Today we’re returning to my backyard after talking about other Six on Saturday subjects for a couple of weeks. Believe me; you haven’t missed anything that we can’t catch up on today. In fact, the garden looks kind of shabby after last week’s below freezing temps. Things have thawed now and are getting back to normal, so I found enough bright spots to show you.

Yellow is my least favorite primary color, so I don’t put much of it in the garden. However, as winter comes to a close, I appreciate the cheerful sunshiny splashes. Sometimes yellow is just an addition to another color, but the golden accent is a welcome contrast.

Check out the narcissus pictured above. In contrast to Paperwhites which have pointed white petals and a white center cup (aka: crown, corona, or trumpet), this small cluster type has roundish white petals with a yellow cup. I don’t know the name of this variety.

This larger single-flower daffodil is called Ice Follies. It has white petals with a yellow trumpet. Seeing this flower makes me happy.

I get confused when the gardening literature seems to interchange the names of flowers like daffodils, narcissus, and jonquils. But they’re all categorized as narcissi (Amaryllidaceae). Can anyone reading this clarify it for me?

This pretty, pastel yellow pansy was an accident. It was included in a flat of other pansies but wasn’t blooming at the time. When I planted it, I thought it was something else, then it bloomed. It’s a little serendipity in the flower bed.

My gorgeous Royal Velvet camellia is blooming profusely. “But it’s red,” you say. Ah, yes. But look at the bright yellow anthers at the center. It’s a lovely contrast. In my blog post a couple of weeks ago, I mistakenly called it a Crimson King camellia. I was wrong. Sorry about that.

My neighbor has a Carolina jessamine vine that grows up into our red-tipped photinia shrubs (red-tops). These trumpet-shaped golden flowers are wildly blooming right now. It’s classified as a traditional Southern heritage plant and is supposed to be fragrant. It’s too high up for me to smell it.

I’ve told you about my love-hate relationship with forsythias. I had decided to dig this one up and get rid of it since the space is too small to let it grow as nature intended. Well, this year, it is blooming really well for the first time. It’s in a bad location, but a good sunny spot. In fact, my other two forsythias are starting to bloom too. Maybe it’s because of the fertilizer I threw on them last year.

That was going to end my six pictures for this week. However, yesterday I saw the first bloom of the year on my Tete a Tete daffodils. These miniature all-yellow beauties have to be included in this week’s theme, but they make me have seven photos today. You don’t mind, do you?

It just occurred to me that most of the flowers I’ve featured today have a trumpet shape in their design, including the jessamine and forsythia. That reminds me of several Biblical references to God’s voice described as sounding like a trumpet. You never know when or where you might hear Him! I’m eagerly awaiting the sound of the last trumpet.

It may not be spring where you are, and we may not have reached it on the calendar yet, but meteorological spring has sprung here along the Gulf Coast.

If you’re still surrounded by ice and snow, I hope it warms up soon for you. If you’re already feeling temperatures in the upper 70s and 80s, all I can say is, “Bless you!” It will be a long summer.

Shalom, Dottie

I want to give credit to the guy who founded this fun Six on Saturday idea. He lives in Great Britain, and his Twitter handle is @cavershamjj  You can find his blog at: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/