I'm on fire.

OK...it's my Chilean fire tree that's on fire. I've had two growing for several years (one in Tacoma, the other at Willapa Bay) and they've had good years and so-so ones but this is the best ever.

This evergreen tree (Embothrium coccineum) is lighting up my garden right now. A word of warning: Both of my trees seem to have poor root systems. Both are listing after storms.

This delicate horizontal stem belongs to a solomon's seal. This perennial snakes out from a mass of shrubs and plants in my shade garden every spring with its delicate branches of leaves and blossoms.

Finally, I bring you these onion flavored pom poms:

Yes, flavored. Whether you grow them for food or for flowers no garden should be without chives. Most folks think of chives as those small segments of green tubes on their baked potatoes. But the flowers are just as edible and zingy.

You can harvest the buds or tear apart the flowers and sprinkle them on a salad. I like to pick a nice little bouquet of them for my nieces and then devour the whole thing just before I hand it over. I have some mighty onion breath after that but they never get tired of that routine. Anything for a laugh.