Category Archives: plants

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!

Mar27

My AVs

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I am so ashamed that I have neglected my African Violets so long! Many had very twisty stems under their crowns as if they were trying to find room to grow in their too tight pots. When I lost two of them last week, I decided it was time to take action to save them! They had provided me with months of cheery little flowers, mostly from the plant food I offered them on a sporadic week. They would get so dry! I forgot the winter sun was closer to the earth (I’ve known this forever though!) Then I pulled this out of my cross stitch pile of WIPs (yeah it’s aida, but I love the color):

African violet sampler
“To grow ’em is to love ’em”

Well I wasn’t showing much love for these beauties, many bought each year by my mom at the Philly Flower show. I remembered I had a bag of AV dirt, so I retrieved that, lined the dining room table with newspapers, and got to work! Over 2 hours later and working with 16 or so plants, I was finished. I had run out of dirt, but I now only have a few left to repot or add dirt to. I also cleaned off the windowsill and had a lot to clean up from the kitchen to the family room. But now it looks like this:

Purple African violet

I have three of these ‘Frozen in Time’ AVs! Mom must have really liked it or I told her not to get me purple.

Frozen in time
And here’s the whole window (the yellow is a faux orchid):
The bay window of AVs
It was a job well done and made me forget about my allergy attack for a little bit, though I got really warm when I was running back and forth with the plants. I hope they all make it!

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Crossing fingers that Sean gets to see Bill Clinton tonight at PSU and Barack Obama tomorrow (I think). We’ve never seen a President in person. The ‘closest’ I got to a prez was seeing Ted Kennedy crossing the street in Washington, DC as a kid on a school trip. Sean wasn’t sure if he’d go, but I told him the above and he has a new digital camera too!

Dec27

Awesome Longwood Gardens

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Boy oh boy was it crowded at Longwood Gardens today! We lasted almost 2 hours in the mob, but we mainly went to see the lights, the new children’s garden and the main Christmas display-which we did. My mom is out for a visit and joined us and both Sean and her tried out their new cameras. Here are a few of the 79 shots (wow, I know). I’ll do a slideshow probably tomorrow.

Mom and Sean in the new children’s garden:

Mom and Sean
Dianne outside children’s garden

Just me!
The Conservatory decorated for Christmas
Conservatory
A fountain in the children’s garden
Fountain
Sunshine stained glass window in children’s garden
Stained glass
Gorgeous tablescape with a wintery theme (for Zoey!)
Winter tablescape
Some of the magnificent lights outside
Lights outside

Sep10

The summer can’t quit here

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The a/c is blasting again. If it’s not on, it gets stuffy in here. I was hoping for temps in the 70s and I see on the weather now that we will be getting some rain! It’s been dry too.
Here are the promised photos of the compacts I got at the weekend yard sale. My mom recognized the name of the designer on the aqua one, Richard Hudnut and it may be from the 1930s.

Outside of old compacts

Inside of old compacts

I was going through a plastic shoebox and found a list of bushes, trees and perennials that I identified around the yard in the 1990s(which may or may not be correct):
Spotted Dead Nettle-spreading perennial
Emerald ‘n’ Gold Euonymus
Golden Euonymus
Dwarf Lily of the Nile (purple flower looks like hyacinth)
Laceleaf Japanese Maple
Barrenwort
Crepe Myrtle
Chinese Dogwood
Little Princess Spirea
Columbine
Azalea (I added 2)
Daffodils
Tulips
Vicary Ligustrum shrub
Lily of the Valley-perennial
Bradford Pear
Bird’s Nest Spruce
Japanese Painted Fern
Mugo Pine
Autumn Joy Sedum
Yucca
Yews along the house
box hedge
Lilac (purple)
Wild begonias
Several Rose of Sharon bushes
Burning bush
Maple
Snowball bush
other trees along the back
Hollyhock, though I have another one that was divided now.
And of course two American Chestnut trees.
(We still have most of the above!)
I added:

3 butterfly bushes (2 purple, 1 white)
Bleeding heart
Shasta Daisies
Bluebeard/Mist Spirea
3 hydrangeas–2 blue, 1 lacecap
Viburnum
Grasses
Variety of lilies
Variety of roses
variety of irises
Rhododendron
trumpet vine
Clematis
peony
2 white hydrangeas (thought one was a mock orange blossom)
Sweet Bay Magnolia
Cinnamon, fiddlehead and a couple more ferns
Waterlilies
circle of box hedge
barberry bush
Mums
Variegated hosta
hosta
phlox

Here’s my photo set at Flickr if you want to see a lot of the above mentioned greenery. I’m proud of myself for knowing so much of what is in my yard!

