THE VIEW FROM OUTSIDE

This is the view from the bottom of the steps outside the vegetable garden. What's a gardener to do when she has extra plants she can't give away? Why, find a new home outside.

Salvia leucantha has a companion this year, the pink primrose, Oenothera speciosa. Where did she come from I wonder. Well, we all know that little plant. Then there is the spineless prickly pear putting on additional pads this year but no flower buds, as yet. In between there is a galvanized tub with fresh water for the deer. The pink poppies in the foreground were untouched by foraging deer. There's a Mexican mint marigold, Tagetes lucida, just peeking and Mexican feather grass, Nassella tenuissima. They are surrounded by a thick bed of ¼-½" granite gravel. If I was doing a garden again I would create large spaces with this granite with just a few individual plants like this.

WHITE IS A COLOR TOO

I didn't realize how many white flowers I had int he garden until I went out to photograph them today.

The mock orange, Philadelphus sp Natchez is putting on the biggest white show.

Followed by the Anacacho orchid tree, Bauhinia lunariodes.

There's even a single rain lily, Cooperia drummondii, coaxed into blooming by the recent rains.

In the English garden the white knockout rose puts on her first full flush of blooms.

The native blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum.

Love-in-a-mist, Nigella sativa, with the spiky foliage. A faithful spring returner.

Larkspur,

A single white Shirley poppy.

The multiplying onions, Allium sepa, making a great stand. I think I may mix them in with my other garden flowers next year.

The potatoes are flowering.

And the snow pea flowers mean lots of peas over the next few weeks. I always plant Pisum sativum 'Cascadia' because they are open pollinated and I can save the seeds for next year.

The first pods.

And the tiny star flowered sedum, Sedum potosinum.