Spring blooms

I am not kidding when I say our yard is essentially a sandpit with a few weeds scattered about, but I have plans! It has taken me a while (years) to come up with a realistic but broad idea of what I want to do and how we’ll do it, and I’ve only recently begun actually drawing up a landscaping plan. I’m still researching specific plants I want. This sandy soil is about as different as you can get from the Georgia red clay in every other yard I’ve had. We are on an island but not waterfront, so we don’t have direct salt spray from the ocean to contend with. We do have salty air; we quickly learned that lesson our first year here when we saw how FAST everything rusted!

Despite my lack of much intentional landscaping or gardening thus far, I do have a few blooming things to celebrate. When we lost a dogwood tree in the front yard, I put this lantana in the newly sunny spot, and the butterflies love it.

Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers, and I never got them growing well in our old yard. We have several here — in fact, had a bunch when we first moved in, but we had to take down an enormous sick oak tree in the back yard the first year we were here, and since then most of the hydrangeas have been scorched to death from too-intense sun. We do still have a few, and I will be finding a place for more.

Our yard has two shades of well-established pink azaleas all around the property. They are a gorgeous riot of color every spring. This old picket fence will need to be replaced soon, which makes me a little sad because it is so delightfully cottagey.

Things got unexpectedly hectic in the last few days before our move from Georgia, so I did not have a chance to dig up the irises I intended to bring with us. Most had come from Ken’s grandmother’s flower garden and I adore hand-me-down flowers. But thanks to a covert operation by my mom {cue Mission Impossible music}, some of those irises did eventually make it here to North Carolina.

Since I haven’t established proper flower beds, I am keeping most of my irises alive in pots where they are too cramped to bloom. Which means I have no idea how many colors might have made it here; I had so many before! But we do have white, at least one variety of purple, and an interesting shade of deep maroon. Once I get the rest moved to a happy spot next year, I hope we’ll have more of the other colors, including two different purples, and a yellow I’d never seen before MawMaw’s garden.