I went for a much needed walk at Longwood Gardens today. I will always take my camera! I didn’t realize a few weeks ago that this espalier was trumpet vines. I have some orange ones growing over the shed. I haven’t uploaded all my photos yet (something going on at Flickr). Here are a few to share.
Even Amish people like the gardens..

I thought this was an interesting perspective shot:

Peaceful flow of water:

Perfect veggie patch:

Adorable child’s seating area in the big veggie garden:

Pinks in the Conservatory:

Category Archives: local interest
Greek food and veggie patch
I just realized I didn’t post our food from the Wilmington, DE food festival. We splurged and got a variety of pastries too. Compared to what we ate at Chili’s tonight, this was diet food! (Chili’s is so salty! Since I have watched what I’ve been eating better-I try, it was hard to eat the chips).
Here’s what this photo is: Mousaka-Eggplant and potato casserole, Spanakopita-spinach pie, Dolmades-stuff grapes leaves, meatballs and Tyropita-cheese filled pie. Sean never ate his half of the raspberry tart and Baklava so I tossed them today. : (
Sean and I went to go to ‘Hidden Acres’ Greenhouse today and right when we got there, the Amish buggy was pulling out of the driveway-it was closed for a holiday! Arrgghh. : ) So we went to the thrift shop and I got a few little things, plus I asked the lady about consigning things-15 items allowed a week-60 mine/40 theirs commission. I’m going to get stuff together including that old art desk of mine. I have tons of stuff and it’s easier than having a yard sale (though I still want to have one!)
Sean and I went to Walmart too-bought a few plants and seeds, also some groceries.
My veggie patch is finally in. We bought a box of stuff-onions, garlic, rhubarb and potatoes for $2 at Lowes. I planted all that except the rhubarb today, they really don’t give you that many bulbs/tubers. I had major weeding to do first. I added zinnias and smaller sunflowers near the fence. Then tonight I planted the zucchini and cucumbers and a few gourds. I planted the potatoes in Sean’s old tire garden and tossed some gourd seeds in that too. I love to plant seeds to see what comes up. Walmart has lovely tomato plants in containers for $10 so we got one of those too. Also poked nasturtiums all around the place.
I want to do some edging in a few areas. Gotta burn off those calories!
Wall of Pockets

I went down to my hometown to get my mom to stay over as she has a hearing aid appt at a place that is local to me. I almost didn’t get this shot as the mirror phone protector was making it hard to capture this shot. Aren’t these neat? I think they are made of fabric. I guess I should take a closer look next time I go. My mom looked at was this huge hanging basket that was $85! This place has a display at the Philadelphia Flower each year and I love to see their color combos and other things. You just can’t touch the prices-$5-$8 for small plants is my limit. I got a Coleus, a Throatwart , a black ornamental pepper and a fern on sale. Mom got a black Petunia and a yellow Lantana.
Tomorrow the temp will be around 100 and the three of us (Bri, Sean and me) had tummy issues-from our dinner last night so I hope we are all better then. Sean and I are peppier, but Bri is still blah. We had wheat pasta and a salad with alfalfa sprouts on top (the lid said they were tested for e.coli-so I hope that’s so).

Isn’t this a sweet terrarium?
The view from the 27th floor & a few favorites
The view from the 27th floor, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.
At the top of Baltimore’s World Trade Center at the Inner Harbor. I’m proud of this photo.

A view from the walk ways of the Baltimore Aquarium. Those are paddle boats.

The Civil War ship ‘The Constellation’ showing it’s masts.

Sean with Aquarium behind him.

Fort McHenry with harbor in background

Young lady building a fire to wash clothes at Fort McHenry

Fort McHenry became famous when the British tried to attack Baltimore during the War of 1812. When the bombardment began on September 13, 1814, there were 1,000 soldiers defending the fort. Some were federal soldiers who were stationed at Fort McHenry all the time. Many were volunteers from the city of Baltimore. Their commanding officer was Major George Armistead. For 25 hours, the British bombarded Fort McHenry, but the fort’s artillery fire kept the British away. Baltimore was saved.

Captain George Armistead-only lived to be 38.
Francis Scott Key was in a ship and saw the ‘Star Bangled Banner’ still flying, thus inspiring the American National Anthem which became the ‘official’ national anthem in 1931.

Lilytopia Revisited
As I had done last year, I made sure I went to Longwood Gardens before the 30th to see the amazing, abundant and absolutely gorgeous lily display. I was not disappointed. It was warm, but a nice breeze kicked up a few times. I am planning on trying to go to LG a few times a week to walk. I feel better on the new hbp med-more like my old self and I hope it’s helping. Anyway, here are more shots, enjoy and have a great weekend.






