Becky's MGs and Other Plants Part 11

lovely!

what is nice about hellaborus is that it will bloom for months as long as the conditions are right

Very pretty.

definately a welcome sight since it is still snowing here.. thanks!

Mona - Your plant is a lovely sight! Blooming for months makes it highly desirable and enjoyable! Thanks for posting a photo of yours to show what they are capable of looking like! Very, very nice!

they are perennials and usually the first thing blooming in spring and as long as it it wet and cool they bloom so for me they start end of march beginning of april and go till the end of may to end of june depending on the heat and they are shade plants so no afternoon sun for them for they dry out to much and stop blooming they are a zone 6 to 8 plant and I am zone five but with the right location it will be fine

Hi Becky, You were certainly busy in the backyard since last I visited. As usual your vines are so unique and lovely and your arbor is delightful. They have gotten so expensive to purchase online. I saw on tv that FL had some really cold temperatures last week and I wonder how it affected your garden. We are just seeing the end of a deep and ice-crusted snow from before Christmas thanks to a heavy downpour of rain today. After living in Orlando for so long I can't wait for spring. The pictures of the Lenten Roses are gorgeous. I bought three plants last year after seeing them in a local landscape bed and hope they will bloom this year. The plant markers are under the snow now, but I think they were called Pink Ruffles. They are supposed to be deer proof. I hope so.

I'm so very happy to read the news of a grandchild for you.

Pam

Hi Pam - Thanks for the congrats on my upcoming grandchild. :-)

The almost week of freezing temps really damaged all my plants and yard. Everything is brown now. I won't know what is really dead to the roots until Spring to see what comes back, if anything. The trees are the only thing really doing okay. But I am hopeful that most plants will come back stronger and lusher than ever. If not, I shall replace them with seeds I have that I will re-grow them!

The temps here are now in the upper 70's during the day and 60's at night. Glad to hear that the snow and ice has been melted from the rain. We had rain early this morning which we needed. It's been really dry here, too.

Because the cold weather killed all the nectar blooming plants, my resident hummer has been exclusively using the feeders. And it appears I have another hummer visiting as well. Which is one big plus from the damaging freeze.

Becky, I put out a feeder for the hummers too, since their favorite shrubs were killed back. I saw a Hummer today, he was checking out the brown Firespike....but I have never had one visit the feeder yet. My yard looks worse every day. Some things that seemed to survive the freezes now are showing damage. My Phlox and Snapdragons came thru fine, I never even covered them.

gardenpom - Make sure you change the feeder sugar water every 3 days, otherwise the nectar will spoil and the hummers will stay away from the feeders. They are hard to catch at the feeders because they only come long enough to drink and then leave. But I can see the one feeder through the french doors and notice it off and on all day long on the weekends when I am home.

Here is a photo of the other hummer. I have one feeder in the back yard and one in the front so they don't fight over them. (But they still do!) The photo above is a photo of a resident female Ruby-throat hummer who guards that feeder and won't let any other hummers near it.

The attached photo is of a possible juvenile male RTH. I am wondering if this hummer might be the female's offspring. I don't know, but I do wonder.

Keep the feeders up and changed regularly and you WILL get visitors to them especially now since all their nectar plants are dead from the freezing weather of last week. You might have the best luck catching them at the feeder around 8 am in the morning and around 4:30 - 5:00 pm at night. They are really hungry when they wake up and then they tank up with nectar/sugar water right before they head to a tree to sleep at night. :-)

These photos are taken from inside my home looking through a window and even through a screen porch in the backyard (first hummer photo). And they are taken from a distance. I don't have a good camera with a nice telephoto lens.

I made new sugar water yesterday. I'll change it this morning before work.

awww, I miss my hummers. They are so cool..