Magnolias + Walking Irises

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On my lunch break. Thought I would post some of the pictures of the back yard work from this past week.

The Magnolia Bed, is probably the most overgrown, and very overwhelming, bed in the yard.

Before. The ivy was covering and killing everything:

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I started by removing the ivy, weeding, removing debris. I found an actual brick border, which was exciting. The walking irises "walked" anywhere from 2 to 6 feet out from that border and were horribly overcrowded.

Progress.

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The red arrows show the brick border, and the yellow is the overstepping/overgrowth area of the walking irises that i removed and cleared. I carefully moved them and will be replanting some and giving the rest to my sister to plant in her garden).






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I found this huge plant in the bed (there are 2 smaller ones as well), and I vaguely remember it in bloom during spring for a short time. It was orange, and looked like a lily of sorts. If anyone knows what it is, please let me know:




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There are also some of these in the bed, haven't had time yet to try to identify them:


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I also found 10 million bulbs, some large and attached to foliage that has died back and therefore, I dug those up and will replant them soon:



I found these in with the bulbs and actually screamed like a little girl, b/c I thought they were huge Glow Worms! What are these? Does anyone know?


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Down near the lake, the elephant ears are getting huge. I really love that plant. The ferns, which is another favorite plant, are really huge right now too.




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There is also Mimosa (Mimosa strigillosa) ground cover everywhere back there! I would love to replace the backyard grass with this wildflower ground cover. A plant website says, "Mimosa can be mowed, and from spring to early fall you'll have purple "powder puff" blooms on short stems. Also called "sensitive plant" because it's leaves drawback when touched."

Anyway, look how pretty the little blooms are (they are tiny)..


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I also came across the weirdest looking spider ever. He has spikes:


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And I found a tiny little dead snake near the porch. I hope I didn't accidentally step on him..and kill him:




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Back to work for me.
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