How does my garden grow?

Our new plants are growing! And flowering too!!

Now if I can just not kill them. Knowing when to water is challenging. We got a couple of good rains since planting in the planting bed. But this week the weather is not cooperating. I was hoping we would go on getting a good solid rain once a week. I heard a storm was expected yesterday, but we only got a few drops. 

So I just went and watered the plants a little and gave the maple its weekly deep watering.

I also took some photos. It is a little windy so I wasn't able to get good close ups of the flowers:

Yesterday I also noticed that the maple is leafing out. Here is a close up of some of the new leaves. 

It is still so tiny that it doesn't show up very well in photos as a whole tree. But here is one from my office window this morning:

The next morning: 

We had a lot of rain this morning since I wrote the above (my rain gauge said 3/4"). So now the maple has had two deep watering's. Oh dear. At least I only gave the planting bed a little sip yesterday so the big drink it got this morning should be ok. Meanwhile the maple is due for it's monthly "Seamist Root Stimulator" treatment. It is a liquid concentrate that I am supposed to dilute in a gallon of water. So that means more water... But one gallon isn't really very much... is it?

Several days later:

I haven't seen any butterflies around the garden yet. The main wildlife we get are squirrels and neighborhood cats.

He seems to be surveying his domain.
It's better than some things he could be doing!

Other news is that we got a new roof. We weren't planning to and didn't even know it was needed until last week. That's what the sign in the yard is about. I'll try to post about it next time. I was going to do that with this post but it was taking too long so I decided to finish this to let you know how things are growing while it is still fresh and exciting! The irises are about to bloom too. So next time I'll try to include some of those.

Here are some better photos of the flowers: 

Salvia Greggii

Gulf Coast Penstemon