Tag: flowers

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Holidays are behind us now

With the holidays behind us, it is time to start planning our next vacation, and also my personal favorite…getting ready for spring! I know folks, I have have quite a few months to go until spring, but I love to look through my last year catalogs to get ideas for more herbs and flowers to put in my gardens.

I should of course take down the Christmas tree first and also find a place for the gifts I have yet to put away. Yes, I know it’s kind of late to still be doing this, but it seems like company didn’t stop coming around until yesterday! The holidays were nice though, with only a few minor upsets. For this, I am thankful.

It’s been so bitter cold and there has been so much snow, it seems like spring will not come fast enough, and the almanac is forecasting some really bad weather still to come. Maybe burying my nose in catalogs looking at flowers will take my mind off the nasty cold.

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One long weekend to come

Two weeks ago, we had a storm come through while I was at the other house in Ohio. The high winds and rain along with hail flattened my tall zinnias which were one of the show pieces of the gardens. The trellis that was holding my Hyacinth vines tipped over and was pulled down by the wind and also the weight of the vines. I did some hasty repair jobs in order to get the flowers to stand up again with the help of twine but this weekend, I’m going to have to pull the flowers up.

This season was too short to allow me to get as much produce as I usually harvest. It seems to have taken forever for the cherry tomatoes to grow and ripen, and the husky tomatoes on grew the size of golf balls. I wasn’t happy with the zinnias in the front of the house. I had planted what I thought were the giant flowers I usually plant and it turned out that I must have gathered the seeds last year and put them in the packs then marked the contents wrong.

This weekend I’m going to have to pull up all the things in the garden that was flattened by the storm. We had another mega storm come through last night and I’m sure I’ll have more of a mess than I originally have seen. Where the heck did our summer go?

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Months are flying by

It seems like it was December just yesterday and I was shopping for Christmas gifts. Now we are about to welcome in June and my goodness the months seem to be flying by. My youngest daughter will be coming home for her birthday on the 26th and will stay for a month before she has to leave and go back to Florida and work. I’m glad she was able to take the time off and it will be so great seeing her and hugging her, hanging out and just having her around again.

As I welcome in June, I’ve noticed that all the flower seeds and other plants I put in the ground after Mother’s Day are coming up nicely and the annuals I have are in full bloom! Yes, its starting to look like a garden again!

I have a lot of home improvement projects going on also. From flag stone for the patio, to new flooring in the living room and bathroom. Also the job of finishing the living room paint job and buying new curtains and adding some decor that matches the whole thing. It’s been a busy few months but worth it!

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Seeds and Sunburns

After spending yesterday getting my garden soil ready for planting and then this morning planting seeds, moving various plants to another section of the garden, and also removing weeds, I am quite sunburned and the day isn’t over yet. Then of course tomorrow it’s supposed to be another beautiful day, so I’ll be out doing more digging, weeding and planting. It’s always hard telling what the weather is going to do, so I want to get as much of the gardens here finished. I have a long way to go.

Since I spend time with my mom who is getting older and not as spry as she used to be, I help her around the house and take care of the heavy work in the yards. There is a corner of the back yard that I’m turning into a place she can sit in the shade and also be surrounded by plants and flowers. I’ll post photos of before and after when I’m finished.

So far I have planted cherry tomatoes, scarlet runner beans, zinnias, hyacinth beans, and various herbs in the front yard. The back yard, which is bricked except the corner where there is a small patch of grass and along the privacy fence which I dug up to use for herbs and flowers is started but I have a long way to go yet. Her gardens here are my creation and also my show piece, I’m conceited enough to say! 😉  Since I have gardens at my home up north I’ve also been revamping them and changing the look of them just by rearranging the flowering herbs I grow and also adding more varieties. I’ll no doubt be working on this all summer, which is fine by me since gardening is the love of my life! I just have to remember to use a lot more sunscreen!

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Gifts and Calls for Mother’s Day

So far this morning, I have gotten at least ten phone calls from “kids” and family wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day. Even some young people who have grown up with my kids, have called! It’s awesome that they would still after all these years, consider me a sort of “extra” mom.

My sons bought me a beautiful rose bush that I fully intend on babying, since in the past, I’ve not had much luck with rose bushes. My youngest daughter called and sang me a song over the telephone that she had written just for me and this day! My oldest daughter is taking me out to lunch this coming week, and then we’re going shopping also!

