My weeds...and other things

My lawn will never make the cover of the The Grass-lover's Gazette. There are parts of my yard that do have grass growing, but the grass, a mixture of Bermuda and St. Augustine and who knows what else, has to share space with a lot of weeds. At this time of year, those weeds are in bloom and they are actually kind of attractive.


This dainty little white flower is found pretty much throughout the yard.


These delicate little yellow blossoms, on the other hand, seem to be confined to just one area of my vegetable garden.


Henbit is the real wildflower bully of the yard. It covers large swathes of the "lawn" just now.


Mock strawberry is actully an attractive and hardy ground cover and it has just about taken over one section of my backyard.

I guess I would be more concerned about all these weeds if I didn't have an ultimate goal of removing most of the grass and replacing it with planting beds anyway. For now, I'm happy enough to coexist with my unique mixture of grass and weeds.

In addition to the blooming weeds, there are other signs of the coming season in my yard.


The largest of my angel's trumpet plants which died back to the ground during winter - as, indeed, they all did - is now putting out sturdy green shoots from its roots. This is early for its resurrection. These plants usually start coming back in March.


The loquat laughed at all the freezes we had and it is still covered in buds.


The creeping veronica whose first tiny bloom I showed you a few days ago is now in full bloom.


And my first daffodil bloomed this week. I wish I could tell you its proper name - but I can't. It is no less pretty for being anonymous, I think.


The arugula and its delicate flowers also survived all the freezes and continues to bloom.


The blueberries are almost there. Give them a few more days and these blossoms will be completely opened and the bees will be having a party here.

Along with all the new buds, shoots, and blossoms this week, the critters are increasingly on display. I've already shown you one of my green anoles. I've seen a few butterflies around the yard, too. There was a beautiful Red Admiral in pristine condition, as well as several different kinds of Sulphurs, especially the little ones. There were tiny tree frogs in some of the pots that I moved this week. And then there were these guys:


My very first gecko sighting of the year! This Mediterranean gecko had stationed himself right next to the light fixture on the ceiling of my entry porch, better to catch the crane flies that were buzzing about it.

It's that remarkable time of year when it seems that we can almost see the seasons changing as we watch. I love it!