Bloom Day

Cosmos

Iceberg Rose

Rainbow Knockout

Verbena

Pink Indigo

Red Knockout

Pavonia, under double siege from the dreaded bindweed and powdery mildew

White Plumbago

Blue Daze Evolvulus, which wintered over. And oddly, the color of its foliage, previously a gray green, has now turned yellow-green. I've fed it but still it looks chlorotic. But it's growing and seems lively.

Confederate Jasmine

Shrimp Plant

Common Sunflower, the kind that grows in ditches

Finally, the fuschia plant which I thought I would surely kill, is blooming like crazy. It wants to be watered EVERY day or it wilts.

The pink caps peel back to reveal a crumple of gorgeous purple.
If Oscar de la Renta were to design a line of polyester ballgowns for K-Mart, they would look like this flower.

And you thought scent strips were bad...

Grace and Lilacs

Grace sent me a picture of her most recent oil painting, a self-portrait with lilacs, though I think she just wanted to torture me with news that the lilacs are out everywhere in Providence. This is a total fragrance sensation I've never managed to catch on my trips to Little Rhody. Meanwhile on the Smellorama front, the Washington Post reported:

NTT Communications announced it's running a ten-day trial starting April 10 of its new Mobile Fragrance Communication service (Kaori Tshshi Mobile), the mobile version of a service, which in Japan is already used in homes and movie theaters. A downloaded fragrance signal is sent from your cell phone to a base station that will emit the scent.

The story goes on to mention something called a "fragrance playlist", or what we normally refer to as "migraine trigger." Maybe the day of online scratch'n'sniff is closer than we think. File that under Be Careful What You Wish For, a folder already tediously overstuffed.

Tomato Porn

The Dream

The Reality

I don't do vegetables. In the coming apocalypse, I'm screwed; forced to reckon with the many poisonous noncomestibles I've sunk into the ground. My neighbor forced upon me a tray of tomato seedlings that another neighbor, the fabulously vital 91-year old Bertha, had in turn, forced upon her. Apparently these poor seedlings have been making their way around Austin like a couch-surfing bass player with B.O.
I decided to put them out of their misery by planting them myself; a sure death penalty. I put them in this huge plastic bucket my sister gave me, with some decent soil, to at least give them a fighting chance.
But now they're on their own.

Hail Mary

We just had an insane hailstorm. I was gathering up some marble size chunks on the deck for a photo op when all of sudden bricks started landing on the roof. The noise set off car alarms. This is our second hailstorm in two weeks; though the first was pea-sized and did no damage.

I went out and took pictures and my neighbor was snapping some with his cellphone. His truck got hit. He kindly brought over a ziplock bag full of evidence in case I need it. I'm not sure what to do. Anyone had experience with this? Should I have roofer come and inspect?
I watched in horror as a meteorite smashed down on one of my potted petunias and decapitated it. The cosmos appear also to be pretty much obliterated. My car thankfully was in the garage.