A taste of spring

It's time for a few spring flower pics. At left, tulips and house view from the Monticello visit when my mother was here.  We took the "behind the scenes" tour, which goes upstairs and to the dome room--parts of the house previously not open to the public. You need to make advance reservations, but I recommend it if you haven't seen it.  The upstairs had been used for office space, but they are going to restore it. 

At right, my first outdoor hummingbird pic of the season.  I wonder if this is the same little guy I liberated from my office the week before. 

My mother cleaned up my container garden, and we hit several nurseries while she was here and got most all of it planted.  It has expanded again this year and I need to move in some stepping stones and lay down mulch after I kill off some grass.  There is also a new border using my granite paving stones from Pratt Street in Baltimore. I'll post of pics of that end of the garden when it's ready.

I planted a chestnut tree in the front yard soon after we moved in, without knowing what beautiful flowers it has each spring. 

I can never resist a fuscia in a garden center.  I found this one at Walmart a couple weeks ago, very cheap but very nice.

There is really nothing prettier in Virginia in the spring than a field of buttercups in bloom.  Clay got our pasture cut at just the right time to allow the buttercups to come up and put on a show.