Dianne’s country excursion
Today I did get out to the doctor’s office to sign the release papers to the new doctor(s). Since I drove all the way out there, I decided to take a drive around to look for nurseries. It was about 90 degrees out-was I crazy to go driving around? I was ‘into’ adding to foursquare, the phone app that says where you are going. I checked into 5 places, but not the little nursery pictured here-too remote. I left the hospital and headed to Oxford, past Lincoln University and Tastykake Bakery. I decided to stop at Dollar General and Rita’s Water Ice (had Mango and Peach Gelato). I went by one small perennial place but it was a bit on the small side. I decided to stop at a thrift shop and bought a few little things. Will show the sweet mermaid decoration from I think I the 50s or 60s. I asked the young man in there about nurseries and he said there was an Amish one down the hill and to look for a sign. I drove by the road and had to go through a auto shop, down a road and then up a gravel road and found ‘Hidden Acres’. There was no one around and I was looking around for about 10 minutes. I could have helped myself (ha ha), but just got in the car to leave and the Amish lady came around the corner and she said she was at the house. I think most of what I bought was between $1-$3. : ) She helped me to the car and I had a big bag of plastic trays and pots in the back I was taking to Lowes (they recycle) and she took them. Glad to help.
My last stop was for white pizza for Sean and me as Brian was going to his dad’s house for a visit. After dinner I planted a few more pots of things. The air was so thick I could almost slice it.
So I had a nice time. I’ll be able to share more photos when I drive around as I don’t mind snapping photos with a cellphone. : )
I’m thinking of going to Longwood Gardens tomorrow before noon as the exterminator is suppose to come between 2-4.
Right now we have a thunderstorm watch-not a surprised!

Snooping around the Brandywine Valley
Sean and I were going to Winterthur in Delaware to see the azaleas in full bloom yesterday (actually he was just going to take me, he is kind that way). We get to the gate and the gardens are closed for maintenance on Mondays! We were disappointed and headed down Route 1. I asked him to stop at the Brandywine River museum so I could take some photos as I had toted along the camera. We had a nice time looking at the statues, wildflowers and river! Here are a few shots. This is me with Miss Gratz the cow. There is also Helen the pig and a 9 foot statue out front called ‘Boy with Hawk’.






From Wikipedia:
The Brandywine River Museum is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine River. The museum showcases the art of Andrew Wyeth a major American realist painter, and his family: his father, N.C. Wyeth illustrator of many children’s classics, and his son, Jamie Wyeth a contemporary American realist painter.
Housed in a converted nineteenth century gristmill, the museum’s permanent collection features American illustration, still life works, and landscape painting by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Harvey Dunn, Peter Hurd, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, William Trost Richards, and Jessie Willcox Smith. The glass-wall lobby overlooks Brandywine Creek and rolling countryside that inspired the Brandywine School earlier in the early 20th century.
The museum also owns and operates tours of the nearlby N. C. Wyeth House and Studio, as well as the Kuerner Farm, inspiration for nearly 1,000 works of art by Andrew Wyeth from the 1930s until his death in 2009. Outside the museum are beautifully maintained Wildflower and Native Plant Gardens.
The museum was founded in 1971 as part of the Brandywine Conservancy thru the efforts of “Frolic” Weymouth. He has been on the board since its founding.
(I see a few places here I haven’t been to!)
Dianne loves Coleus…and shopping for plants
Brian was kind enough to take me on a little excursion up in lower Lancaster County plant farm. Such a pretty area! We cross from our county Chester to Lancaster over the Octoraro Reservoir.

It was in the 60s, but not really sunny. We had a good time looking in the greenhouses and looking at about half of the perennials-I think there were 20 rows of them! I only bought a couple as I want to do a little more research on the ones I really want. It’s nice they offer two sizes- a $2.49 pot and the bigger one to see if you like it I guess. I did buy one apricot color iris and a few other perennials.

We then went down the road a bit to a flea market.

The place is poorly lit and the prices were a bit high. I found a Snowbabies music box-it sure looks like one and I got this strawberry ceramic ‘house’ that went right in the gnome and fairy garden-she gave them to us for $5. The music box was really dirty and I had to dunk the top in soapy water and sand off the old glitter. The one baby came off and he got a bath. It looks like new again and plays ‘Twinkle, Twinkle..little star’.

We came home and grilled up steak, chicken and hot dogs, some for other meals. I made homemade mac and cheese with chives and a variety of cheeses. We had a nice day and it was especially meaningful when we heard that Bin Laden was deceased. It’s about time!
Photo Hunt-Dusty
Mercer Museum antique fire engine, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.
I could show you some ‘Dusty Miller’, a pretty gray plant, but I decided to go the true ‘dusty’ route. Like who doesn’t fight with dust in your house weekly? And I’m really allergic to it!
So this is the awesome Mercer Museum in Doylestown, PA. Brian and I’ve been twice, once with Sean. It has all these awesome old pieces like the fire engine. Guess they can’t find anyone to dust them on a regular basis maybe?
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Hope to do some creative paper things tomorrow. My head has been full of wondering about cars and such. Sean got his computer today and when we got it home he started to delete stuff. Then he found he couldn’t get on the computer. I called the man who fixed it and told him the issue and about 10 minutes later he called me back and took me through the steps to uninstall and reinstall the network adapter-it then worked-thank you very much! Then the internet explorer wasn’t loading properly. Sean came home for dinner and installed I.E.9 and he’s back to business. I also changed a few setting-start up menu, etc. Fred (the computer guy) said Sean had 8 browsers and 36 things loading on start up! So Sean got rid of a few and I got the start up down to 20 something. I learned a lot over the years. And I keep the 2003 (I think) desktop kicking. : )
I’ll try to write a post again in the next few days. I am disappointed I didn’t decorate more, but I may still add a few bird nests, etc. to the mix. What I have out now are newly bought.
Happy weekend and Easter!
Photo Hunt-Tree(s)
This wasn’t an easy choice as I have 555 Flickr photos of trees! This has to be one of the scariest trees around here!






