I spent some time sitting in my garden this evening. It's so nice to have a quiet place to relax, and it's nice to see our yard taking shape. When we moved in, it was such a wide expanse (over an acre) of mostly grassy yard. When it comes to yard zoning, I tend to eyeball a space throughout a season to see what I'd like in a certain place. For our back yard, we wanted minimal muss and fuss with bedding plants, and instead, we chose to stick to open grassy areas with interspersed trees, fruit trees, and crepe myrtles. There is still a long way to go, but the result, so far, has been quite an influx of sweet tweeters! And by influx, I mean, I've got a lot of birds in my yard!

This year, I had a small, sheltered bit of coreopsis that survived the winter nestled up under my old jasmine. I've always wondered if you could divide coreopsis, so I gave it a whirl. Although it had a rough couple of days getting started, I'm happy to report that the new patch is flourishing. Answer: yes, you can divide coreopsis. No matter what they tell you.
My Concord grape vine didn't produce last year, but this year it is making fruit! I can't say that I'm brave enough to eat any of it, but it's interesting to watch the clusters as they take shape. If nothing else, it's certainly another added bird attraction.

While I lounged in my weathered Adirondack garden chair, I had a front row seat to some serious bird action at one of my backyard feeders. This adorable guy (gal?) is an Indigo Bunting. At one time, there were at least 12 of them in the immediate feeding area this evening. If you notice the black-tipped wing area, that means the bird is in it's first spring. Indigo Buntings are very kind to each other. Seriously! Unlike the white breasted nuthatch that was being Crazy Bird tonight. Sheesh!

All of the bird shots were taken within a 5 minute window. It was a very high-traffic feeding time with lots and lots of bird color!

So, I'm not sure if Mr. Yellow is a yellow throated vireo or a pine warbler. I didn't get a good enough look at the sides and belly, but I'm thinking it's a vireo. The red head hanging out here is a variety of house finch.

Sophy planted these Snapdragons, and I love the colors.

Zinnias ready and waiting for some butterflies!

Tomorrow, I'm super excited to be doing an Earth Day presentation for Sophy's class. We'll be talking about flowers and plants and gardening, and in particular, I'll be teaching them to identify some basic flower shapes and names. I think it's awesome that Sophy can see any number of blooms, flowers, plants, etc. and can readily identify them without a second glance.

I was lucky enough to find a business to donate a good stock of seeds for the presentation, so I will be able to give each student several packets to take home. Of course, we'll have a brief seed tutorial, mind you. After that, we'll be putting some butterfly friendly plants in a bed on campus in anticipation of the class caterpillars that are soon-to-be newly hatched butterflies! Good times!