The 100s of roses were just starting to open. I feel that we will have to go back and see them again in June or July.
Taken at the Bond Rose Garden, Scott Arboretum on the campus of Swarthmore College, PA.
May20
Category Archives: flowers
May18
Photo Hunt-Magical
Long shot of rose garden, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.
Brian, Sean and me took my mom back to the Scott Arboretum on the campus of Swarthmore College (Penna). to see their spectacular and magical Bond rose garden.
From a website-
Yet by far the crowning jewel in this already impressive collection is the shockingly gorgeous Dean Bond Rose Garden. Housing 650 roses of more than 200 types, it was established in memorial of Elizabeth Powell Bond, the Dean of Women at Swarthmore. It’s now tradition for graduating seniors of the college to pin a rose on their gown for commencement.
We’re going back in a few weeks to see them in further bloom!Here’s an Artist Trading card I made and had to keep, but I did make a similar one to send my swap partner. My Grandmom Ruth use to call babies ‘baby birds’ so this reminds me of her.
The one I sent my partner:
May17
Mom and Me at the arboretum
Mom and Me at the arboretum, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.
The fellas and I took my mom back to the Scott Arboretum on the beautiful campus of Swarthmore College. It was really a sight to seen as it was breathtakingly beautiful. The roses smelled delightful too. I have some of my own roses, but I find them difficult to take care of and grow. I tend not to trim them at the right time. Then they get black spot, etc.
As you can see it was a sunny day in the middle 70s, though not humid at all. I will add more photos soon.
The students all get a rose pinned to them when they graduate.
~By the way, I had a sore elbow, so I had a band on it and forgot to take it off at the arboretum.
May14
May Blooms and Victorian Flower Swap
This is the front little walking path under my very tall, messy, shedding and kind of half ugly evergreen tree. I am wishing it wasn’t there anymore to tell you the truth as it was allowed to get too big. I guess I’ll have to live with it for a while.
I still get some lovely irises coming up, but I think many aren’t blooming as they need to be separated. I’ve done it before and it’s not an easy task. I know there’s about 15 varieties hiding in that garden.
Brian dug up another round garden, which I may have mentioned and recycled some old plastic fencing. He’s not sure how sturdy it will be, but hopefully it will do it’s job of keeping critters at bay.
I really like the Victorian cards I sent off. The hostess was inspired by old seed packs, and I found some cute images on a Flickr group. I hope the people I sent these to aren’t expecting seed packets, because that wouldn’t be original.
Back to gardening… I have lots of seeds to put in soon. Of course we are expecting rain and I may be delayed. That will give me time to figure out what goes where. I want to try pumpkins and watermelon this year. I have plenty of room for them.
May7
A job that is never finished
Brian and I were out in the yard Friday and some of Saturday. I did more Friday and then did a little of this and a little of that on Saturday. Today I am zonked and having some lady issues, but we both think I overdid the leaning over and using the edge tool. I love that half moon shaped tool. It can make a sad looking weedy edge look lovely in a matter of minutes.
We now also have two corral gardens! The second one didn’t cost us a penny as Brian moved an old plastic fence we had in the old garden. We like the round gardens as they are easy to maneuver the mower around them. The one from last year will be used for zucchini, watermelon and other vine plants so they can spread nicely. I can’t have tomatoes and green peppers in the same area as zucchini, etc as it’s too hard to get to them through the vines and big leaves. The circle is nice again as we plant the veggies around the perimeter of it. We don’t plant more than 10-15 of each kind anyway.
I replanted a border garden I have under my Japanese Maple tree. I needed to add more Sweet William/Dianthus there. I also decided to add more ferns behind the flowers to fill in the space directly below the tree. I have plenty of ferns, hostas, vinca vine and Lily of the Valley this year. A pal from high school is coming for some of the Lily of the Valley and Hostas. I edged that area, under a hedge and down the side of the house. Then I planted flowers in front of our huge evergreen where I already have Bleeding Hearts, a ground cover, ferns and a Clematis. I added burgundy Salvias and pale pink Nicotiana . I have my squirrels decorations in there too. (I know, I know-where are the photos? )
And then I started on the fairy/gnome garden. It’s getting taken over with ferns and Lily of the Valley there. I added Snapdragons and other tiny flowers. I will have to write down the names of them. These are from my camera phone…. before the garden was planted
With a few flowers
This Clematis must have 30 blooms on it right now. I should get a couple more plants for this garden as they love it there in my Lily garden which is about a 1/4 cleaned out-oy.
I am hoping my PT Cruiser’s tire is finally fixed. It was getting flat in 3-4 days and we just kept adding air to it. We had it at the service station thinking it was a valve, but it wasn’t. I was reading on a Facebook fan page for PTs where a lady left the same message about her tire losing air. A man said to have it rebeaded, so Brian took off the tire today and just had that done. I think the rim gets fixed. So between the $38 valve and the $23 rebeading, I better not need a new tire!
