Welcome to the first in what (I hope) will be a series of pictures of favorites from this year's garden...  Of course we're starting small because this is essentially a first year garden -- but we're perfectly proud of anything that blooms.  Hope you enjoy it too.

(Above) Our first daylily bloomed April 3, 2004.  Not the most spectacular flower in the garden, but at least it was very, very yellow. (Left) Definitely my favorite scene so far - this includes Amaryllis (Minerva), Mexican Sage (Indigo Spires) and Snapdragon (Rocket Orchid).  These have certainly brought a lot of color to what was a very dull corner.  Can't wait to see how this looks when everything is established.

(Right) Just left of our back steps and along the patio, these amaryllis put on a nice show among the silver dust and Australian Sword Fern.  We won't be done with this area when the amaryllis die back though -- the foliage will still look great mixed with the fern ... Plus, we're waiting on a planting of Blue Daze to work its magic. Keep your fingers crossed.

(Left) Yes, more amaryllis.  Can you blame us?  We had to get a picture of the largest bloom, of course. We've been told that sometimes these can be brought to bloom once more during the season -- so we're going to put that to the test.  I suppose this means there will be a few more amaryllis pictures to come this spring.

(Right)  This one had to be thrown in simply because I love azaleas.  The story behind these two little shrubs is that we did not even realize they were there until they started to bloom.

That's all for now...  If we could actually get some rain down here there may be more to come later.  Do a rain dance for us.  More...