Category Archives: local interest

May18

Bloomin’ Saturday

Posted on by
Standard

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!

May7

80 degrees!

Posted on by
Standard

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.

May6

I had to say…

Posted on by
Standard

(thanks Borat!)

When I saw this garden on The Martha Stewart Show today!

It’s a knot garden and something I would like to make-maybe not so large.

One of the owners, Dennis Schrader of Landcraft Environments Nurseries was on and I hope you go to the link and view the rest of photos. I’m fortunate to have a few places where their retail produces are sold within 5-15 miles of me. I was at the one place on Friday ($$$), so wondering about the other place which is a yearly exhibitor at the Philadelphia Flower Show.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My Uncle Don fell coming out of his bathroom yesterday. He struggled for 2 hours to get up, but couldn’t. His neighbor tried too and ended up calling an ambulance. He’s very sore and tired. My mom and I worry about him so. We wish he had pushed his ‘Life Alert’ button sooner!

May3

Photo Hunt-Time

Posted on by
Standard
PSHunt
Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.
White star wine bottles, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Time does march on……
These bottles were found on the White Star shipwreck the S.S. Republic. They still sealed and contained wine and were being tested to see if they were still drinkable.

The RMS Republic was the pride of the White Star Steamship Company prior to the
building of the R.M.S. Titanic in 1912. The ship foundered at sea 50 miles south of
Nantucket Island on January 24, 1909.

If you like exhibits, especially FREE ones, stop by the Shipwreck Museum in Fenwick Island, Delaware. They change their exhibits all the time.

Apr29

A bit of a chill in the air

Posted on by
Standard

So long to the balmy 70s! It is suppose to dip in the 30s tonight! I covered up most of my plants with an old shower curtain and brought in the tomatoes and coleus.

I haven’t been sleeping well, lots of bathroom trips. I used the heating pad and Bri got me some cranberry juice. I don’t have pain, so I’m thinking I may have injured myself outside lifting something, using the hoe or leaning over too much. I am seeing the word ‘prolapse’ a little too often when looking on boards. The old adage ‘it’s always something’ seems to apply to me all the time. I had a little afternoon snooze with the cat today. I hardly ever do that. Hopefully I will work that problem out, but I will say I was grumpy for a few days. I did start a gift to get me out of my cross stitch pit, but I cut the fabric just big enough’. Don’t cut fabric when you are tired.

I just proof read about 6-7 pages of Sean’s research paper on climate. It took me 2 hours today and 2 hours for the first 7-8 pages. He will be home next Wednesday and needs to get a job or his internship settled. He was turned down for the Delaware one as the lady thought a reference from high school wasn’t appropriate for a college student. I did question Sean about that too. Listen to your mama!

I see that Emily from The Floss Box received the postcard that I made for her (sent to Sweden), so I’ll share it here (as she did on her blog-thanks!):

and here’s an old one I found of Longwood Gardens from the internet

These appear to be the Italian Water Gardens that I didn’t photograph the other day.

Hoping for a warmer and heat pad-less day tomorrow!

Apr26

Photo Hunt-Unique/Funny sign

Posted on by
Standard
PSHunt
Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

Now you don’t see a sign like this all the time. Check out my post below for a similar sign near the lake at Longwood Gardens.

TNChick does the Photo Hunt every week and her beagle hound Zoey is missing from the Tennessee area. Last seen Tuesday April 22.
(4 year old, female, spayed, tri-color, was/is wearing a black harness)
contact TNChick via email PLEASE.
Her email is blog (at) tnchick (dot) com.

Zoey has been located and is home ! 4/28  : )

Apr25

Tip toe through the tulips part 2

Posted on by
Standard

I did get to Longwood Gardens this afternoon! What a site to behold! The tulips, snapdragons, Painted Daisies, Columbine, etc, etc are fabulous.Here is the link to my Flickr slideshow. I sure hope heaven looks like this:

And these sea of white, which I got to see planted last fall:

Bulbs ready to plant

And I never venture that much to the lake part, and it’s so serene. (Something in this shot will be my Photo Hunt tomorrow!)