May5
A new collection
Right before our anniversary last month, I was in a gift shop browsing around. They happen to have a 25% off sale on Vera Bradley quilted items. I know they’ve been around a number of years, but lately I’ve been eyeing up their smaller bags as I just can’t handle a big purse anymore. Sometimes I’ll take two purses on trips, the big one with all the cosmetics, etc and the little one to use for shopping. So I saw the chartreuse, black, gray and white one and decided to get it. I love it and it’s little compartments for my phone and wallet…well I didn’t have the wallet until I found it on eBay! I also got the other ones-they all have names-I know the red one has Scarlett in there. I’m waiting on an eyeglass case for eBay.
They were a fraction of the price of the ones in the store and they were new with tags! The little one in the front has my MP3 player in it and I’ve had it a few years.
That’s my back massage chair. And they are all machine washable. I have enough right now, but I like the backpacks, but they are up there in price.
Made this ATC for a ‘feather’ challenge. I happen to have an old rip off calendar and Elizabeth Denison was intriguing to me. She had to ‘make do’ with accessories, and she used feathers! Another swap bot lady sent me the sweet little feathers as she saw on Swap-bot I was in that challenge and she was sending me a ATC also.
I got two ‘gadgets’ in the mail yesterday. First an ‘extender’ so our WiFi could get to the bedroom part of the house. It took a bit to set up as the software wouldn’t work right. I had to get my laptop to find the device and it did. I can use my iPad in the bedroom-look at movies in bed, i.e.. The second was the Magellan eXplorer device. I had to become a premium member of Geocaching.com and I think my phone app is easier to read. Plus I had to go download local caches from the website. The phone app finds them for you! I think I’ll have to try it to get use to it, but I’ll need my glasses on as the screen is a bit tiny. If my pal Carole can find around 150 with hers, I hope to find at least 10 to begin with.
And some of my gardens are shaping up nicely. So many weeds to contend with! I did a lot of work on Friday and did a bit more today, but I was very achy. I moved some ferns from the fairy garden and dug up Lily of the Valley slips. They are taking over! They bloomed so early, I didn’t get to enjoy their scent that long.
Check out this gorgeous petunia hanging basket. It has Pink Lemonade and Picasso petunias in it and is close to 3 feet wide. It was $22-around here-easily $35.
Below there is a Mt St. Helen’s Azalea which is new. Brian cut down the one hedge and I think we’ll gradually cut out the rest as they are old and are more brown than green.
I really am not going to garden on Sunday, but we will have something on the grill. I cooked last night, but couldn’t tonight.
May4
First flower buying trip of the year
That maybe the only flower buying trip of the year! We had a few extra bucks from a winning scratch off ticket that Bri’s dad gave us ($40!), but spent lots more. I decided I’d better propagate the huge petunia plant I got with a mixture of pink lemonade and Picasso something petunias. I had Brian with me and he was loading up on green peppers and tomatoes plus the ones I got.
Anyway, we were there 1.5 hours and I am ready to get digging, though my left elbow is giving me a hard time (I have a stretchy thing on it in the photo).
That’s an example of the Pink Lemonade petunias near my head there! We filled up the Mariner.
We then went to a family restaurant close by near where Brian worked a few years back. I got at least 3 helpings of mashed potatoes and turkey in one! I brought half of it home. Then we went to a little 5 and 10 style store and I got some fat quarters of fabric, a little flag and seeds.
The landscape is gorgeous in Lancaster as I have told you before. I didn’t bring my camera with me, but wish I did. We really saw a lot of Amish people and buggies yesterday!
It was a nice outing with my hubby.
Apr24
May flowers in April
Early, so early! Now it’s chilly again. I haven’t gone out to look at the following flowers as we finally got rain off and now since Saturday night.
Lovely white irises
Lily of the Valley
I am doing several challenges on Swap-bot.com.
This was my choice of design and it’s called ‘Spring Chicken’. I got a package of really cute chicks and bunnies and the lady in New Zealand likes these sort of ‘die-cuts’, so I thought of that when I was making this.
A decorated envelope for ‘May Day’ is going to Oregon.
Monday, my entourage and me went to my hometown. I was getting my hair done and then we went to the tail end of a book sale and out to PF Chang as we had a $15 off gift card. I grabbed a few books like a Metropolitan Museum of Art book on Van Gogh. This was nice as we had just seen his show in Philly. I got a few novels-Twilight for one as I’ve never read it. I have seen the movie, but I’m sure the book is better. I have enough books for many years of reading! : )
Apr17
Tulip invasion
Wow, it was the perfect day to go for a walk, which I did at Longwood Gardens. First I saw this rainbow of tulips:
These were at the entrance, so the building blocked the sun a wee bit. The others inside were mostly opened up, but still gorgeous.
These pale pinks are so delicate and I like the orange too!
As I only walked to one area and back, I got to see the ‘light pods’ they are setting up for night displays. The lady in the gift shop said to come back after Memorial Day to see them lit up.
It was around 4 pm!
Pretty orange azalea with the lake behind it.
The Wisteria are really pretty this year!
Apr7
Photo Hunt-Awesome
Awesome display with light effects, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.
Lucky for me, I call a few things ‘awesome’ now and then on my Flickr photo site. Glad I do that as I have 12,800 photos there right now!
This was from the 2008 Philly Flower Show. I like everything about the display from the ‘keyboard’ table, to the way the flowers are arranged and what they are in and the lighting effects. Look at how the napkins on the plates have polka dots! And the lady in the background is really taking it all in! Wow!
Collages & Creative Goodness 