@mitu222.bsky.social
“Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.” ~ John Lennon
@linda2.bsky.social
“Happiness is to hold flowers in both hands.” – Japanese Proverb
@raringtogrow.bsky.social
“Bloom where you are planted.” – Proverb
Tag Archives: flowers
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The Town Square, Greenwood AR USA
At the very end of March I moved from Greenwood, Arkansas, USA, a lovely little rural town with a population of about 9,730. We lived outside of town on top of a ridge line on 8 acres. It was a beautiful existence, with lots of privacy, lots of room to raise our son, do gardening (though the land was quite rocky), grow flowers, create ‘critters’ from scrap metal in our shop to decorate our yard and long, steep driveway. I created artwork I sold online on my own website and then on Etsy, and started my blog the last several years we lived there.
Now I live in the second largest city in Thailand, Chiang Mai, a city with a population of approximately 1.2 MILLION. Even though we are living in a condo building, there is lots of greenery inside the building, plus everywhere we go!
Chiang Mai Citylife
Not only do Thai people love nature and growing things, they work hard to build AROUND things already growing rather than always scraping off an area so something can be built. This is only one of countless examples. Trees on walkways are carefully supported so they aren’t damaged in any way. Nature comes first and the people live with and around it – cherishing it – rather than the using the popular bulldozers Americans do.
I love looking at things here. Anywhere we go we see beautiful trees. I especially like the flowering trees that bring so much color and warmth to the city. I’ve tried to gather some examples for you here, but I’m barely scratching the surface.
The Flame Tree – Tim’s Thailand.com
Yellow Cotton Flower – Pinterest
Sakura Cherry Blossom
Frangipani – Yates New Zealand
Spring Sakura Flower – Freepik
Cherry Blossom – Nation
I can’t say enough about how beautiful it is. People with small shops make sure to have thriving plants in front or as a focus of the decorations, bringing the outside in.
If we’re in a Grab, my head seems to be on a swivel, turning, turning, trying to see everything I can during the trip, although Brian has told me that it’s rude to talk while we are being driven somewhere, unless the Grab driver initiates the conversation. I just sit in awe and admire.
Filed under Wonderful Things about Thailand
Photos by Jean Kelsey
I love these photos by Jean Kelsey, @immachocoholic.bsky.social.
“Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.” – John Lennon
“Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Andersen
“The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.” –
Leo Buscaglia
“May every sunrise hold more promise and every sunset more peace,” – Umair Siddiqu
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.” – Georgia O’Keeffe
“Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.” – Gerard De Nerval
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
Thursday 5-16-2024
Good morning! It’s quite overcast here this morning with a chance of rain. The bigger chance of ‘heavy rain’ is tomorrow – when we were supposed to be getting our long-awaited driveway repair. Oh, well.
My lettuce bolted and I had to pull it out yesterday. I’m going to try to get out and harvest my spinach before it goes, too. Both are cool weather plants and it’s been getting up in the mid 80s in the afternoons lately. Our tomato plants are doing well, though, and I’ll try to share some pics with you in another post later.
Our yard is looking pretty good right now (for us.) My husband mowed again yesterday and he thanked me again for my weed whacking and KillzAll efforts, which have resulted in a quicker, easier job for him. It definitely looks like someone lives here now :0).
I would like to get out and buy some flowers to plant today. We’ll see if the weather cooperates and the stars align…
Enjoy your Thursday.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
A Trip Around the Yard
Rio Samba Roses, various iris, and Mama and Baby Snails we made.
More Rio Samba roses, and the pretty purple perennial I don’t know the name of.
Azaleas and iris
Some of our flowers are blooming nicely now. It makes me happy to walk around the yard and see a lot of blooms, plus buds. Everything needs weeding, pruning, hacking down, etc., all around the yard, so that makes me feel a bit guilty, as well.
I’ll start with my veggie planters this morning, then move to the roses planters, seeing how far I can get before I poop out or it gets too warm.
Filed under Gardening
Definition of “Ethereal”
“Ethereal” – adjective – extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world.
