Gardening: New Discoveries at Our New (Old) Home

When we moved into our new place it was December in Texas. Everything was brown, all the plants in the backyard, all the trees, and we didn't think anything was even alive.

Then came spring. In the following months we discovered we have pomegranate trees (two large, very fruitful ones), rose bushes, passion flowers, lilies, and all kinds of flora that is alive and well but had just been dormant for the winter months.

I am making it a new goal to learn how to grow our own veggie garden. With the house also came a green house that so far I've started sprouts of tomatoes and bell peppers (totally the wrong time of year to plant seeds, but they are already starting to sprout so I guess I'm doing something right). Its so wonderful to have a yard we can call our own. In the fall I am hoping to focus a lot of time, energy and love into some raised beds and landscaping our backyard with edibles (lets just hope the dogs don't dig everything up).

Watch our backyard story unfold in pictures:

This is what everything looked like in December when we moved in (and check out our lil buddy the albino squirrel that lives in the front yard oak tree). I was trying to be artistic with a dew covered spider web.

 After just moving in, this is the view from the living room, into the attached greenhouse (excuse the mess). Pictured is Zombie.

First rose discovery...

 ...and they kept coming...

 ...then these beauties appeared. They are HUGE (picture with me for scale)... and smell absolutely amazing.

Meanwhile, what used to be two large bundles of sticks started to sprout leaves, and finally all these gorgeous bright red flowers began appearing... hmm....

We have ourselves two pomegranate trees!

Things started to fill out some more, and even with our severe draught, the leaves have managed to grow back and add some green to our backyard (that big round orb is our composter, getting some good material going for the fall!) Note the red puppy in the flower bed on the right. He's such a big goofball!

Above on the left, this bush with the yellow flowers was also a large pile of brown sticks when we moved in. There are several of these built-in planters filled with this stuff around our backyard... not sure what it is, but the leaves are shaped like mint, and it smells like mint (perhaps its mint?) didn't know mint blossomed so maybe not?... in any case its pretty and smells good. Here comes the puppy! as usual :)

The most recent surprise has been these amazing, weird flowers, (passion flowers?). They are so fragrant, and are really cool. I love them!

We're looking forward to what's in store for the next months to come...