more signs of spring

My first iris reticulata bloomed today!  How stunning is this tiny beauty?  It's only a few inches tall.  I just hope the rest of them come up soon, I'd rather see a little row of irises than have them come up one at a time.  I've got some species  tulips in the same bed but I actually have no idea if they bloom at the same time or if the tulips come up later than the irises.  I just hope they all settle in and start making babies, both the irises and tulips are meant to "naturalise" easily.  That means they spread by making more bulbs until they form big clusters of blossoms.  How wonderful would that be?

These aren't really spring flowers, I just wanted to show the progress of my geraniums.  They simply have not stopped flowering since they got their first flowers last spring.  And in the winter their lovely brown "horseshoe" leaf patterns are really showing off - they fade in the summer sun.  The alyssum is going nuts too, and supposedly they self-seed so with luck I won't ever have to plant more.  All in all I'm really happy with this bed, it's right at the front of the house, it's always flowering and it takes care of itself.

Finally, here's how far the geraniums have come in the last year.  I first planted them last winter and they were no bigger than a few tiny leaves.  This is what they looked like in March after the brutal summer heat.  The three on the left had to be replaced.

By May they looked like this:

And now they're in gorgeous full form!