Garden Pic Wednesday: Purple Shamrocks & Rainlily

 There's a lady around the corner from us with a beautiful yard heavily landscaped with flower beds AND a rain garden. I've thought for a long time that I wanted to stop by to say hello and an unexpected opportunity to do so came up this week when I was out for my morning walk. She was out mowing and weed-eating, so I introduced myself. Her name is Sally. She's a little older then me. It was a great opportunity to talk gardening. Like me, she wants to replace grass with flower beds. She showed me her yard, then we walked down to my house and looked at mine.

We traded numbers and she's going to contact me to give me some of her purple asters later in the autumn.

So that was neat. 

I have two photos today:

Purple Shamrocks:

The camera really doesn't do justice to the depth of their dark burgundy color, but it does reveal the lighter fushia pattern on the leaves that's less noticeable to the naked eye.

They bloom light pink flowers all the time. 

A Yellow Rain Lily
See a yellow is rare. I see the larger pink ones more often. They're unique in they require a certain degree of wetness to bloom. 

I imagined when I planted the little bulbs that I'd have a flock of blossoms after every rain, but, no, I only see them sporadically. At most I've seen 3 or 4 pink ones blooming at one time.

 Funny thing about this one---it wasn't even in the rain garden proper, but up between the flagstones that ring it.  They do make seeds sometimes, so I think this is a self-seeded volunteer.