Category Archives: flowers

May27

Captures

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I’m pleased with the way my pots with the coleus, petunias and lobelia are taking off. No signs of critter munching yet. We have noticed a lot of caterpillars around the yard (they fall on us too!) I got that little wrought iron birdbath at a discount store last Friday. It was missing some bolts and Bri had to find some that would work with it.

This is the garden where I have mostly Sweet William-Dianthus. It is suppose to be a biannual, so I add a pack of them each year. I have little Asian lanterns in there too. That tall, stalky thing looks like Freesia, but it only got like this last year, so I hope the orange flowers make an appearance this year!

I like geraniums in pots and plastic ones at that. I think the tighter they are, the more they bloom. The back of my houses needs some TLC and I’d like to start off painting that railing. I think I painted it red about 21 yrs ago!

I decided to put all ‘3’ hibiscus plants in one big pot. They were really pot bound. It should make an interesting display! They are full of buds!

These are delicate Japanese Irises near my little pond-in the background. The Canna lily I bought does not like it there (see tilted), so I think I will pot it up.

Another shot of that gorgeous Nemesia. And that is a telephone pole in the background.

May22

Pretty things

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I had my Mother’s Day gifts in for a few nights when it was really chilly. It’s in the 50s tonight, so hopefully they’ll be fine. The red one is being shy about blooming, but the yellow one seems to have two plants in one pot-yellow and peach and the flowers are different too! I thought they were pretty enough to share.

I had some chicken tender strips defrosted and was looking for a quick recipe. I wasn’t really in the mood to look as the food photos made my tummy hurt (I’m getting better), but I improvised (green pepper instead of yellow, mandarin oranges instead of navel, bagged salad instead of Arugula) and the guys really liked it! It’s so easy to broil the tenders. I would change the spices a bit, but I do think they tasted better broiled. What a cinch to broil peppers too. I should do it more often.

Got outside between raindrops to plant yellow flowers in the Yucca bed next to the road; Victoria Blue salvia in the woodland garden; and the long looked for Pineapple sage in the pond area. Still some planting to do, but lots more mulching!

Trivia-well-sort of-I saw in my pal Barbara’s blog that her son was doing a walk and the one Dutch word had ‘Avon’ in it. Now not sure if I ever looked this up, but I live in Avondale-Avon meaning ‘river’ and ‘dale’ meaning valley dweller. So this is true as we live in a valley not far from the Brandywine River. : )

May19

Magical Flowers

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Thanks to Gary over at tribe.net for animating this for me! He’s a wonderful photographer in California and good at animation too. It’s not working unless you click on the picture-grrrr!


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Today it reached 60 and was so chilly. I went outside and ‘high tailed’ it back in again! I do have things to do inside, no problem. My allergies were in a tailspin and I saw Bri looking for Claritin. Sean cut the grass around the house for the first time in a while and Bri finished off the long part. We’re still trying to get the yard work under control. If you could see the pile of debris you would wonder where it all came from!
Tomorrow seems like it’s going to be a repeat of today. Oh, more clutter control will be under way!
Reached my ‘half’ birthday today-oh joy!

May18

A wave of irises

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A wave of irises, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Taken today, after a mostly wet day. I am sad to see these bloom and take a beating from the weather, but they seem pretty much ok. I’m waiting on a really dark purple one. My little kiwi color one either didn’t bloom or died back. I see where most of these will have to have their rhizomes separated and replanted in the fall.
I like the way Flickr resizes the photos. When I do it, they always look blurry. I— D.N.T. W.W.-drastically need to weed whack (around the Chestnut tree) and trim the little box hedges.

Oh my, I just heard some thunder! More rain!!

The fellows went over to Pop-pop’s house and I stayed home to catch up on some mail to send out and wanted to tidy up my paper stuff, which I haven’t done yet. It’s really getting dark out too. I plan to make dinner when the guys get home since they had a big lunch.

