Have you watched the old Disney version of Alice in Wonderland where the flowers in the garden are alive and animal-like? This tulip reminds me of that...I think this one would be a dog... Movies aside, these are the most beautiful tulips I have ever seen...I actually don't remember them from years past although I'm sure they've always been here. Now I will look forward to seeing them next year.
It's the first day of May, but you'd never know it looking out the window today! It's snowing in the mountains, and it's been drizzling all morning down in the city. Before the storm rolled in earlier this week, I finally took time to clean up the flower beds. Of course my little helper Kate was right there with me :0) She kind of gets the concept of smelling the flowers, but apparently she smells with her mouth... When she wasn't trying to smell the tulips, she was gently petting them like some sort of animal, she's a funny little bug!
Before the flower beds got buried in several inches of snow, the thought passed through my mind to clean them up a bit, thinking that spring had sprung...but you know how that turned out. So can you guess who I'm going to recruit to help with the job when it does come time to do it?! She can't get enough of digging around in there :0)...what a good little helper!
One of my favorite things about wintertime is getting an amaryllis bulb, bring it home and planting it, and watching it grow. I get excited when the bud at the end of the absurdly long stalk starts to open and finally turns into the magnificent palm sized flower that I love so much.
For the first time in the four years that we have lived in our house we have a garden. Although it's not even really a garden...it's actually just six planters in our front yard..because that's where the sun is...our backyard is too shady to grow anything. I'm complaining, but not really because in the hot Utah summer a shady backyard is your saving grace....
The planters came from Pat who found them while searching the trash for treasures in the Avenues (they have a neighborhood pickup twice a year, and you'd be surprised to see what some people throw away!). We think they used to be used as rabbit hutches and now they work beautifully as a space for our tomato, zucchini, and pepper plants.
Although this is the first year that we have actually followed through with a garden it is not because the Obama's have one...it is because Pat found these awesome boxes! We were watching some news program last weekend that was talking about seed sales increasing and that it was due to the fact that Michelle Obama planted the first White House garden since WWII...see here. So that's great, but not the reason we finally planted our garden...we'll keep you posted on how it's doing.
My hens and chicks are "blowin' up" this year! I don't know if it's all the rain we've had or maybe they are just getting well established in the flower beds now. Whatever it is I love it! This patch especially...see all the baby chicks shooting off the main hen...beautiful!
There are actually rocks under all those plants. You can just see the last little tiny bit of rock sticking out in the top right corner. Looks like it will be time to thin these guys in the fall... 
