Happy Easter! Whatever you may be celebrating this time of year we wish you many blessings! Here at Ravenscourt Gardens we are celebrating with family. We are planning an Easter egg hunt in the rye grass that we have let grow long!

Not sure our Saint Augustine is surviving underneath.

We decided to try winter rye grass this year. It grew very lush with all the rain we had this winter. I don’t think we watered it with the irrigation even once. I do wonder if perhaps we put down a bit too much seed?  When it started growing tall I thought it looked so cool long that I let it go. Our lovely neighbor Ann wrote me a note saying wouldn’t it be great for an Easter egg hunt. When I told this to my daughter she said “then let’s have Easter at your house.” We have the plastic eggs ready to go full of little Lego figures, chocolates and jelly beans. Shawn found eggs that look like plastic but are actually made from 100% plant starch and they are compostable.We have been busy adding plants to our garden. Something new for nearly every bed. Now that it is warming up the garden is looking pretty and fresh. I will save that for another post. I was pleased to see the Blue Elf aloe on our front steps blooming just in time for company. I actually bought this because I couldn’t resist a plant named Blue Elf and I am very attracted to plants with Blue-Green leaves. It also goes by the name “A. California Aloe”, A. ‘Blue Boy’. It is a hard succulent, zones 9-11 and can take temperatures down to 20 to 25 degrees in our zone 9. We had a few cold spells this winter that it weathered just fine. The coral flowers have been a pleasant surprise. It is said to be a vigorous grower that stays in a tight clumping form and is very drought tolerant but does need good drainage. I am thinking to try some in the ground when I can find more to buy and see how it does with our clay. You can already see ours is putting out little pups, so this would be a fun one for mass plantings. Full grown it should be about 18″ tall and spread to 2 feet wide. I read its long lasting tubular flowers are excellent for attracting hummingbirds! Just behind the aloe going up the stairs is one of my antiquing treasures, and old iron rabbit. He is the one that is going to hide all the eggs for our grandchildren. I think perhaps I need to give him a bow tie.

Greetings from our iron Easter Bunny.

Another fan of the tall rye grass is our dear sweet 16 year old cat, Viola. She loves to sit and watch the birds. We feed them on the front walk and they are quite used to her and pay her no mind. But I think she feels she has them fooled!

“For I remember it is Easter morn,

And life and love and peace are all new born.” ~Alice Freeman Palmer

Happy Gardening!