Speaking of IDs-here’s the one from about 1981 when I was young and free. : ) It’s now West Chester University, but it started out as West Chester Teacher’s College. I was born in that town too.

WCU ID

Aug12

The Coleus experiment continues

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I’m a little bleary-eyed from tweaking my nature photos for the Cafepress.com store. I was also going through my Flickr photos looking for good ones. I needed a break, so I went outside and noticed that my little coleus plants had really taken root and needed their own pots:

Baby coleus
I love the crimson red ‘stained glass’ one. I also realized I didn’t have any from the lime green or frilly one in my windowbox, so I clipped some to root. The mama red one needed to be topped, so I stuck what I pinched in more soil. I’m giving some to mom, but I want to try and overwinter the young ones in my front window.
Here’s a hanging basket that I recently planted with some coleus babies in it:
Newer hanging basket
Sean bought me a new weed whacker today! It’s a Craftsmen and can that sucker trim! I wasn’t up to doing it today, but it should cut the time I spend trimming in half. Bri used my old one yesterday and lost the spring that held the spool in place.

My friend Gret and I are doing an artsy challenge-do one collage page a day in a book. She’s a few days ahead of me, but it’s fun! The pages aren’t huge, but you really have to think about what you what to do. Mine today:
Bee work
The bees, wording, zinnia and elves are from a 1952 kids science book.
And last but not least, a neat shot, worthy of my new store, maybe?
Hugging bees
Keep my friend Barbara in your thoughts and prayers. She had a sad thing happen to her lately. Big hugs.

Jul17

Out and about

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Sean and I went down to Hockessin to a little coffee and sandwich shop called ‘The Perfect Cup Cafe’ for lunch-a rather pricey lunch, but we don’t go there that often. He was off today. He had a veggie wrap and I had a chicken salad with swiss that was grilled-not bad. I asked if we could go a few blocks down to the Gateway Garden Nursery as I needed a few plants for an interesting urn I just purchased at JoAnns. I bought one (for about $7), but I’m thinking three would look neat tucked under my hedges out front. You can either hang the urn or it lays flat. Lucky for me the nursery had a 50% off annual sale and I got quite a few plants for under $20. I got my 9th variety of coleus-lime green and white (it’s a good year for it and of course I plan to save some for my experiment!). I also bought another licorice plant (like a variegated one) for the urn so it hangs over its edge). I got some yellow pinwheels zinnias and a couple of variety of ferns (which I like up there on my list with coleus). At the check out, a lady who works there, probably the owner or manager, asked if we had a cat and I said yes, so she handed me a cute little tin that came with cat grass-for free (from the sale table)! A few minutes later as we were putting the plants in Sean’s trunk, I noticed she had a wagon of plants she was tossing. I asked if ‘anything was worth saving (HA) and she handed me a mandevilla, another viney plant and a gardenia-for free. When she went to back to the nursery yard, I snagged some blue lobelia out of the trash too. Don’t ya love when stuff like that happens?

My mom is still trying to work out her problems but she is really using me as a sounding board. I was really stressed tonight and blame myself for not taking charge of her bills and not giving her an allowance. She use to have my uncle to help her, but he’s probably in the nursing home for good now. She doesn’t talk to him that often, but I know he has no appetite and only weighs about 138 lbs (and he’s 5’10”). I haven’t been out to see him either as it’s a trip and he’s so down all the time. I know that sounds awful, but maybe he needs people who don’t know and love him as much as us to talk to. Hopefully things will get better soon.

Locally-so the Phillies lost their 10,000th  game in their over 100 year history beating out all other teams for that honor. So what? I can’t tell you how good a summer and fall that team gave us all in 1980 when they won the World Series and again in ’93 when they tried again. I got to meet Tug McGraw, the relief pitcher in person. He and Mike Schmidt (3rd base) lived in my hometown and I had seen Mike’s house several times. So many fans have good memories like that.