I remember this color challenge from 4 years ago and looking back at that post, I had to laugh when I wrote, “I hope to have lots of colors in my garden this year – yellow, pink, red, blue, purple, and even orange,” because that’s been my goal every summer and yet, I don’t think I ever truly fulfilled it. I try to start flowers from seed and every year, I seem to fail at it.

Last year, I was lucky to have some 4 o’clock seeds germinate and filled some of the gaps but the beds still felt pretty empty. I also started some Foxglove seeds which somehow turned into petunias, don’t know how that happened. Not these petunias, these petunias were from 2022 and I can’t say I’m a fan of those. The leaves were overly sticky and imagine bugs get stuck on them. Yuck! I love the colors, though.

Last weekend, when the daytime temperature reached 60-degrees, many things happened. Overnight, the spring bulbs sprang to life. I walked out into the front yard on Monday and found many bulbs peek out from beneath the soil.

There were a lot of them, much more than last year even though I’ve already dug up about half of them. “What did you do?” I said to the bulbs, “Have babies during the last few months?” I don’t know what I’ll do with all the baby bulbs this year as I’ve already planted them in every spot imaginable.

I can never tell which are the crocuses though. I know what the bulbs look like, I just don’t know what the shoots look like. I just I will know when it blooms.

I think there’s a little bit of amethyst color in the columbine flower. This is just about the only plant that’s enjoying the south-facing front yard. It’s never demanding of water nor dead-heading. It just grows and blooms. I had this since 2024, so this would be its third season.

For SundayStills and Flower Hour #17