BATFACE!!

Don't take that personally.  It's the name of a new hummingbird plant that I bought.  The botanical name didn't fit on the plant label, so I used the common name, so now of course sitting here at my desk I can't recall the botanical name (label is in my garden journal though...which is another topic.)  Besides, it's a fun name isn't it?  It's the plant in the right front, with the red blossoms.

The other plant is Anise Hyssop, also a hummingbird attracting plant.  (Sorry the one photo is a little blurry.  I took it with my phone, one handed, with my arms full of stuff on the way to my car this morning!)

The pedestal is the repurposed base of a bird bath... gratis from bulky trash a few months ago.  My neighbors came to my door one Saturday morning, demanding that I get my wheelbarrow and gloves, that they had found my dining room table base.  And it did indeed live in the center of my dining room for a while, while I cogitated on how to affix a top to it.  In the end it was hoisted (and I do mean "hoist" --  or do I mean rolled?  -- it is a behemoth) into my backyard.  I may eventually stain it terra cotta color... and let's be honest, you know me:  It's quite unlikely that this is its final resting place!

I am hoping they both also feed butterflies.  This past weekend I saw a huge butterfly fluttering around the perimeter of my yard, systematically checking each plant for nectar.  I tried to tell him all the butterfly plants were in the front, but alas... apparently I don't speak butterfly.  I'll have to work on that.

In other news...

I planted my Texas Mountain Laurel seeds this morning.  Wow, the water I soaked them in had turned flourescent pink!  A little shocking.  I did some online research on planting them:  you need a deep pot as the first thing they do is send down a tap root 6-8 inches.  So instead of 4 cute little window sill pots I had to put them in one big pot.  And then it said they can take up to a YEAR to sprout.  A YEAR!  What are the odds that I even remember anything is planted in that pot after a few months?  I need to get a plant label in it asap.  (And perhaps put a date on it...)  It also said that depending on how you prune it (look at me, so optimistic, already reading about how to prune the little bugger) that it can be a shrub or a tree.  Good to know, because as mentioned before, I do not have room for 8 new trees... (or 8 of the same shrub for that matter!)