Blessings Friday: Spring Flowers

I really appreciate the helpful comments about my sewing snafu yesterday. I will eventually conquer this project. It will probably be some simple disconnect between the book and my brain that will make me laugh and have an Oprah “ah hah” moment.

Since yesterday was the first day of Spring, I wandered around our backyard checking out how nature is blessing us this turn of time’s wheel. It’s not all Saguaros and sagebrush in Tucson.

Right away, I’m cheating. These aren’t growing in our yard; I bought them for my dinner table. My friend Kristie came over last night for our monthly dinner/crafting evening. She made a gorgeous ankle bracelet out of beautiful glass beads and little silver Celtic beads. Her jewelry-making skills are amazing. As for me, I was feeling a bit unfocused, so I didn’t work on anything but just watched her and chatted.

Have you heard about the world’s oldest living rose tree? It is a giant Lady Banks Rose (Rosa banksiae) now known as the Tombstone Rose and resides at the Rose Tree Inn in Tombstone, AZ. It is the result of a rooting of "Old White Rose" sent as a house-warming gift from Scotland in the 1800s. This year that one plant will be 123 years old. We have cuttings of this massed around our backyard fence by our pool.



Our Tombstone Roses are blooming like crazy but there are also thousands of buds just waiting to ripen.



I have two other rosebushes in another section of our yard that are budding, too. There is lots of new cane growth and buds are popping out all over the place.



Our honeysuckles are starting to bloom, too. Mortimer, our resident Black-chinned Hummingbird loves these.



Lots of rosemary grows in my yard. We’ve been enjoying their blooms for some time now. It is so wonderful to have fresh rosemary year-round.



This is lantana. It grows like crazy in our yard—the birds love it. The flowers change color as they mature, resulting in inflorescences that are two- or three-colored.



We have giant Oleander trees (yes, trees) growing around our house in the front yard but they aren’t blooming yet. But on my front porch I have a humongous Boston fern and a huge pot of happy red geraniums.

I hope your yards have examples of nature’s blessings—and if you live where the weather is still onerous, buy yourself some Spring flowers to remind you of the hope instilled by this change of season. Have a very blessed Easter weekend!