So pretty! My azalea was covered in blooms about two weeks ago, then we had a huge windstorm that stripped it back to just leaves. :-(

I do miss spring in the southeast...it's so soft and welcoming. Spring in the PNW is sharp and cold as soon as you're out of the sun, and *unpredictable* too!

That said, I do love the progression of fragrant plants I've got, from late January on. Right now we have the tail end of the daphne odora and the first few days of LILAC season! My gardenia doesn't even have buds on it--I'm jealous : ) And roses? Not until June.

Love the pictures--please feel free to keep them coming : )

fun2B..all of the other azaleas are long done. These are a remarkable one that comes on very late. They are in the back garden and full shade. I just love the soft salmon color. They are small and wide. Very different from all my others. Glad you like them . Thank you !

fly...I sure will glad to post ! I had Daphne a few years ago but it is hard to grow here in the South so it all died..sigh. I love the scent. We listen to KPLU so I hear your weather reports in Seattle and surrounding areas. There were such lovely sun reports and then back to rain...but your Summers are so so lovely...soon it will be there. I LOVE LILACS !! We had them in Ohio when I was a girl..wish I could see/smell yours :) Thank you !! c

Caroline, like you the majority of my "decorating" is done outdoors. I've seen some of the large older gardenias in bloom around town, but none of mine have started yet. They do have buds.

Flyleft, I love the progression too, although mine isn't as long-lived. First it's citrus blooms, then star jasmine, sweetspire, gardenias, Vitex and a long break until fall brings sweet olive followed by winter daphne (mine is still small).

Odd about the daphne, trail. Up here the way you grow it is that you ignore it completely, never water or fertilize it or even look at it for too long. It reminds me of an ornery old person who shuffles off into a barn and whittles amazing sculptures or something like that. It likes mistreatment so much that when the huge tree fell on our house, and a big branch fell right on the daphne, the darn daphne came right back, just changed to a spreading habit rather than the more upright. I made sure not to treat it well, of course : )

Cool that you listen to KPLU, too. I think I'll be taking some lilac blossoms to my classes tonight and on Tuesday. I already gave daphne blossoms out to folks, which led to a very interesting conversation about fragrant plants in their countries.

natal, our season starts with sarcococca (sweet box), then the winter-blooming honeysuckle (lonicera fragrantissima), then the daphne, which keep going during the evergreen clematis (WOW, that's a permeating fragrance!) at the same time as the plum blossoms, then the lilac, then sweet pea, then choisya, then roses, jasmine (I have some in a big pot outside our Master bedroom window--stole the idea from my next-door neighbor : )), sweetspire (I bought one to remind me of NC : )) and lilies and gardenias (also had a big one in NC, but it didn't bloom in April!).

I need to look up Vitex -- I know that only as an herbal supplement! Sweet olive: I LOVE that and remember it from NC -- had it along with a big eleagnus at the back of our yard. I keep toying with getting a lemon tree, but it would have to be in a container and brought in in the winter...ugh. I wish we had the infrastructure to have one of those, though.

Plants have to produce either fragrance or food to be invited into our yard these days : ))

I tried mock orange (I think that's choisya), but it didn't make it. Forgot about winter honeysuckle. I have a huge one in the corner of the yard for the winter hummers. Am trying more jasmine and honeysuckles on the kitchen garden arbor this year. We'll see how they fair.

I sort of have the same criteria. Food (for us or wildlife) and fragrance.

Natal nice to have this in common with you and fly :) I would love some mock orange, I keep forgetting about it. I can't find sweatbox here so would have to order on line. I want Winter Jasmine and again had forgotten about it. All of these would do well here. I only plant things that are fragrant or food for butterflies/hummers etc. I started that a couple years ago and try to stick with it. All of my roses are repeats/fragrant so that adds a lot to the looks of things outside . My roses will bloom well until almost Christmas, depending on how heavy the freezes are. So I am off to look up the plants to mentioned.

Also I didn't know , fly, that evergreen clematis was fragrant !! I need more of that for sure. I am trying to figure out how come my milk weed has not returned...it is a weed for heaven's sake :) Gotta go...DH has supper !

