Thanks to Pam, well and Jason who actually did the planting, I have a tea olive along the side fence. It's a nice healthy size, about three feet tall already, so I'm looking forward to good spring growth. Next up on my "smells yummy" list is a banana shrub.

The weather yesterday was wonderful. I got the front bed cleaned up and re-strawed. I'm a pine straw gal. Don't give me that hideously fake red cedar chip stuff - the palmetto bugs LOVE it. Yum. Yum. Yum. I trimmed the dead branches out of the Japanese maple in the front yard and now it looks horrendous, but they were dead, whatcha gonna do about it? Hope it can rebound in the spring. I started to limb up the palm tree, but the approximately ten billion bees that were working the bloom stalk didn't particularly care for the idea and I didn't particularly care for being stung, so..that chore awaits for early early morning before the bees wake up.

Okay, now it's time for Mystery Plant! Beneath the sheltering arms of my big oak, I found this:


It is basically a stalk coming out of the ground with a ball of flowers on top. The flowers look like honeysuckle blossoms:



And then, over by Jason's garden of snake root, passion vine, roses, sunflowers and the mint plant we've named Loki (for its massive spread) this popped up:

I think it looks like a castor bean plant. It had little white flowers and now has some sort of berry on it. If that's what it is, then we need to get it the heck out of there, because if I recall correctly, castor bean plants get huge.


Today: Painting with poison. My canvas: blackberry brambles. (I let them be in the marsh, but hate them under my back porch.) Pulling invading grass out of the Miss Kitty and Conan Memorial Garden. Restrawing around the back porch.

Sometime this fall we are going to add a fig tree (or two) for the birds and squirrels and the other creatures of the swamp.

Over the winter, we'll be working on our next big project: the approximately 12x8 foot area between the back porch and the a/c unit. One back room window and the kitchen window are within that space, so our plan is to create something that will attract birds and butterflies for the enjoyment of both kittens and humans. The spot is completely bare, nothing but grass, so we can create whatever our imagination, abilities and pocketbook allow.