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Warm weather has arrived in Austin - please come in through the garden gate and see what's blooming! Carol of May Dreams established the Day of Blooms over a year ago and we gardenbloggers are now so well trained that as the 15th approaches, we go into Pavlovian trances, automatically snapping flower photos.
Most perennials are green but the 'Acoma' crepe myrtles above are still leafless. Can you see the vegetable garden? It's turned over and after more compost is added it'll be ready for tomatoes and peppers. 
Old fashioned white iris bloom in the bed just to the south of the vegetable plot. This nice clump was started when I rescued a couple of deer-gnawed corms from my old garden. Once in containers they thrived and multiplied.
Just beyond the iris is a Bridal Wreath spiraea in bloom, with a few of the fragrant little 'Thalia' daffodils and some grape hyacinth at its feet.
More 'Thalia' grow near the shed - 
this time with a sometimes-evergreen groundcover called Mazus reptans.
We planted a native evergreen sumac in this area near the south fence last spring. It's alive, but not really thriving. Hey - squirrel! Quit digging up the plants in that pot!
What has thrived in this bed are bulbs - even Christmas-gift amaryllis rebloomed when planted in this ground. 
A few dollar store daffodils called 'Pink Charm' bloomed last spring and returned this year. After its photo was taken, I cut a few 'Pink Charm' and 'Thalia' daffodils for a vase inside the house - although my post may make Austin look like a spring dream, our temperatures reached 94°F/34.4ºC this afternoon. I had no idea anemones like this 'St Brigid' variety could grow in Austin until South Austin blogger and gardener Rantor told about the ones that return to her garden each spring. Many thanks, Rantor!
One inexpensive bag of mixed bulbs last fall has produced some red anemones 
And some fuchsia pink anemones in both single and double forms. Over on the patio the faithful coral honeysuckle is making buds.
This spring is more colorful than last year in spite of sneaky frosts - all the iris had started to open when a couple of cold nights grazed us. Any flowers or buds showing color froze, but the less developed buds are opening now just in time to be frizzled by heat.These "Amethyst Flame' iris are a Passalong from Pam/Digging - aren't they [and she] wonderful?
Let's take a closer look at the peach iris. They're blooming in the bed that was enlarged and replanted by my friends the Divas of the Dirt in October. In early winter I added small starts of yellow snapdragons and dark purple petunias.
The annuals established roots in the unfrozen soil but didn't make much top growth until the last few weeks.
Many of the snapdragons are beginning to open.
As we head out the gate to the front we pass the small Scabiosa 'Butterfly Blue' whose winter fortitude was admired by Kate in previous months. It's now covered in buds. 
Except for more white iris and a few petunias not much is happening in the pink garden - a little cluster of dark pink hyacinths opened and finished during the 4 weeks between bloom days. This petunia is an old fashioned cottage variety that made it through last summer and fall... it's also a reseeder and has produced the tiny plant to the right. Two of the Redbuds that give our garden its name Circus~Cercis are in bloom. This one is Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' - the leaves are dark purple when new, fading to green in summer's heat. 
We bought a Texas Whitebud last spring, Cercis canadensis texensis 'Alba', to plant where the Arizona Ash once grew. There were no blooms on it so we had to trust the label - yay! The buds are white!
I'll be around to see the other bloom posts but not right away - my 2008 turn as hostess for the Divas of the Dirt landed on St. Patrick's Day weekend. This lovely 'Mutabilis' rose will soon be planted in the footprint of the departed Ash - just one of the plants that the Divas will use to change a once-shady lawn into a flower garden. 
This post, "Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, March 2008", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.
She appreciated the deep fuchsia color of an emerging anemone but felt that the most likely place for the fairy folk to dwell was in the Secret Garden, kept warm in winter by a brick wall and southern exposure, but shaded by deciduous trees in summer. 
Apparently, the fairies didn't feel at home because they had no small benches to perch upon. The cute little caps of the live oak acorns weren't set out on tiny tables. 
Pot feet that could be useful to fairies weren't placed in the secret garden but were stacked on shelves. Seashells from a vacation were kept inside a large plant saucer. How could the fairies use them if they weren't handy?
She liked a heart-shaped rock and some tumbled glass mulch. 
...the pot feet get by because they're clay
The stars were cut from paper, which used to be wood. 
It's possible that I won't see any fairies attracted by these efforts but I'll keep watch for traces of them dwelling in the secret garden. 
I started to believe that there had been a fairy in my garden after all.
A year ago I sang farewell to an 
Our present garden doesn't seem to need deer-resistant plants so our Salvias don't have to work for us - they can just be beautiful.
