The plumbago plant is in bloom. It has almost been overtaken by the mealy blue sage plants this year.

I love esperanza. It blooms at the tops of the stems with full bouquets. You could pluck one and stick it in a vase by itself.

Here is an example. It would be beautiful in a vase, but we like them in the garden.

If you have followed my blog for a while, you know that I am obsessed by these Pride of Barbados blossoms every year. All of a sudden they were exploding all over the plant.

Check out the structure of the base on the bottom one on the right. You can see how the bud just exploded outward to free the blossom.

These are so pretty. It took me a few years of drooling over them to figure out that each blossom will progress from light orange to dark orange to red. I thought they were blooms of different colors.

I bought a baffle for the feeder on the right. It was so successful that I added two more. The one in the middle is on my seed cake feeder. The cakes are now lasting about two weeks, instead of a squirrel ravaged two days.

My Class 41 buddy, Vince Armijo, gave me a tiny little Lindheimer's Senna back in 2019. It has become this giant plant and has one big offspring in the Wild Zone. Both of them are about to bloom any day now.

I bought this hedgehog cactus at a Native Plant Society of Texas plant sale during the pandemic for $15. I drove all the way downtown, rolled down my window, and a masked lady shoved a tiny little cactus in my face. I drove home thinking how I had been ripped off. Since then, it has grown and grown, producing several gorgeous blooms every year. I think that $15 was cheap!

I know this is not very impressive. We only put two plants in this year. I was hoping some of the seeds from previous years would sprout. They haven't, so far.

Now, we pop around to the Rachel's domain- the front landscaping. She has done an amazing job. When I came home from a camping trip about three years ago, she had planted two little sickly looking Turk's Cap plants. I was really touched by that, because she knew they were my favorite Texas natives. They have grown into a large patch that you can see in the left part of the picture. On the right you see Greg's Blue Mist Flowers, another Texas Native.

I have no idea what this beautiful plant is. It is in one of Rachel's pots.

There are pots of this plant in many colors all over the landscaping. These pink ones are my favorite.

This is a view of the big bed in front. No, they are not all Texas Natives. Rachel is free to plant whatever she wants, but avoids invasives and aggressive plants. Notice the Blackfoot Daisy on the left. She had more, but a freeze killed most of them off. She has nurtured this small patch. They are also Texas Natives.

Here's a closeup. I thing they are really pretty.

Here is a view of all the feeders from the patio. I may get some more of these baffles, if the squirrels start attacking the other two feeders. So far, they have been sticking to cleaning up the ground under the feeders. I have no problem with that, except that it drives Miss Olive CRAZY!

I was just about to head inside when I noticed that there was another bloom on the butterfly plant. We had one of these when we first put the landscaping in, but spider mites destroyed it within three weeks.