Beautiful! I recently have found my love for gardening. This is our first home. We did our landscaping last fall. There is nothing like waking up in the morning and taking that stroll through the yard and seeing everything we planted peak out and show it's beauty.

angel you are so right. The fragrance is so fresh in the early AM. It is like nothing else in the world. I hope you too will post pics. Would love to see. c

Ok, enough already. Here I sit in the cold north, with frost on everything this morning. We had warmer weather in February than we are having now. The apple growers are spending the night in the orchards trying to save their crop. But soon...very soon....it will be warm here, too.

However, my spring bulbs are glorious right now. This is the first spring in our new house, so it's fun to see things I planted last fall coming up. Now I have to start thinking of a perennial garden. :-)

C. - Here's something you won't be surprised to know: We have so many of the same plants in the garden!

At my 1st house there was a huge gardenia tree in my front yard. I always looked forward to the 1st Spring day that I could open all of the windows and sit on my sofa smelling the blooms!

For the past 9yrs I've been slowly planning and working on our patio area. I planted a white/ moon garden and this year was the 1st year to see it really come together into something magical and the wait was so worth it! First the Bradford Pear Trees along the back of the patio bloomed white, then all of the white flowering plum trees in the patio area bloomed. I hope it was as magical for DD as it was for me watching her swing under the trees w/ white petals slowly swirling down around her. The scent was light and lovely. Currently the Japanese Snowball bush is in full bloom w/ giant white pom poms of flowers. The white roses, Sally Holmes, Sombreuil and a carpet rose bush, are budding and should bring a proliferation of white flowers when the Snowball bush is fading out. Then come the Oak Leaf Hydrangea after the roses and Sweet Autumn Clematis after that.

I'm looking for a spot to transfer me Little Lamb Hydrangea to in the patio and am always on the hunt for the perfect 'something' plant to put in the patio.

It's taken all of this time because I shop the after, after, after season sales in October and November looking for white flowering trees and bushes. I paid $2.50 each for my Pear Trees!

joyce and fox ...where are the pictures !!??? I love the detailed words...but you know what they say " a picture is worth.."...please...you are teasing me. :)

I'd love to see pics too. Foxes, had no idea you were a gardener and sure didn't know gardenias grew so far north. Aren't you in PA?

Beautiful pics Caroline. I was gardening(ahem, weeding my monsterous weeds) this morning. I haven't gardened since my spinal fusion in 2008. I have missed it.

c. we are leaving tomorrow for AL, hope I can come over for that cup of tea next week.
Dorothy

Sue I know how wonderfully lovely your garden is but would love to see Spring pics. My Mom had her spine fused and they said she wouldn't be able to bend over far enough to pick up things off of the floor...this was the mid 80's so not great technology. But she did get very limber as the years went by and regularly reached down and touched the floor ! Maybe some PT and limbering up would make a difference now that time has passed. It sure made a diff for her .

Dorothy give me a call ! I have been wondering where you had gone !! c

Finally got my pics off of my camera - missed getting pics of the white blooming plum trees in all of their glory. Here's my White or "Moon Garden":

The patio from my bedroom (desperately nds. weeded between the salvaged bricks):

Sombrueil rose that drapes over the patio door overhang it's a mass of white roses when it blooms:

Side bed of patio w/ Oakleaf Hydrangea (they're actually getting ready to bloom now) and there is a row of chartreuse and blue variegated hosta underneath the OLH that was just starting to grow when I took this pic. There is a canopy of white Sally Holmes roses over the top of the fence here:

More of the white patio garden bed from my kitchen:

And a close up of the Japanese Snowball which is the 2nd white thing to bloom:

There is another white rose bush, ferns and juniper that surround a patio pond but that wasn't fit for a picture.

My backyard hideaway that I carved out. On one side of the arch pink azeala blooms, other side is lilacs and honesuckle grows over the whole area las. I put old candleabras out there in the Spring, Summer and Fall. I used to hang mason jars from the trees w/ candles in them too but it was too much mosquito maintenance in the end so I stopped.:

The 'secret tunnel' that the kid (hardly a kid anymore) carved out through the azeala for our kids that leads to the secret alcove. Our goal is to put a gate up as an entrance 'for kids only'.