Category Archives: gardening

Jun28

Early summer 2012

Posted on by
Standard

I’m not that happy with many aspects of my gardens this year. We have one day of rain and then it doesn’t rain for a week or more. We need some nice gentle rain. The earth is dry and hard. I pulled some weeds out a few days ago, but it was pure muscle power. As I said earlier, my lack of mulching didn’t help matters either. My flowers in pots are doing the best.

I happen to be in the new Habitat for Humanity store and they had plants there for $1 a pot. I bought two of the royal purple Petunias and a pale pink. They are blooming profusely!

This Millions of Bells is doing well. Just today it looks a little droopy, so I may have to do a bit of snipping.

And then there are my Lilies. I really love them. They are in with ornamental grasses that are taking over. Also, the deer munched them all to the ground in the winter, but they came back! As soon as it rains, I am getting Brian out there to dig up some of the grasses.

This one is on the side of the house where Vinca vine is taking over.

The Portulaca are very pretty-I have two strawberry jars of it

The container next to this planter had flower seeds planted in it. One side was Poppy seeds and the other Zinnias. The Zinnias are doing well, but the Poppies got lost in grass! I don’t know where it all came from as this container had hot peppers in it last year. I see a sprinkling of Poppies.

I trim this back and it still goes like crazy as when we do have rain, the gutters leak and it get a big drink. I’m not seeing many butterflies on it yet.

I ran and got my camera when I saw this solo Monarch fluttering around

I do grow Milkweed for my butterfly pals

And this was spotted on the road-can you see what it says?

It says ‘I miss being a tree’. : )

May7

A job that is never finished

Posted on by
Standard

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

Posted on by
Standard

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.

Apr24

May flowers in April

Posted on by
Standard

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! : )

Apr15

Yes, it’s been 28 years

Posted on by
Standard

Brian and I met almost 30 yrs ago. I can attest to time flying by, so make the best of the days as they whiz by.

At about 4 pm, I had remembered that Brian received about 6 gift cards from a birthday pack-they were all free. The coupon was for $25 off if you spent $60, so we actually needed another person to spend that much. This is a place in Wilmington, DE, right on the river front. It was a nice evening, but we ate inside. Sean had been away at the college working on homework and we waited on him to come home and join us. It was after 7 and we had to wait 30 minutes or so before we sat down. I ordered their ribs, and guess what, they were out of them. It was crowded. I ordered the salmon with avocado sauce special. The manager heard it was our anniversary and I didn’t get what I wanted, so she gave us all free desserts! So beverages, nice big salads, entrees and desserts were under $40 for 3 people. I like when that happens. The salmon could have been cooked a bit more for me-I like it flaky. I brought it home and ate it along with the rest of the yummy au gratin potatoes and green beans for lunch. Sean also ate the rest of his pizza for lunch. So we actually got 5 meals for that price.

We are enjoying the 80 degree weather. I started cleaning some spots, but Brian do more work today. He had mowed the lawn yesterday. I sat under the Japanese maple that is in full leaf!

I’m about to make some turkey burgers for the grill. I may mix up some sweet BBQ sauce like I made for my sausage balls (an appetizer) for Tori’s party on Friday. They were good, but not many people ate them. They loved the pizza dip! I’ll have to share that one with you. Great to bring to a party with some Frito scoops.

Mar8

Took a little walk in the wind

Posted on by
Standard

Well I was up in air as to what to do today as it was a bit breezy, but warm. Longwood Gardens is having their orchid displays until the end of March, so I decided to go for walk and some photo taking. I renewed my membership for the year which went up $5, but they also give you two free tickets for your guests. It pays for itself after about four times.

Here are some of my favorite shots:

What you see when you enter the one end of the conservatory
Gorgeous Orchid display
A very tame squirrel. I had fun editing this for a friend
I know a good place to live
White columns of orchids
White Orchid Columns
Begonias and Aechmea
Begonias and Aechmea
Amazing Stargazer lilies
Stargazer lilies
One of my favorite flowers-Blue Poppies
I love Blue Poppies
Hanging orchids and an archway
Arch of orchids and hanging orchids
A trained Nectarine tree with blooms
Nectarine blooms
Yellow butterfly bushes that smelled like exotic honey.
Yellow Butterfly bush
A moth-like orchid the Calathea
Calathea up close
Take it from the Longwood gardeners-how to prune a rose bush-many only had one or two main stems!
How to prune a rose bush
Mother of Thousands plant
Mother of Thousands
I’ve been taking Olive leaf capsules for my blood pressure (think it is helping-thanks Dr. Oz). Here is an Olive tree
Olive tree
There are more photos in Flickr-just click on a photo above.

Feb10

Sow with me!

Posted on by
Standard

I got some neat snail mail today from my pal Zoey out of Michigan. In the pretty card she included some Burpee ‘Night and Day’ Nasturtium seeds. I went on Burpee’s site to get a photo and they didn’t have one, so I found it elsewhere:

T. majus Pale ivory-yellow contrasted with bold mahogany adds an appealing zest to any container or border. The compact, 12 inch plants are covered with a vivid flush of either color. Sure to be a favorite. Germination code: (4)
By providing adequate water and clipping seed heads, your Nasturtiums will reward you with a profusion of 2 inch blooms from July to fall’s first frost. The flowers make a lightly spicy edible garnish, too!

Well, Ms. Zoey-I ‘accept’ your challenge if you can call it that! : ) Thanks so much for the seeds and thinking of me!

Zoey said she’ll do container sowing and I’m thinking of both container and in ground sowing. Last year Zoey had gorgeous Nasturtiums and mine were ‘so so’. I had sent Zoey some Nasturtiums I found at the Longwood Gardens gift shop (from Renee’s Seeds). I want to see photos from both of us in the late summer!

Well it’s been another slow week for me. I finally went out yesterday (after a week) to do some produce and a little grocery shopping (at a Dollar General) as I just needed to just get out! I am still getting congested and I had a bit of a cough along with it. I need to get my teeth worked on in a few days. I think sinus issues that drag on are the worse! Sean had sinus issues but he is doing well. He also used the humidifier for two nights. I think I need the machine for my chest congestion.

We had a dusting of snow a few days ago and we are expecting maybe an inch tonight. It’s a boring winter and I hope it stays that way as the next month or so will be busy for us. We are going to NYC in a few weeks and then Bri and I are taking that weekend at the B&B that was postponed in November for my birthday for his birthday in March.

Aug11

Tomato and Zucchini explosion!

Posted on by
Standard


I just picked these a few hours ago! I think I’ll be making salsa and freezing some Romas tomorrow. Just moving the garden did this. Unfortunately, I’m getting ‘nibbler invaders’ who are sneaking in and eating pieces out of so many tomatoes. I can’t tell you how many I tossed today! We have been picking them when they are still not quite ripe. I am seeing stink bugs in the garden, but I think squirrels, etc are having a snack. You can see a nibble out of one of the Romas.