Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - April 2021

Blooms are still sparse here in my post-February freeze Southeast Texas garden, but, happily, many of the plants that I had feared had been lost have started to come back. Slowly, but they are coming back. I'm glad that I have been slow to replace them.

Meanwhile, my roses are in the pink!

My 'Old Blush' heirloom rose is beginning to blush once again.

Here's a close-up of some of its blossoms.

'Belinda's Dream' rose is just as dreamy as ever, covered in these big, squashy blooms.

 

'Peggy Martin' was hit hard by the freeze and seriously knocked back. I cut her way back afterward and now she is all the way recovered and just about to be in full bloom.

The pink Knockout, too, is doing its best to live up to its name.

I do actually have other colors of roses in my garden but only the pink ones are in bloom at the moment.

That yellow flowering plant next to the bottle tree in the back garden is a wildflower called Texas groundsel.

Here's a closer view. It has been in bloom for more than a month and the blossoms are beginning to fade. But its color has brightened my otherwise somewhat drab garden for all these weeks.

Speaking of wildflowers, this fleabane is blooming next to the fennel.

My amaryllis blooms were mostly victims of the freeze this year, but this one persisted and is now doing its best to uphold the family honor.

My succulent collection spent the winter in the garage. Now that they are back in place on the patio, this one is celebrating with some blooms.

Serendipity is one of my favorite gardening partners. Every year this old petunia manages to reseed itself somewhere in the garden, often in surprising places. I've noticed a few of its plants already this year and this one has begun to bloom.

Another petunia has been added this year. This purple and white pinwheel blooms in a pot near my front door entry.

Still more wildflowers. This native oxalis (violet wood sorrel) is actually a weed in my garden. It sprouts up everywhere, mostly in places where I don't want it. It loves growing among the liriope that edges many of my planting beds. But in a spring when flowers have been hard to come by, even the oxalis is welcome. 

The oxalis also found a spot by my little meditation buddy.

Even weeds can be pretty.

In previous years, my crossvine looked like this in April.

This year it looks like this. But it's alive and I do have hopes that it will eventually return to its former glory.

My first blue plumbago bloom of the year.

This yellow gerbera blooms next to a heuchera in a pot on the patio.

My first salvia to bloom this year is this purple autumn sage.

The yarrow was just about to bloom in February when the freeze came. It was killed back to its roots, but now it's back and pretending nothing ever happened.

As I was taking the picture of the yarrow by the goldfish pond, I saw this little guy in the pond, struggling to pull himself up onto the rocks, so I gave him a helping hand (or net). He soon continued on his way to take care of whatever box turtle business had brought him out on this April day.

It's not a bloom but I am happy to see my little Japanese maple tree coming back and adding its color to the garden.

There is a 40-year-old azalea that lives under the redbud tree in my backyard. When the freeze came, it was full of buds and would have been in bloom within a couple of weeks. The freeze killed all those buds and all the leaves on the plant. I thought the plant itself might be a goner, but then ever so slowly it began to put out new leaves, and then, wonder of wonders, one flower bud appeared. And here it is, fully open now, my one azalea bloom for the year, proving once again that as long as there is life there is hope and sometime there will be blooms. 

Happy Bloom Day! I look forward to visiting your April garden and seeing your blooms.

(Linking to Carol of May Dreams Gardens.)