Spring is springing forth, and the pond has water. It’s not as crystalline as we like but it’s alive, in the sense that the biological filtration is proceeding, and when it has fish, it will be good. The chemistry is good. 
The weeping cherry is going strong.
You may recall the post with Jane sitting in the empty winter pit of the pond. Here it is with water.
And here are some random shots of the back garden. Peonies are close to blooming, particularly the tree peonies, which are dark red when they bloom. They’re always among the first.
Here the dark red shoots are a regular peony coming forth, not forming distinct buds yet, a little behind the tree peonies in timing.
In the front yard, the magnolias are breaking into bloom: the star magnolia.
The pink magnolia
And the redbud, state tree of Oklahoma: we had to have one. Those will be reddish purple small blooms, followed by heartshaped leaves.
And in back,the lotus pond: lotuses are slower than the water lilies: one lily has two leaves on the surface and others are reaching, in the big pond, but these sleepy sorts haven’t stirred yet.
Are all the little blue flowers grape hyacinth? We had a bunch of them back on the old homestead, and they smelled as good as their larger cousins. We also had a couple of redbuds; sprays of flowers come directly out of the branches, rather than at the tips like many other blooming trees.
They look like grape hyacinth from here :). So easy to grow, just plant them by the 100s and let them spread.
Yes. We have lots and lots of volunteer grape hyacinth. We’re not sure what that white-flowering groundcover is, but it’s little white posies, nothing like clover. Spreads energetically. We also have, as groundcover, parrotsfeather, red thyme, alyssum, irish moss—and a few things we can’t identify. Plus a bed of ivy that surrounds the red hawthorne. One of our jobs is going to be the lotus pond: some more treks out to that railway siding to get some basalt. Right now it’s facing a rebuild on the stream that runs to it because we’ve got a leak somewhere, likely a place where ground has sunk and lowered the rim, but we can’t find the leak while it’s raining nearly every day.
Maybe some type of sedum? Without closer pictures, it’s hard to tell. Resolution on my monitor renders things that are vaguely flowerlike, without detail.
We just got the first mangoes of the season, raining down into the leaf piles along the fence line, and the fig tree is figging away. We have some trouble with people not respecting property rights and helping themselves to mangoes that fall in the front yard, or plumeria blossoms. If they asked, chances are good we would say okay, but they frequently don’t ask. It adds injury to insult when you see them selling the mangoes on the roadside in the pricier neighborhoods, and not cheaply.
Maybe a larger picture of the white thingy would enable identification? Shapes of leaves and inflorescence?
I remember Jane in the pit of the pond when we were trying to get the fishies’ observation bubble set up. I bet that water was cold! Glad the lotus pond is looking good, too. I know that bridge (just to the top of the picture….barely visible in the upper left corner).
Yep. That bridge, as you know, is solid concrete, and quite, quite solid.
My wife thinks the white flowers are Iberis (Candytuft).
I’ll see if I can get a better picture.
Sweet Alyssum? (Lobularia, a Brassica, so 4 petaled flowers)
Tantalizing glimpses! I remember the grape hyacinths. Jane sent me some and I planted them. Unfortunately, I don’t live where I planted them any more, and haven’t lived there for several years, so I don’t know their ultimate fate.
I really like the style of that fence. That first picture shows it off well.
if you want more grape hyacinth we could certainly ship you some.
The fence is vinyl—if some crazy driver hits it, the panel would likely pop off and just need to be reseated. 😉
My lease doesn’t run out here until August 2018. I may take you up on that offer. I have some shady spots that only get morning sun, as well as some places in the back yard where grape hyacinths would perk the place up something fierce.
The redbuds in my area finished blooming early this month – the train station has a couple of western redbud, shrubs with roundish leaves (much favored by leafcutting bees), where the leaves come out at nearly the same time as the flowers, as well as several eastern redbuds at the busway overpass (probably C. canadensis texensis “Oklahoma”, which tolerated the heat in this area – the flowers are a deep red-violet, nearly purple).