At the one end are the Italian Water Gardens, but I didn’t photograph them today because I was looking for this:

One of the new tree houses! I did go inside, but didn’t shrink down the photos, but watch for them in my Flickr sideshow. It’s all wood and pretty diamond style lattice windows.

Then I was looking for the other tree house and felt very small and alone:

This is the meadow and you aren’t seeing the entire area!

So I had a nice work out because the other tree house was down the path more. I didn’t add photos of it because they are rather dark.

I will leave you with some Columbine that was planted around a fountain:

I did buy some seeds, a drawing book and some Brandywine potpourri!

Apr24

Hoping for new flowers

Posted on by
Standard

My friend Zoey over at Perennial Passion blog was nice enough to send me a package of Rose Campion seeds last year. I figured since the Lilacs are blooming and the Lily of the Valley are unfurling their leaves, I might as well plant the seeds. I planted them in three different areas to see where they would do the best-near the pond, in my grass and lily garden and in the iris bed. All between sneezing and blowing my nose. My neighbor has a ton of flowering trees and I guess they are bothering me, but I guess a ton of things could be outside! I also threw in some flower seeds I had gotten from eBay last year-Butterfly weed, Bee balm and Columbine. If they come up, they come up-they hardly gave me any! I was going to start them inside, but I have had Columbine that has spread by itself.

Thanks to Barbara for defining the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ in the last post. I had to chuckle because a local tv ad for a dept. store says ‘Did you Boscov today?’ They are using a noun in a verb position!

Here’s an odd thing-my mom can’t get through to me on the phone, but I can call her! It’s been like that for a few days now. We both have called our respective phone service (we use Comcast VOI) I even had her dial my next door neighbor and it went through. She can call me on her cell phone, not her land line.

I really wanted to go to Longwood Gardens today, but too much of the nose problem. Maybe tomorrow. I can do everyday if I wanted with my pass. (There’s a tv commercial for Longwood on right now!)

Apr22

Hugging the earth

Posted on by
Standard


Earth day just happens to coincide with the PA election and my first look at annuals for my gardens. It’s a sunny day with a little breeze stirring up the pollen (ah choo!) I have to go vote solo as Bri and I are different political parties and his candidate doesn’t have anyone running against him! I think I’ll head to Sean’s old elementary school around 3:30-3:45 when there is more parking space. I get all mushy when I go back there as I spent a lot of time volunteering there for 8 years. I was even the corresponding secretary for the Parent/Teacher Org for a year. One of the things I helped create was the butterfly garden at the school. I brought some of my own perennials to fill in empty spaces. I’d love to see how that is coming along. If I remember, I’ll go look.

As for flower shopping, I saw that my favorite garden place’s other nursery (on the way to my mom’s) has a bunch of flowers for sale. That peaked my interest, so I’ll go take a look down in Delaware at the closer (and better) nursery.

Down at mom’s, brother #2 was doing some landscaping. Some was ok, but I was having nightmares over the placement of some big rocks right next to a path he was putting in. I could see my mom losing her footing and tripping. Seems bro #3 agreed and they are moving them. #2 also replanted daffodils and hosta under one of the front windows. The hosta are too close together and I think daffodils need to rest and get replanted in the fall so their bulbs can gather energy for the next bloom. This is correct I believe. I do have to thin out some of the lilies I planted along the one side of mom’s house a few years ago. They love the location! I’m about to order a mock orange bush and will have to order mom a new butterfly bush as #2 yanked up the one that we all loved.

So, do something for the earth today. Every little thing helps!

Updated:

I did some flower shopping! What a great selection too! For some reason, the nursery switched sides and the perennials were where the annuals use to be. Of course the perennials cost more and they are the first plants people see. I saw a perennial, Barrenwort, I have had since I lived here for $10.99-ouch!

Here I am with some of my new flowers:

And the mentioned Barrenwort which is spreading nicely


You know I was going to buy coleus! I was only able to save one plant from last year by rooting it in water.

I did vote, it was a great time to go. I was voter #277 and it was 3:30 in the afternoon. Not such a great turn out, maybe it was better in the evening. We had Obama ‘call’ us a few minutes before 8 which was pretty comical. Brian didn’t vote.