Here we grow Lup-dee-lue...

They say on the news that this will be the sunniest May ever if we continue with the beautiful spring time weather we have been having. But what really is amazing are the spring time colors.

When I went in 1986 to the worlds fair in British Columbia, it was the first time i had ever seen these beautiful flowers. They grew in the wild and a huge hillside was covered with hundreds of them. After buying this house of ours and buying flowers for the garden did i notice that you can buy the same flowers here. Lupiner they are called in Danish. Lupins in English - i believe. 2 years ago i bought a package of Lupiner seeds at the market and did what it said to do on the back of the package. What a surprise to see that 95% of the seeds grew to small little plants.

After a few weeks i planted them onto our hillside just outside of our covered patio. The package said that a barren spot would be perfect for the Lupiner. However on our slop it is well covered with a very thick ground cover. But i didn't care because this is where i wanted the tall flowers to grow so that i could see them from the inside of the patio. I stuck them in the ground and little by little last year they all faded out and i am sure it is due to the competition for the needed space. However, in the following Spring one Lupin managed to survive and it put out a little tiny purple spear. But take a look at it this year. Wow! What a beautiful flower! And this one plant alone has so far put out 10 spears and there are several more on the way - all from the same single plant.

Across the street and one house down is this tree that i call an "Ostrich Feather" tree. I don't know why i call it that but i do. It looks like it is made of pink feathers. 2 doors down there is another Ostrich Feather tree and it's much larger than this one. But i took the picture of this one because of the Blue Rain vine growing on the house in the background.



But the tree doesn't really have feathers. And it doesn't even have leaves either.










It's made up of millions of ultra tiny mini flowers. Yes - millions! I counted and re-counted just to make sure.







You can see that it would take about 50 flowers just to cover my thumb nail. Look closely and you can see that some flowers have not yet opened - but they will, making the tree appear even more soft and feathery. Amazing!








Here is Jens relaxing in the shade. Pretty unusual for May. Notice the new fence. That's a long story that i know you can hardly wait to hear about. Don't worry - i will fill you in on ALL the details in the next blog.





Since the weather has been so wonderful, we decided to break out the BBQ and enjoy the nice weather while we have it.


Bon-appetit !