Inside out. Time to put those house plants outside!

Mother's Day is a time to reflect and to give thanks to those wonderful moms out there. No doubt, they deserve it. It is also time to let those cooped up houseplants live it up in their outside habitat.

We use Mother's Day as our guide for this transition. Obviously it depends on where you live and the weather, seeing as Denver just got snow dumped on it on Mother's Day. Like I said, its just a rule of thumb, a guide. The temps at night are now above 50 so all should be good. We also waited for those damned canker worms to pass on, so our Orchids and such do not become lunch.

The raised bed in the middle is for growing Bonsai material. The benches around that keep the houseplants off the ground. Morning sun leads to afternoon shade.

Every plant we have is tolerant of outside living. When you do take your plants out, acclimate them slowly to the new bright light by placing them in a shady area first and give them plenty of water. Some of the plants will need full sun and will be moved where they can achieve that. The others will get morning sun and afternoon shade. We will water them daily, unless there is a rainy spell.

We had a busy weekend, hitting some of the local nurseries. And as always, visiting a nursery means that I was planting in the afternoon. Funny how that works. We picked up two more yellow Azaleas, these weren't tagged as Admiral Semmes, but I'm pretty sure they are. We had been eying a Variegated Parsons Juniper for a couple of years now and each time we had to hold off for one reason or another. This time the time was right and so was the price. If you have never seen one, they are quite unique, with some of the foliage without pigmentation. I will be putting up a photo real soon.

I also had some new visitors to the yard. Every once in a blue moon we have seen a Scarlet Tanager. Today I saw the male twice! I'm hoping this means we have a new neighbor. I also saw something I have never seen here before, a Yellow Billed Cuckoo. I saw it in the Locust tree just hopping from branch to branch, but not really doing anything. I've never seen his shape before and had to look it up, but it is unmistakably a Cuckoo.

I leave you with some photos from around the yard. I love spring.

Clematis in bloom. Large 6" blossoms.

Peony

Peony

firethorn or pyracantha

Yellow Iris