I’m staying at my moms house, so the kids all are also wishing her mother’s day wishes also. This afternoon I plan on taking her shopping for some summer outfits and then we’re going out to lunch before my brother and sisters arrive at her house with gifts for her. I’m looking forward to spending time with the family and also.

To all my readers who are Mom’s, I wish you all a Happy Mother’s Day! Pamper yourself or let others pamper you. Ya’ll deserve it!

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Fall is in the air

The leaves haven’t started to turn yet, but the smell of fall is indeed in the air. There is a crisp feeling outside that this season brings, and at night it’s been getting down right chilly. No frost yet, but it’s to come sooner than normal, I have a feeling.

Though I love colors of fall, I don’t like the fact that it means summer is over and that winter is just around the corner. It seems like we didn’t have much of a summer, despite of the drought.

We’ve been doing some home improvement around the house and outside in the yards. There were some walkways that needed tending to, as the stone was starting to get loose in places, so I hauled in some extra that I had saved, and made it fit where the loose ones were. I should say they aren’t really stone like most would think. These are actually flat rocks that the walkway is made of, and I’m glad I had the foresight to keep some back for just the purpose I needed them for.

All of the storm windows are now up and the glass windows are washed, the covered with padding and put away safely. Gutters will continue to be cleaned as the leaves come down and nearly all of my flower beds have been put to sleep for the winter. It sort of makes me sad, but it is what it is.

There of course is a lot more to do in order to make the house winterized and toasty for the winter, but I’m getting to it slowly but surely. Winter is not a good season for me, since I really hate snow and the cold, but if I have to live where we do indeed have lots and lots of snow and the temps get down below zero, I at least want a home that is warm and the next step is to start my winter survival shopping.

 

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Garden planning for next year

This years gardens and lawns did not do well at all. It’s sad because I had seeded, planted and even reseeded in hopes that my plants and flowers could or might do well despite of lack of rain. I was wrong. Even watering from the hose didn’t help.

I’ve been looking at various seeds and plants that might do well despite the lack of rain, in case next summer is anything like this summer has been. In our growing area, it’s pretty sparse pickings. No pun intended.

In the mean time, I’m trying to get the remodeling of my bathroom finished, so at least I’ll have the extra money to plant new flowers, plants and veggies next spring. Hopefully, that will be finished toward the middle of next month if all goes well with the plumbing. As far as my gardens go…I’m still trying to water, but it’s a loosing battle.

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A break in the heat

Being outside today was a treat compared to how unbearable the the weather has been for nearly two weeks. 104 degree temperatures is just too dangerous and even the pool feels like bath water.

Yesterday we finally got some respite from the heat. It felt like it to us, though it was still 88 degrees. There was a nice breeze blowing and it did cool us off a bit.

My front yard looks brown and I can forget about even watering my flowers. They scorched from the sun and died. It’s sad to me, but I could have watered for hours and it would not have made much of a difference. The lawn is brown as is everyone’s around here and in town unless they had a good watering system, which is pricey. Next year I’ll do my gardens over and hope for the best.

 

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A full Saturday

Finally I have time to sit down and relax. It feels good to put my feet up. A day filled with grocery shopping and then running errands is not something I was looking forward to today. I got some great photo frames that I needed and also a new clock for the kitchen that were on sale, so that was a plus.

When I got home, I had a visit this evening from a dear friend, Brenda. She and I are gardening buddies and we are always swapping plants and surprising one another with little garden gifts. It was a welcome visit. We sat talking about more home improvement we wanted to start on our houses, and had the same idea about various tile in the kitchen.

All in all it was a productive but long day. Tomorrow I’m going to dig up some more iris’s to give to my friend, and she is bringing me some of her tile samples that she got so I can look them over.

 

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Mother’s Day flower boxes

The kids made me shut my eyes as they led me outside to reveal my Mother’s Day present, which were a set of flower boxes. I loved them right away! I’ve been wanting regular flower boxes for a long time, as I have a sort of project in mind,, using them and some other garden items, in the front yard, and now I can at least start on this project. The lovely flowers of all sort that apparently my kids bought and transplanted into the box, were the finishing touch on my present.

I love window boxes also. When we bought the house, there were some on the house, but they were in sad state of repair. I finally got them down and they literally were falling apart in places because of wood rot, and the fact that they were super old.

A window box in each of the front windows, as there are two of them, would look really pretty. It’s on my list of things I get while saving up my pennies. OR, I could save money and try to make my own.