Mid-Winter Blooms!

Surprise! We came back from Christmas break to see about 10 different flowers in bloom all around our yard.

Snow in Louisiana !

Quite Contrary

As promised, here is the Firespike.














It should develop more of these spiky flowers and attract hummingbirds.




























And this is the Flowering Maple, with the hanging flowers that look like upside down light bulbs.





























Last but certainly not least is a Hibiscus.

Wildflowers

These sprouted up right after the hurricane and stayed for quite a while. They are Spider Lilies, also known as Hurricane Lilies and Naked Ladies. They make great vase plants.




























We also saw some yellow ones on the other side of the yard.


















We found some other lovely lavender and yellow wild flowers in the backyard.



































This little guy turned up on the wall above our bedroom closet. He is missing one leg. We didn't see him after this but we saw another one in the hall closet and I saw one outside near our laundry closet.

Mary, Mary

Here are some Zinnias I planted below one of our live oaks in front of our jungle back yard.









There's a Dianthus
I planted in the front yard.























This is a rose bush (which I've since relocated to a sunnier spot and replaced with a Firespike which I will display here later.) Behind it is a Star Jasmine plant.



This is an Ixora; an exciting tropical plant. The flowers are large, round, orangish-red many-petaled balls.





Here is an encore Azaelea (white) and Oldeander (pink).



A Yucca cane I adopted is in the back. Adopting him made me realize that we have a large Yucca or Joshua Tree in the backyard.

Abutilon pictum

I am going to plant one of these this weekend.

Stay tuned for a Garden Tour.

Shelby's House and Other Houses

This was pretty bad. This is the house of my friend who didn't have power OR water for 2 weeks.

















Of course this is not even the worst of it. Quite a few people's houses were smashed by trees, like these houses on Park Boulevard:



































Photographs by Shelby Goddard and Tracey Duncan