Depending on how much rain we'll get here in the Carolinas this spring and summer, I am hoping my flower beds and vegetable garden do really well this year! Balian spent a few hours with his GiGi (Great Grandma Alice) yesterday, which gave me some time to catch up on things that I have been needing to do outside! We went to The Garden, a local nursery over the weekend and bought them out! Just kidding! We did get a few plants, though. I love gardening, so to be outside mulching, digging, planting, watering, etc is just heaven for me!

I can't go too crazy with plants this year, because my time is consumed by my favorite little man in the whole world! I can take him outside with me for a little while... I just put his bouncy activity center on the porch or in the yard and he watched what's going on in the neighborhood while I work. The hot Carolina sun sends us back inside after about thirty minutes, though.

I have to be selective with the flowers. I have to plant things that won't wither in our hot summers and can withstand drought conditions. Last summer was so bad, none of our vegetables did much of anything! The flowers beds all got mulched yesterday. They still have rows of pansies and violas, which I'll leave until they get too leggy-looking... won't be long! I have petunias coming back from last year, and don't ask me how that's happening- can't imagine how they made it through our rough winter months. I've got black eyed susan's coming up (love those), and they've multiplied a little bit since last year. I have salvia coming back (Sacha had to remind me that I planted some of that in the front beds... I thought it was a weed!), and annual lantana! I decided to incorporate the shrubs into the bed this year, so I mulched around them and planted verbena around the edges. Those will start creeping out and look lovely! I have two perennial lantana plants that were potted last year. I transplanted one of them yesterday, and need to find a good spot for the second one. I thought that they were dead, but the branches are green when you break them off, and they are still putting out their fragrance, so I have a feeling that I'll be seeing leafy green sprouts sometime soon. I love lantana- you don't have to do a thing to them, and they get huge... and attract hummingbirds and butterflies! 

On my porch, I have portulaca planted in the column pots. Those will vine out and trail over the edges nicely! They put our such colorful blooms! I have impatients that are potted, I moved my cactus plants outside, and I have a few pansies potted on the porch and going up the front steps.

In the back beds, and alongside the house, I've planted irises and zinnias, There are already a lot of other things planted there- azaleas, another flowering bush that I can't think of its name, variegated grasses, pansies, salvia, ice plants, etc. Lot's of beautiful plants, which I just love!

In the veggie garden this year, we've planted cucumbers, zucchini, squash, eggplant, tomatoes, and red and green peppers. Decided not to plant okra again this year, because it ended up being more trouble than it was worth last year. Hopefully, we will be enjoying these veggies in a couple of months!

Yes, I still want more flowers, and I'll have a few areas to fill when some of the annuals from this spring die off, but I'll have to just be satisfied with what we have, and enjoy it. I have lot's of gardening to do at my mom's house, my mother-in-law's house, and a friend's house, where they want me to design a butterfly garden for them! :) How nice that will be!

Well, I hear my little man stirring in the other room, so that means it's time to be up for the day!