Wednesday Flower Study

I am excited about this new study from Handbook of Nature Study! Barb is wonderful to share her talents and knowledge with everyone- THANK YOU!!

We decided to get started with our flower studies, even though we have had snow that last few days. My daughter, Nyah, 6, said to me, "No more snow! It's not Christmas anymore." Because our yard isn't landscaped in any way we are going to start with flowers I plan on planting, and we'll add wildflowers and weed flowers as we find and identify them. We had a couple weeks of nice spring weather before the snow came again, and during that time I went flower crazy at the store- buying tulips, daffodils, and other bulbs/corms. I LOVE SPRING!!

Because we are having someone do the heavy work (moving dirt, rocks, lay sod, etc.) on our yard this is the only corner I can start planting stuff now. It will be a few weeks before I can start tackling the rest of the yard. I can't wait for the snow to melt so we can get our hands dirty!!

Although we have had snow, the first day it melted by afternoon, and even though it was chilly outside, I decided to plant some pots I have, and this is what I devised to keep the baby out of the cold. She was a little upset the dog could jump over and escape like the rest of us, but at least she didn't turn purple from cold.

Our work area on the deck- trying to find all our gardening stuff was a bit of a challenge as most of it was still in boxes in the garage from moving 6 months ago.

When Jolie started to fuss and get upset about being left out a garden tool cheered her up, and distracted her for a time.

After we finished planting we took a walk around the yard. I was looking for evidence of spring, and hoping for some weed flowers for us to learn about next, but no luck. We did find several of the plant below growing. I have always called it lamb's ears, but when I googled it the pictures don't match- so what is it? I love the soft, velvety leaves. Other than these, and dandelion greens, there isn't much growing in our yard. I want to study dandelions when they are blooming, so we'll continue to learn about garden flowers until we find something else.

Here are our Tulips yesterday: We decided to learn about the Tulip this week. We read information from the Handbook of Nature Study, and then we looked at pictures online. So beautiful!! We also used the close up pictures of the inside of tulips to identify the different parts. And I set one as my computer background to give us a little spring until we have some flowers of our own growing. I gave the kids a coloring page of tulips and they picked the color of tulips they want to add to our yard, prompting more flower madness at the store. This is a dangerous time of year to walk through a garden center.