May18

Bloomin’ Saturday

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Yellow Calendula, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I plan to plant these around the edge of my Yucca bed near the road. When I spied them at the nursery, they all looked this gorgeous, but the container they are in was bone dry. I figured if they could take that abuse, I want to see what they look like with some TLC.
Sean took me to a hospital fair Saturday which turned out to have moved to another location. We were told they did that as they had planned to do renovations at the hospital, which they hadn’t started yet. There was no white elephant table or vendors, two places we love to roam through. We ended up buying raffle tickets for a car and other goodies (crossing fingers) and homemade donuts-I’m feeling the affects of those today.
Last night, our parish gave our priest a new Chrysler Sebring as a gift for 20 years of service to the community. He said he was speechless!

May15

Mrs. Green Thumbs

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I swore I wasn’t going to buy anymore flowers…then Sean said he needed more for his garden and we stopped at Richardson’s. Got some pretty things there. BUT, we headed down to the mall and the Boscov’s store had there gardening area set up this year! I guess they wanted to utilize their big metal fence. They actually had decent and different (and inexpensive) plants, one of which was the salvia I looked in about 5 different places for. It’s pink, but I was happy. I was a gardening happy lady today and after dinner. I’m almost finished. Here are some shots as I feel some of these plants or shrubs won’t look this pretty after the rain that is forecast tomorrow:


A peachy keen Azalea in the front of the house. Sean and I were standing in front of this on Mother’s Day

A close up of a delicately scented Azalea blossom


Some of my various irises, some in bloom

A close up of a gorgeous iris bloom


A begonia I bought yesterday-only $12.99! It took two plant stands to hold it up.


The red hibiscus Sean gave me


The yellow hibiscus


Lettuce growing in the tire garden


Still have a few more flowers to plant! There’s the pink salvia on the left


This was just to perfect not to photograph-although Dandelions drive me crazy, it looked so unusual and fuzzy next to the fuzzy Lamb’s ears.

Worked on-potting up geraniums and newly bought flowers.

Gardens -gnome garden-polka dots plants (burgundy and dark green and green and white-new colors from Boscov’s), mini Gem Marigolds and white alyssum

Herb Bed-Fennel, Basil, Dill, Dianthus, Marigolds, Roma tomato. Need to plant up to 8 more things-might be a squeeze there.

I was left a comment above about ‘the real’ Mrs. Greenthumbs aka Cassandra Danz who passed away in 2002. I was just thinking of a funny name for my post and that name came to mind. I do remember the real lady when she appeared on the ‘Live with Regis and Kelly Show’. Thanks for pointing that out.

May7

80 degrees!

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I’m a little light-headed from spray painting a lot of my outdoor furniture today. I have more to do, but need the paint. It’s $5 a can, I bought two hunter green cans of it and was able to spruce up a large settee, two Adirondack chairs, a foot bench, a little table and a little child’s Adirondack chair! Not bad!

I took some photos earlier, before Sean arrived home safely around 4:10. He got stuck in traffic 10 miles out of State College, but it was smooth sailing from there. He had a nice oven roasted pot roast and veggies for dinner.


I had this mosaic planter/birdbath and put it on top of an over turned flower pot and added a bowl I had. It’s amongst the mums which are wilting a bit from the heat.


Here’s my seating area near the holly bushes. I just sprayed all the furniture (and repaired some broken areas on the top of them) earlier. You can also see the four planters with an assortment of Coleus, petunias and lobelias.


This is the garden I worked on all day yesterday. This is what I see when I come out the front door. The little flag is blowing! I have lots of cats in there in honor of Mr. Cosmo.

This is the Amaranthus that looks like a Summer Poinsettia. I hope they get big!


The Nicotiana is in the garden out front too!


I wanted to show my friend a Lily of the Valley flower and since they are coming up in the fairy garden, I used one of the fairies to display it.


This is of the same flower on one of my new blue dishes.


This is a bit blurred, but I liked it-these are Johnny Jump-ups.

When I was spray painting the furniture, one of the Philly News NBC10 van drove down my road. I have never seen any news people around here. They had a news story about my county earlier, but not this area. A 19 yr old Annapolis female Naval Academy student, from Kennett Square was found unconscious in her room and later passed away . That may be the reason they were near her.

Another tragedy-a Philly policeman got killed as he drove up to a supermarket that had just been robbed (there is a bank in the place I think) to stop the get away car. He hadn’t even gotten out of his vehicle and was shot about 5 times. He was about to celebrate his 40th birthday this week.

