Spring Plants

Spring started springing a month ago, but I haven't been posting lately, so I am behind. I've discovered that my plant palette has changed since we moved to Sacramento from Oakland.  I'm not sure if it's the greater difficulty of getting things to live here or that my plant interests have changed.  My garden is much more deciduous, both because some plants that had leaves year round in Oakland die back here, and because I've developed a weird interest in trees.  I have five Japanese maples and a redbud in pots.  And I took up lilac and mock orange, both of which are deciduous.  (In fact, someone recommended against lilac, which looks like a bunch of dead sticks when it loses its leaves.  I think of him all winter--every time I look at the bunch of dead sticks that is my lilac.)  I've also developed a thing for deciduous azaleas and have two of them.

This means that Spring springs more than it did in Oakland.  My yard goes from a sad, sorry, neglected space to a leafy, green hodgepodge in less than a month.  

This is my Apple Blossom kurume azalea.  It bloomed all at once and then lost its flowers just as quickly.

I meant to cut back this pelargonium before it bloomed, but didn't get around to it, and it started blooming on the leggy bits, of course, so I live with a leggy plant.

And my baby redbud had some redbuds this year.

And one of the laceleaf Japanese maples.  This one is about three years old.