All rosey

Sooooon my beauties... soooon.....

A few more warm days and we will be in full bloom. Chicago Peace, pictured above, is leading the race to open first, though I don't think Tourney and Queen E will be far behind her.

And speaking of Tourney...

She was looking pretty lonely since White Lightning gave up the struggle. I decided she needed a friend.  So, on the way home from Mom's, I stopped at her local garden center. It's a year-round one, not like the little grocery store one by my house... so the selection is huge!!!!

Mom and I went there just after I'd bought my new roses earlier this year, and I was very dissapointed to discover that they had my all time favourite rose... Blue Girl...

 ...because I was still hoping that Whitey was going to make it, and I just didn't have room for another rose as much as I wanted her. (Not to mention, she was almost double the price of my other roses)

But, with Whitey gone, I decided to suck it up about the cost, and go get Bluey.

And I'm so glad I did, Tourney looks so much happier now. And Bluey was on sale (yay!!!) and already has two buds close to blooming...

I can't wait!

And now to reach into the reader mail bag:

Dee was curious what the Red Armeria looked like in full bloom....

...and here she is... more pink than red in truth, but a neat little head of teeny tiny  flowers on a long thin stem.

This was one of the perennials I bought on clearance last year. I'd never heard of Armeria before...

But it's a lovely addition to the bee garden.

And Kathy B was wondering how I kept the birds off the Sunflower sprouts....

Not successfully, I'll admit. I originally had about six or seven, and I thinned that out to three. Now we are down to one. Now one of the three fell victim to Tux (he stepped on it while rubbing himself all over the raspberries)... but I'm guess in a bird or squirrel got the other one. If this one goes too, I'm going to have to snatch some of the ones I planted up at Dad's... they are sprouting quite nicely.