it seems like every morning there is a new flower out there.

I planted the daffodils with irises. Irises bloom in May or June--which I didn't know when I planted them. I can't decide if I'm glad I'll have plants throughout the spring or sad that I won't have the contrasting yellow and purple blooms I had pictured. Hopefully the daffodils will multiply over time so they don't look so sparse.

I didn't actually plant this redbud tree. It's not even my tree, my neighbor planted it on our property line who knows how many years ago. But I love how the branches casually reach out over my driveway with their lovely lavender buds. 

I love that Oklahoma's state tree is the redbud. So pretty.

My daylilies are also coming up and my monkey grass is starting to recover from the winter. Plus a couple of bushes I thought were dead for sure are growing leaves. Spring just makes me happy with the plethora of color that bombards me whenever I peek out a window.

What are you planting? What plants make you happy when you see them come back each year?