1-2-3 Go Garden! I look at Karen’s lilies with big eyes! I love the picotee edges, the different colors, etc. So I did a Google search and found a daylily farm. Lucky for me, they are moving out their lilies. I am getting $100 worth for $40-that’s 10 plants. They sell around here for $10-12 each. They want to move their butterfly bushes, so $1.99 each (I got a couple) was down right cheap. I did buy some lilies from eBay last year. Not all of them made it. I am hoping the short trip from southwest PA from a real daylily farm was the better choice this year. I did buy my irises from a farm and just loved them all. I only had a couple that didn’t bloom, but they maybe fall bloomers?
Veychek Daylily farm (I sure hope they all turn out to look like these!)

I took some yard shots today. The grass is a little long and things aren’t perfectly groomed, but here’s where I tramp around everyday.

This was taken in the front yard. It’s hard to see the brick side walk Brian put in about 10 yrs ago (so bright). I have my perennial ‘woodland’ garden to the right there under the towering evergreen. That huge hollyhock was opposite the front door. My hedges are a bit chopped up looking from getting the new window a few months ago. I have a hosta, mum, wild begonias, impatiens and salvia planted under them. I like them trimmed up from the bottom too. Along the other side of the house are also hedges.
This is the backyard-you can’t see Sean’s old swingset as I am standing next to it! The butterfly bush is huge this year! That’s next to the bench and pond area. That’s my new garden window. Not much is going on along the back. Next to the butterfly bush I have some white daisies that are 5 feet tall. I’d love to have a deck here, Down the steps is a huge container with two waterlilies. They haven’t bloomed yet this year.
The other corner of the house. I have a few adirondack chairs there. Behind the chairs is a Japanese maple, taken from my mom’s yard as a sapling. I have roses, impatiens, lilies and Sweet William. This is the bed I wish I had mulched. On the other side of the house, behind the chairs, is my fairy garden. I also call this my secret garden as I have quite a few bushes-virburnum, spirea, hydrangea that surround this space.
This is the house end of our very long side yard. That’s one of the Chestnut trees (that I hate). I have a lounge chair between them and a table and chairs too. We have hardly used either this year. Beyond that is the iris and glad garden. We have a couple of pear trees out there and an overgrown grape arbor. Beyond that is the other circle garden of cosmos and zinnias. Finally we have a veggie patch with tomatoes, peppers, and green beans-which I need to weed! Brian planted a maple tree from his parent’s yard and that is just sitting in the middle of this long stretch of yard. We are very close to a busy back road.

Everyone keeps saying I should do a flower collage. I got to my middle of June folder and ran out of room on my collage. My irises were definitely the stars of the garden this year. I am enjoying my new daylilies too. I’m not getting a lot of blooms, but what I have are really pretty.
Brian and I went to my mom’s house to pitch her screenhouse. Thank goodness she wrote ‘left top’, etc on the poles! It took us about 45 minutes in very humid and mosquitoe-y weather to pitch it, but now she is a ‘happy camper’. : ) I picked up old pots scattered about, planted some tomatoes (I know, it’s late, but maybe she’ll get an Sept/October harvest) and geraniums. I wish I had remembered my camera as she has a pink butterfly bush that is absolutely gorgeous (I planted it last year). The flower heads are at least a foot long!
We went to a pizza place around the corner and the owner is a gardener. He had an entire patch of zinnias-all colors-in full bloom! I was jealous as I don’t have a single one that is opened yet. My bright yellow cosmos are blooming nicely-they reseeded themselves from last year.
I came home, jumped in the shower and was making the collage when my son called and said he had his cellphone stolen in a parking lot. He must have dropped it outside his car because he has a car alarm and it would have gone off if someone was trying to get in. He and his pals were smart enough to go right to the T-Mobile store and get the phone cancelled. He of course needs to get another one because he is a commuter student. It’s always something!

Birds in flight-what could be more beautiful?

(the first layer is a clouds in the sky background)

Thank you so much for the sun and a less humid day. : ) Here in the Philly area we’ve only had 2 days out of 15 without rain. Feels more like Seattle with humidity. It felt so good to pull some weeds tonight.
Make note: marigolds, zinnias, petunias and geraniums hate all this rain. They look awful.
Add: Went overboard at 75% off sale-remember to put a lot of the stuff away for gifts.
Not afraid: of Lane Bryant-I think I wear their smallest size, but I found their stretch denim shorts on the web and ventured in the mall store and got a gauzy black peasant skirt and cute black top. Awesome jewelry too!
Watch out what you eat for dessert: The Maui shrimp salad was awesome, but when I came home I ate a cinnamon sugar dipped hand-rolled pretzel that came with sugary dipping sauce.

I’m sure you’ve heard that our next neighbor New Jersey is having budget problems or something so bad that the casinos were closed down on Wednesday and continues today. That’s a big loss in revenue. I’m not really that sad because a family member can’t go down there. The man’s been going down there weekly at least 2 times a week for about 8 yrs! That’s too much. He says it gives him something to do, but I think it’s an addiction. Once he referred to playing the slots as ‘his job’. Is he kidding? He won $2,500 or so once. I think that’s the most, so far. He’s also slipped on the escalator the day before Sean’s graduation and did get hurt. I go down once in a blue moon. I once won about $240 on a couple of pulls of the slot and then quit. I have no desire to throw money away that I could use for plants or eating out by using the ‘computerized’ slot machines. And someone who would rather go gamble then see his relatives has a problem.

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Vash and is:
“What is the biggest mishap you have had with your stitching material (ie spillages)?”

Well the biggest boo-boo I have made is cutting fabric too small. I just did it on ‘A Walk in the Woods’. I didn’t cut the fabric long enough for the repeat border at the bottom. They figure you can read that it says to repeat the top border on the bottom. I am more than halfway through. I guess I’m leaving it off. My husband once spilled coffee on my stitching. Lucky for him, it was a brown fabric and I got to it right away.

I was outside earlier and I am now a bit discouraged from seeing all the insects eating lacy holes in a lot of my plants. The weeds are terrible and I don’t know what garden to start with. I only mulched one area this year which was a mistake. The mulch helps not only keep the weeds down, but it also keeps the plants more upright maybe? Bri weeded around ‘his area’ of the veggie garden while my green beans, dill and sunflowers are being slowly choked out. I just can’t cook and weed at the same time. ; )
I am tired from all the chopping and preparing yesterday. Sean didn’t get home until 6:45 and I was near starving. He went to the fireworks with his pals and left Brian in the dust. It was something they usually did together. I’ve gone a few times, but I’m not crazy about sitting in the grass at night much. I much prefer the tv and the fireworks on Philly’s parkway.
I’m sticking a Stouffer’s lasagna in the oven tonight. I had a $2 coupon off. What could be easier?