Oh this is happy day of love: for our partners, children, friends and communities and it’s also a perfect day to love those first blooms in the garden. In my awakening garden, only a few are showing their well-loved faces and providing for hungry pollinators. Included in these earliest blooms are flowers of Giant spiderwort, Tradescantia gigantea.
The first of many-to-come blooms of Autumn sage, Salvia greggii, are presenting in a salmon-colored package.
It was in this set of blooms that I spied one of the early native bees, a Blue Orchard bee, busily gathering nectar and pollen.
Reliable winter bloomers are the charmers adorning the Potato vine, Solanum laxum.
This little cluster decorates the residential area of a non-occupied wren house. I’m eagerly awaiting a wren couple settling in, loving and raising some chicks, and enjoying their flowers.
With apologies to Robert Burns and his June-blooming red, red rose, my two red rose shrubs each sport a couple of blooms which have opened for pollinator business and gardener love this February. The Old Gay Hill rose,
…and the Martha Gonzales rose, are gearing up for their spring performances.
These two roses look similar at first glance but Martha is a smaller shrub decorated with petite, deep red blooms and the Old Gay Hill rose showcases larger blooms with a more brilliant hue. Both are water-wise perennials and stalwart bloomers. I look forward to the blast of crimson they lend my garden later in spring.
It’s early days for bloom love in the Northern Hemisphere. This day and everyday, should be a day of love and kindness in the garden–and everywhere.
For a look at more loved and lovely blooms, check out Carol’s May Dreams Gardens celebrating all things blooming from many places this February.
My Gardener Says... 
No flowers in my garden, just snow ;( so I thoroughly enjoy yours!
LikeLike
The flowers will come soon, I hope. We don’t have many, but early bloomers are beginning!
LikeLike
Your garden is looking good. I am finally getting some blooms after the freeze. My red rose loves the colder weather and blooms more in the Fall and Winter.
LikeLike
Thanks. Things will pick up, unless we get a late, hard freeze. My roses also bloom best in spring, then again in fall and sometimes, winter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, I have fewer bees at the hummingbird feeders, so something good must be blooming in the woods.
LikeLike
Ha! They’ll always go for the flowers over the sugar water.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tina because glad I already have flowers in your garden. They are all precious. The two roses are very pretty and the potato vine is so beautiful it looks like a mini daffodil. I’m glad your bees have flowers to eat. Greetings from Margarita.
LikeLike
Thanks, Margarita. I’m glad the bees also have more to choose from!
LikeLike
Oh how amazing to have these blooms in February. Lucky wren and lucky you.
LikeLike
Yes, it’s nice to see some floral color!
LikeLike
I had no idea (although I suppose I should have had) that potato vine’s in the same family as the silverleaf nightshade. Those stamens are the giveaway, for sure. I have a friend in Kerrville with a huge stand of potato vine, but I’ve never seen it flower.
LikeLike
My vine only blooms in winter and early spring. I purchased it on a whim; I saw it growing in shade at my favorite nursery here in Austin and is was full and lush–that sold me! It grows under the shade of a Red oak and only gets water from the sky: my kind of plant!
LikeLike
Great to see these colours in winter. The Old Gay Hill rose is particularly sumptious. I was staring at my salvia gregii on Monday trying to see how much I have lost overwinter, so nice to see yours doing so well.
LikeLike
Salvia greggii here are evergreen, do yours die back completely? The Old Gay Hill was a impulse buy some years ago that I’ve never regretted! I wish I had a little more sun for it, but otherwise it’s such a good rose.
LikeLike
Lovely to see flowers in a garden in February. Thanks for joining in for bloom day!
LikeLike
It is great when flowers are available–thank you for hosting!
LikeLike
Lovely Salvia! I must remember to plant some this year
Happy Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day!
LikeLike
It’s a winner! You have a lovely day and days of blooms too, Lea!
LikeLike
I didn’t know that there is a wild potato that blooms so beautifully like that. However, potatoes are solely for the temperate climes, it doesn’t produce seeds here in the hot tropics. But at least we don’t have winter that kills all the live colors.
LikeLike
Ha. This one is for foliage and flowers only–no spuds!
LikeLike
Quite a few nice blooms! Happy Garden Blogger Bloom Day!
LikeLike
Thanks, Leslie–happy blooms to you as well.
LikeLike
Wow you have beautiful blooms in your garden at this time of year!
Greetings, Sofie #26
http://sofiecreates.blogspot.be/2017/02/garden-bloggers-bloom-day-february-2017.html
LikeLike
There are a few, Andrea–I’m happy for that!
LikeLike
Springtime-yay! Happy belated Valentine’s Day and Bloom Day!
LikeLike
Yay! is right! Happy blooms-n-hearts to you, Beth.
LikeLike
Does your Autumn Sage know it’s only February??? I have to say, I love the reds and purples in your garden right now. For some reason, I tire quickly of the more traditional spring fare, even though this year, even some more of that would make me happy. 🙂
LikeLike
Haha! It’s just blooming on a couple of terminals, but that’s okay–any blooming is good blooming. I like the reds and purples too, there’s not as much as I’d like, but that will come soon.
LikeLiked by 1 person