Tulips, Daisies and More Flower Photos: This Week in My Maryland Yard

This is our first orange Angelique tulip. It makes me smile just to look at it. I took the photographs for this week's photographic flower tour of our Maryland garden. yesterday. Let's take a look at the prettiest blooms of the week.

Here you can see the orange tulip contrasting with its pink counterpart. Tulips are blooming all over the Mid Atlantic region this week.

 A white African daisy with touches of purple in it's petals and a nice lavender/violet center.

 The hellebores (also called Lenten roses) are still blooming.

The ajuga, both in the grass and the transplanted ones, are blooming. The transplanted ones are smaller and have smaller flowers but by next year should look healthier as they won't be competing with the grass for nutrients.

Thanks to those who have commented on the blog and in person about saving the violets! Ben still thinks they're weeds but now sees that I'm not alone in appreciating them. Turns out we'll be loosing a lot more than violets from our garden this week. I'm sad to say that most of our front flower bed will be victimized by a backhoe tomorrow. Although repair work from the November flood is not yet complete, we have even more serious plumbing challenges now so the garden will be taking a back seat to managing these new trials. Prayer appreciated.

What's growing in your garden this week?  May God bless you and all you set your mind to this week dear friends!

First Magnolia & Ajuga in the Grass

First magnolia sighting of 2012

 God blessed me with a wonderful day today! Had a productive home blessing day, saw my first magnolia blooms of this calendar year and had a nice long talk with an uplifting Christian friend.

Ajuga in our lawn

Last year I noticed some ajuga in our not so grassy lawn. I fully intended to dig it up and transplant it into some of our flower beds. It would make the beds look nicer and save the ajuga from getting mowed down every week during the growing season. Clearly, this never happened. But today when I noticed the ajuga in the grass again I realized that the ajuga is just like parts of our character. Like this beautiful flower getting choked out by grass sometimes our beautiful character getting choked out by things that distract us from our most important goals and values. Even more so than the hardy ajuga, human beings are resilient and can bounce back from a lot of hard knocks and distractions. But when we heed our soul's call to be what God has truly called us to be and focus on loving Him and loving our fellow human beings, our souls sing and our beauty shines. I pray that you and I will learn to do more of what makes our hearts sing and reflects our priorities. May God bless you!