Updated Adventures in Gardening

It's been a while since I've posted an update on the state of all the green growing things around our house. Anyone who's gardened even a little bit knows it's a real living, breathing thing that changes every single day, so many of these pictures already don't show how it really looks these days.

On the porch, I have a couple pots of annuals for color, and I turned those metal orbs you see everywhere into planters that one of these days I hope to hang. This one holds pothos neon, a great houseplant and I love its neon green leaves.

In my other metal orb, I potted some oxalis that was on clearance at my local garden center. I LOVE oxalis for its deep purple leaves, clover shape and the beautiful looseness of its stems.

The previous owners looooooved them some hostas. I like hostas, but I don't love having them be the main landscaping feature of both the front and back yards. They are more than pulling their weight though...look how big they are here! They're already even bigger, so I think I'll definitely have to divide them during the off-season.

A few weeks ago, we discovered crawdad holes in a couple spots in our yard, especially where water tends to collect. Sean stomped them down to mow the lawn and I haven't seen any new ones, but it definitely gave me flashbacks to playing in my grandma's yard as a child and trying to hop over every single one of the crawdad holes that dotted the whole lawn.

My sweet friend Melissa gifted me with this rose bush that I planted and then it promptly lost all its petals. Womp womp! Please pray for it that I don't completely kill it!

On the side of the house, we had beautiful phlox (no longer in bloom) and a calycanthus shrub. 

Calycanthus is also called "sweetshrub" and its sweet-smelling bark and flowers have been used in perfumes. I haven't noticed a ton of wafting perfume, but it does smell good if I get very close.

I made a point to hit the annual Heirloom Plant Sale at the Hermitage Museum and picked up all the elements for this pot: both green and purple sweet potato vine (one of my favorites!) and two types of coleus. They are so beautiful!

About a week or two ago, our clematis vine finally bloomed and it's truly magnificent. I'm grateful the previous owners planted some fun surprises so there's been something nice to see almost every month. Still plenty of surprises to come!

We also have yellow iris, which are not my favorite, but one of these beautiful bearded irises popped up for a just a day or two (we had some rainstorms) and it was gorgeous.

I also love the fig leaves on our little baby fig trees...

And this bush suddenly burst forth with white blossoms last week! So pretty. I don't know what it is though...

Any guesses?

I have bulbs I need to plant, but I'm still not even really sure where to put them. I definitely want to see what else pops up this summer before I start really planting.