milk snakes & my flower garden

How's about that for a boring ol' title?

Meet one of our resident milksnakes:

Generally Eastern milk snakes are very mild mannered (in our area). Naturally I would NEVER recommend someone unfamiliar to snakes to just go pick one up! Don't hurt these snakes though- they help with pest control (from mice to slugs...depends on the type of snake).My front flower garden:

So...I like the flower bed that sits directly in front of the house...but the bed on the other side of the walk way needs some help (it's also newer). I need to let the plants grow a little more before deciding what to do....but I'm considering widening that bed, adding a small tree (crabapple perhaps?) and doing drifts of plantings (groups of three) instead of one plant here and another there. Plus I'd like to carry that same blue and purple color with punches of yellow and orange to the other side. Do you see the hummingbird at the feeder? This photo was taken last week and my window boxes already look different. Oh...we've got about a dozen or more hummingbirds zooming about here at any given time. You can hear them before you can see them.

I do like how this planter has evolved- with blues (hostas), purples (Wine & Roses weigela & wild geranium) with punches of yellow and orange....plus the evergreen shrubs give it texture. Can you see Mr. or Mrs. Robin sitting on her nest? They've got four babies who are getting bigger and bigger every day.

So...I guess you could say I'm Hooked on Nice Snakes & My flower garden. How about you? Come see what everyone else is hooked on today at Hooked on Houses.