May7

Deadline-June 1st

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I say that every year, I want to get everything cleaned up, planted and mulched by June 1st. Since it is now May 7th and I have made a nice dent in the work, I may reach my deadline! It seems I need deadlines. I just started another birthday gift which is must be sent out a few days before June 10th. The two gifts are for non-stitching friends. I had started the one for July and figured I should do the one for June right away. I had planned on making 2-3 gifts. They are small and are from The Prairie Schooler, so I think I can get them finished by their deadlines.

It’s about 77 in the shade right now. Too hot for me to garden. Sean should be on the road now. It will be nice to have him around, but he should have a busy summer. He is still up in the air about his internship and needs to get a job. Most internships pay you.

Yesterday I worked on the garden across from the front door that happens to be under an evergreen tree. I think I raked up the equivalent to two wheelbarrows full of pine needles! FYI, mums love to be planted in this condition and I mentioned in an early post that mine had naturalized nicely. I planted Snapdragons, Nicotiana and like a summer Poinsettia and even mulched it! So I have my herb/tomato bed to plant, do a few more pots and hanging baskets and some maintenance in the other beds and I should be finished before bug season! I do have a gazillion Rose Campions coming up in 2 of the 3 places where I planted them. The wildflower seeds from eBay did nothing so far.

Sean will be getting pot roast for dinner. I bet he hasn’t had that too often. In three months he’ll be living in an apartment. Hard to believe!

Another Wa wa wee wa moment (I believe it’s the March 08 issue of MSL-special gardening issue):


Martha Stewart’s 90 x 150 foot veggie patch!

May4

A May day in PA

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Just took some photos a bit ago. Sometimes I fix them in Flickr after I post here, so you can look at all of them there if you wish also.

It was simply gorgeous, around 70 with a slight breeze. Who could ask for anything more? I decided to continue gardening.

Here’s an ATC I made a week ago. I used an image form a catalog for the background. I call it Seeds of Friendship:

I was wearing overalls today, but shorts kind. Gotta feel like a real gardener!

See how high up the lilacs are? We need to do some serious topping on this shrub!

Look at the dear Dogwood flower!

I potted these up a few nights ago. The African Daisies are near the pond.

This is the shady side of the house! Now, who can tell me what is happening here with this azalea bush?

Here’s where I planted a bunch of wildflower seeds. I hope they come up!

It is behind where my lilies and grass garden is.

Here’s a garden that is a bit more prolific growing! Mom gave me the pansies around the perimeter. The Bleeding Hearts are just starting to drop, but the Barrenwort is going strong (heart-shaped leaves). The hanging pots were purchased at Loew’s last night. One is Dianthus, the other is a variety.

Had to show you an iris! It’s Raspberry Blush.

And my new water plant. Will have to go look at the name of it. See the baby waterlilies there?

My friend the catbird (or child of catbird) came back yesterday. He (or she) was serenading me the entire day and most of today. The only thing I don’t like are the droppings all over the chairs. Speaking of chairs, I bought two cans of green spray paint to spruce up my plastic furniture. I may need more!

May4

Seed lady

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Not to say I wasn’t zonked from all the flower planting the day before, but I still went out Saturday and did more strenuous yard work while Bri mowed the lawn.

I raked the weeds out of two areas where Bri had rototilled for me. I planted wildflowers in one bed and mostly zinnias in another bed. All that raking really hurts my arms and tummy, but I am hoping to tone up too! : )

I need to stay away from places that sell plants. I go crazy! There is a new Loew’s right outside our town that we checked out last night. I wasn’t too impressed until I saw water plants and some fairly nice hanging baskets for under $7. I bought two, so that saved me planting two. I did buy a water plant for my second water garden. : ) I think I’ll go back and get a few others for the in ground pond.

I also moved (Bri helped with one) two hydrangeas that weren’t doing a thing except taking up space where they were. Mom has a lovely one. It is in a shady area and the soil is fairly wet, so I moved mine to a shady area. I also saved two ‘sucker’ Spirea bushes and may give one to mom is it amounts to anything.

I’m getting somewhere, but am not finished hanging baskets, planting flowers in the ground, weeding and mulching. I have a June 1st deadline-wish me well!

I’ll take some photos later if it’s not raining.