The weather has been unbearably hot around here, so our early morning walks have been great.  And every time I step out onto our street, I think to myself, I must photograph the beautiful white butterfly bush at the front of our grove – and I finally did.  It just amazes me what beautiful flowers thrive in this heat; well, with a lot of watering of course:

There are so may flowers in bloom in our garden right now,  but I’ll focus on the hollyhocks.  They have kindly returned every year for the past three years, surprising us with such a variety of pretty colors.

Here is a view of our front entrance.  The flowers are so pretty, and they seem to grow taller every year. Do you see the scratches on the lower left of our door?

Here is the little culprit – Koko. She has figured out how to sneak through to our neighbors yard in the back, and come around to the front to scratch at the door.  This happens if I don’t let her back in right away… little stinker.

Yayyy!!! I made it.  It seems every year, I get later and later in putting in my vegetable garden.  What’s silly is that I have my gardener help clean out the raised beds in fall in preparation for cold weather planting. But then I don’t do it, and neglect the garden instead.  Then I have to have him help clean out the weeds before I plant in spring all over again.  I normally have everything in sometime in April, but this season, it went into May… I planted the usual; tomatoes, zucchinis, beans, melons, and artichokes.  Here are some photos of my vegetable garden.  The first one is looking toward the back of my house, second one is to the side, and the third, looking out at the back grove.  I am a “plant them and leave them kind” of gardener, so only the hardiest survive:

My Concord grape vines are doing great.  The Kyoho grape vines are so so.  The small bed was my herb garden, until the mint and some other herb jumped the planter and took over everywhere.  And that’s my garden gnome, his name is Norm (really original name, I know  ;)). Bougainvillea covered my trellis bench in the center, but this last frost killed one, and the gardener trimmed the other one down to the ground.  I need to think of another vine to plant that can withstand the colder temperatures in the winter.  The bright flowers on the bushy tree in the center photo are pomegranates.  I have them all over the back , as they seem to resist the gopher attacks better than some other plants.  Besides, I just love pomegranates!

Everything is in bloom! We are surrounded by the wonderful fragrance of orange blossoms.  The bees are buzzing, and dear younger son home for spring break is on claritin.  The weather is just perfect – sunny and fresh!

Oh, wonderful orange blossoms!

I forgot the name of this tree, but the flowers are just beautiful:

Front garden, so sunny and nice!

Forgot the name of this plant too – pretty!

Ditto…

Ditto again…

Turning into my driveway this afternoon after running errands, I noticed the blaze of pretty flower buds on my neighbors trees.  Several years ago, my neighbor purchased four white peach trees, and gave me one. She planted hers along the front of her property, and I planted mine behind my garage in the back.  Since then, I have noticed that there are specific microclimates, and her peach trees bloom before mine. So, I went to investigate, and sure enough, I had a couple of buds on my white peach, but all the other fruit trees in my back grove were in bloom. So, I dashed back into the house, grabbed my camera, and took these shots. They are really very beautiful.

Here is my white peach. It has about 6 blooms in all – Should be in full bloom within the next week or so:

Yellow peach – so pretty!

Not many avocados this season:

Our cherry trees, they had a handful of fruit last year – Hope all the blossoms are an indicator of a bumper crop.

Plum blossoms!

Apricots too!

White fig – I’ll have to try making fig jam this year.

Our passion fruit vine is still hanging on. According to our gardener, the banana trees are snuffing them out.

And here is said banana trees – they suffered a bit too during the cold spell.

Trumpet vines are blooming – I’m so happy!

There are only a few lemons left on my favorite lemon tree, but it looks like there will be more again in due time:

I picked some Washington navels for a friend.  They are sooo delicious!!! And they don’t call them navel oranges for nothing – this one is an outie for sure 🙂

More signs of life… The transplanted grass looks really sad, but on second glance, there are green shoots near the roots – yay! And the hollyhocks are spreading year after year. Looking forward to seeing them bloom.

Flowers in the garden! Pretty rosemary and lavender!

And finally, a sunflower in the grove.  I think the poor thing is a bit confused. It seems to have been managing alright until the last cold spell but seems to be struggling now to fully bloom… Perhaps if the weather improves? I’ll keep watch.