Chicken yard update.

I wanted to share with everyone some of our chickens. We currently have 19 chickens, 17 hens and 2 roosters. The youngest rooster is looking for a new home?

Above is our "runt" Cream Legbar at 20 weeks old, she is a bit smaller than her sister below. These beautiful birds lay blue or green eggs. Not confirmed their eggs yet. We also have 2 Easter Eggers that lay blue or green eggs, so hard to confirm until we see them on the nest.

Above and below the bigger Cream Legabar same age 20 weeks. Her neck feathers are brilliantly golden in the right light.

One of our 2 Black Stars at 20 weeks. The combs are slow growing and will be red when she is ready to lay eggs. The green sheen on her back and golden tones on her breast makes her an interesting bird.

 Above is one of our two Red Stars. At 20 weeks we think at least one of them is laying eggs.

Above is Frenchy, she is 18 months and is a Cinnamon Queen. Best layer hands down in our chicken pen. She is second in command with the hens.

Above is one of our 4- 9 weeks old bantam chicks, we raised from eggs provided by a friend and a raised by our broody hen Lightbulb. She is my favorite, love the colors!

Our 9 week old cockerel, he's looking for a new home. Any takers? We think he's been attempting the crow the past 2 days.

 Here is our bantam rooster. He's fast and usually does not know what to do with our full size hens. He does have the 2 Easter Eggers as favorites.

This is Ding-a-ling she's a 18 month old Welsummer, we have tow of them. They are nice birds, the eggs are a bit small and don't lay as many eggs as some of our other birds.

 Above is our other Welsummer, she has small spurs like a rooster. She doesn't have a name.

Above is Lightning, she's a bantam we got her where she was about 8 weeks old. Her name came from the fact she was our first bantam and she's lightning fast.

Cape Fear Garden Club Azalea Garden Tour part 1

Last Saturday we did the Cape Fear Garden Club Azalea Garden Tour, well 10 of the 13 gardens. The gardens were amazing and so was the other area gardens. My favorite was garden number 1, it utilized a small space and made for a beautiful garden that was done by the owners themselves.

Here is an hardy orchid from garden #1.

I think this was the neighbors gate at garden #1, the yards linked beautifully.

This was the deck with a beautiful arbor at garden #1. The girl is from a local high school one of many recruited as an "Azalea Belle" each garden had 2-3 belles.

The potting shed at garden #1, lovely!

 

Garden #1 had a beautifully bordered bed of yellow pansies.

The front door with really nice planters at garden #2

Nice dripping pot under azaleas at garden #2.

Small gazebo at garden #7

Garden #4 had a really nice border and Azalea Belle.

Garden #4 nice fountain and Azalea Belle.

The most awesome potting shed I have ever seen, great touches as seen in the three photos below.

Garden gate from garden #5

Garden #7 had a handmade trellis with coral honey suckle and Lady Banks roses planted together. Really nice combination as both bloom at the same time.

 One of the borders at garden #7, loved the recycled doors!

The swing with fountain at garden #7

The fire pit with fiddle playing azalea belle made this garden visit extra nice with the live music.

The home owner done gardens were the ones I liked the most. We visited one moneyed garden where it was obvious the owners probably did not know which end of a shovel to use. Everything about the house was custom and the garden followed the same suit, being built by the builder or the builders landscaper.

Strongly scented shrub needs ID?

Hey everyone! I was about knocked down by the aroma from this 10 ft shrub in a garden in Wilmington yesterday, anyone know what it might be? The tiny blooms seemed more white to me than this photo shows.

Upcoming post on the Cape Fear Garden Club Azalea Garden Tour we did yesterday. Taxes need finished/extended and fenced mended before I have time to edit some photos.

Garden Walk April 06, lots blooming!

Folks, its likely the best time of the year for flowers in our garden. We are finally getting it to what we want. OK yeah right. Part of the joy of gardening in experimentation and exploration.

Anyway there is a lot of photos to share, let me begin..

  Creeping phlox.

  Creeping phlox and primrose together.

 Creeping phlox.

 Woodland phlox.

Muscari with an honey bee!

Pansies, we have lots of different pansies, this is just one of them. Survived an 8 degree night this past winter as you can see. Planted last fall.

 Daffodil 'Hawera'

 Daffodil ' Mt Hood'

Daffodil 'Actaea' Showy and tall makes a great cut flower!

 Daffodil 'Broadway Star' one of my favorites for sure.

Daffodil 'Sailboat' These produce a lot of flowers!

Daffodil 'Sir Winston Churchill'

 Daffodil 'Quail' at least I think it is Quail.

Daffodil 'Pipit'

Daffodil 'Sound'

Daffodil 'Delibe' drop dead gorgeous!

 Daffodil 'Pink Charms' never seen any pink on this.

Daffodil 'Silver Smiles'

Daffodil 'Falconet' Nice..

 
Snow Flakes!

 Penny's Pink hellebore. Wow wow!

 Bleeding Heart, this is our newest one Meg brought back from Wilmington! Nearly 3 foot tall.

 This is a tiny Wild Bleeding Heart. About 6 inches tall.

Bleeding Heart from the front garden.

 15+ year old primrose. The oldest in our garden. Has been known to shoot about 50 stems of blooms, slow to burst this year.

 We've had this primrose 3 years, man its crazy.

I split this primrose when we planted it, the other plant looks almost as good as this one.

 Blue primrose

 Red primrose

Purple primrose.

Native anemone "Windflower"in our garden.

Our newest camellia, Camellia X 'Tiny Princess'. Meg and I visited the Coker Arboretum in March of 2010 and saw this blooming with thousands of fallen flowers covering the ground. Anyway Camellia Forest had it and I brought it home, see my post from 2010 about it with photos at