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This Michelia figo was in bloom on April 3rd, 2008 when MSS of Zanthan Gardens brought MayDreams Carol to my garden but this year the flowers are open in March. We're expecting visitors in a few weeks and I hope a few flowers hold on so the guests can feel the silkiness of the petals and catch the fragrance that gives this plant its common name "Banana Shrub".
My April guests won't be here in time to drink in the grape soda scent of the "Big Drunk Bean" above (Nicknames for Sophora secundiflora include Mescal Bean, Big Drunk Bean and Texas Mountain Laurel) but this March guest buzzed in on time.
A month from now the Coral Honeysuckle/Lonicera sempervirens might still be blooming but the 'Lady Banks' rose/Rosa banksiae 'Lutea' will be done. 
The entwined green leaves enhance the metal arch year-round but this electric combination happens only briefly each spring.
ROBERT DOWNY JRPhilo was quite surprised when I moved Iron Man to the top of the queue because he didn't think it was my kind of movie. We watched it last night. It was pretty silly, and it sure would be great to see Jeff Bridges in a more Dude-like role instead of as a typecast power-driven executive with a shaved head. But I enjoyed most of it. Apparently any movie that has Robert Downey Jr in it is my kind of movie.
SLOW GARDENINGWhen our guests come the white iris will be done but the native Red Yucca above should be flaunting its first flowers along that stalk. In Spring 2005 I paid less than $2 for a tiny plant of Hesperaloe parviflora, but had no flower bed ready for it. The small plant grew and I repotted it into a larger container. Then in March 2007 Philo and I began the Pink Entrance Garden and the Hesperaloe had a home.
Could I have had instant impact by buying a blooming-size plant right away? Of course - but I would have lost the pleasure of seeing it grow and develop until it become mature enough to bloom.
PALM FLOWERS Do those weird yellow growths on the Mediterranean Fan Palm look like a promise of flowers to you? If Kerri hadn't blogged about flowers on her potted palm I might have thought it was some kind of fungus. Isn't it cool that an Illinois-born woman gardening in Austin, Texas can learn about Palm flowers from an Australian-born woman who gardens in upstate, snowbound, non-Mediterranean New York?
DRY SPRING IN TEXASThe white iris (probably Iris albicans) are blooming in three borders - seen here with some snapdragons that just started reblooming after making it through a second winter.
In two facing borders the tall, fragrant, pale peach iris are in full bloom. Now 'Amethyst Fire' iris from Pam/Digging are in flower, too.I hope Henry Mitchell is wrong, and that the perfection of the iris will not call down a major hailstorm. But if the iris must be sacrificed to make the clouds rain down on us so be it - we need rain that badly!
The Leucophyllum frutescens, AKA Cenizo AKA Purple Sage AKA Texas Barometer Bush says it might rain and so does Jim Spencer. 
And I have a new rain gauge ready to go.
