Garden Pic Wednesday: First Spring Blooms!

I was expecting major rain today, but---nope. It was initially sunny this morning when I drove up to the YMCA for my bi-weekly interval training class, but is now gloomy gray, though still cool and pleasant enough to get some yard stuff done:

 

#1 was cutting down the decorative banana trees in the far back yard. They freeze and turn brown in winter, and cutting them causes a fresh tree to spiral up from the center of the stump. This helps control them a bit. Ignored, they can turn into 10 foot wide clumps.
They're easy to saw through, being a water-logged type of pulp inside, but water is heavy. About 10, all different sizes, ranging from an 1 1/2 inches on a few babies to 8 inches on the one oldest. It's a work-out.

#2 was taking the hedge shears to a couple small pampas grass clumps also in back.

#3 was a brief mow of some of the front lawn, mostly to collect mulch to spread over the hosta beds and front flower beds I recently edged.

 

Garden Pics of the Day: 

A spring shot of one of my front beds:

In the pot you can see some white flowers: these my Cheers Daffodils, which are a cluster of tiny double-daffodils.
Rising up behind it, in the same pot. is a Dutch Iris bloom and you can see a pinch of blue at it's tip near top of picture.
There's miniature rose greenery and Easter lily greenery on the ground, around the side of the pot. Behind the pot is a Japanese Skypencil. Behind that, stems from last years Hibiscus I still need to cut. And that clump of green right is Rubeckia (black-eyed susan) that wintered over.

 

 

Below, first Azalea blooms:

 

 

And last: A pic of my Varigated Ground Cover Vinca with it's pretty bluish flowers.

A lady I used to work with at the flower shop gave me a start of hers. It makes for a good naturalizer in my back bed under the maple tree.

 

 

Come back tomorrow for the Mama Kat Prompt!