Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, April 26

Happy Saturday! We're starting to get some interesting stories with some of our recent photos from members of The Horde:

2 fun entries this week, Iris bed going strong and a wonderful amaryllis that I saved from a neighbor who was “relandscaping”. (She destroyed lovely old flower beds and replaced them with nothing). - Tom Servo

Sad for the loss of your neighbor's old flower beds. Glad you got some of the flowers.

I saw a photo recently of a border of deep red Amaryllis on a north wall in the desert. Striking. An idea for our desert denizens. There's a little church near us that also has Amaryllis planted on its north wall. Probably provides some frost protection. The iris is hardier.

From S. Lynn in the Treasure Valley, Idaho Windflowers, daffodils and hyacinth. So springy. Tulips starting to bloom. I'll send pics when they're up and running. S. Lynn Wilder, Idaho

Love them.

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

From By-Tor:

A tennis buddy has a mulberry tree that probably has 5000 ripe mulberries right now.

I took 5 lbs, boiled them with 2 cups of organic pomegranate juice, then extracted the juice from this mixture.

From that, I got 9 half pints of mulberry jelly. It’s like a cross of blackberry jelly, and elderberry jelly. Very tasty.

So about $12 cost for 9 half-pints of jelly.

Jelly is more expensive to make than jam, so mulberries are a good choice for jelly.

By-Tor suggests that the tree could be a weeping mulberry. It is about 14 feet tall, absolutely loaded with fruit. Some photos of a weeping mulberry, its leaves and fruit:

Ah, Nature

Not my garden - but a walk through the woods appreciating nature. Wildflowers are blooming everywhere. I can't identify all of them but I recognize Virginia Bluebells, Spring Beauty, Trout Lily and Bloodroot.

The Pilot

Fun! Nice to have some names to go with those wildflowers. Anybody recognize the flowers in the last photo?

Adventure

Personal note: I'm having surgery this week, so if you haven't seen your submission for the Gardening Thread, you probably won't for a couple of weeks.

See you soon as I'm not hooked up to an IV, though. Have fun while I'm eating hospital food. Last time I was in the hospital, there were trees leafing out. We'll see if I have any plants in view this time.

Gardens of The Horde

Hope this finds you well.

Other than the mowed lawns, our garden at our northern Israel vacation home is intentionally semi-unkempt. In the foreground is a common sage bush, currently flowering and attracting lots of bees. Fresh sage tea is quite nice!

Regards from Jerusalem and northern Israel,

Biden's Dog

A great photo! There seems to be something special about the light . . .

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden at g mail dot com

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

Week in Review

Last week's thread: Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, April 19

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway. Check out the late comments.