M Bakatselou
M Bakatselou
Filed under Favorite Things
Veggies, Tomatoes, and Flowers, Oh My!
VEGGIES
The veggies are doing great, except that they really need to have the weeds around them taken out. As soon as I feel 100%, it’s on my list.
TOMATOES
The tomato plants seem to be doing fine, too. I’m scheduled to add the worm castings fertilizer to them Thursday (I’m doing this once a month) I just made it around the yard, taking quick pictures before my energy left, but I’ll look more carefully in the next day or two.
FLOWERS
ROSES
STELLA DE ORO LILIES
Husband’s PERIWINKLES by the shop door
You can’t tell it much in this picture, but the group on the left has a slight pink cast and the ones on the right are plain white.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Friday Lunch Bunch 5-12-2023
IceGif
Lunch Bunch was a delight today. Instead of being stood up, as I thought we might be, Kay and Bud were there, along with their daughter, LaDonna, from Albuquerque. Also, Alice – a sometimes LunchBuncher – and her husband, and us. Right after we ordered, my good, long-time friend Nora came in the door! It had been a long time since I had seen her and I was thrilled. Linda wasn’t there because her daughter, Patty, and her husband are in Greece, celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary.
Kay fell last week, face-surfing on some gravel. She didn’t break anything, thank goodness, but she really looked dramatic with the whole right side of her face bruised. She also broke her dentures – that will take a month to replace – so she is on liquids. She had some kind of a shake for lunch, was taking home a special dessert the owner made for her, and was going to pick up some protein drinks. She was feeling pretty well, otherwise. Our whole table was full and a great time was had by all.
We’ve just gotten finished putting away the groceries we got, also gas cans we filled for the mower. I’m going to plant some periwinkles in the pot right beside the shop door in a minute. My husband picked them out when we were in Walmart.
So a happy Friday for us. I hope that YOU are having a fun one, too.
Filed under Friendship
A Walk Around the Yard
My husband brought a couple of blooms inside so we could enjoy them in here, too. :0)
I love it that this rosebush shows all different stages of this wonderful rose at the same time. It starts out in a tight yellow bud with dark coral edges. It blooms into a bright yellow bloom with coral accents, and then finishes with the whole bloom coral.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening
Flowers Before the Storm
We’re due for possible severe storms this evening, so I went out to get some pictures, just in case, so I could share them with you.
This sweet bunch of flowers tries to bloom each year. Usually, we have a bad storm just at the time these need a bit of protection. I try to get a picture or two, because they don’t usually make it through the storm.
It raises my spirits to walk around the yard, seeing HOPE in the planters.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature, Seasons
Winter Approaches
Mother Nature is bringing winter closer in Arkansas in the coming days. I’m not ready.
I’ve really been enjoying the fall. I’m not a hot-weather person. I’m not really a cold-weather person, either. The temperature range at which I feel comfortable has lowered and then narrowed as I age.
Right now it’s around 42 degrees F. and very cloudy, wet, and raw outside. A good day to express thanks for a warm, dry house.
We got our irrigation system turned off, hoses unhooked and drained, vents closed, and outside faucets covered this past week. We’re supposed to have freezing temperatures each morning for at least the next 10 days, starting tomorrow morning.
We have had a wonderful season of veggie garden, flowers, and elephant ear plants, so I’m trying very hard to be thankful for that without being too greedy for more. I love to see things thriving and blooming all over the yard and in the garden, so it’s hard to see that come to an end.
I’m setting up in the garage to have a small place where I can try to get seeds started for my spring garden. If I’m successful, I can get an early start to good veggies for the spring!
I hope you are somewhere warm and dry this morning where you can dream of veggies and flowers in the future.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Hope in the Little Things
I can’t think that this awful situation will last forever as I walk around in my yard. I don’t remember what these sweet little flowers are called, but they are perennial and they are blooming their little hearts out.
Rio Samba roses
Yellow Iris
Fancier yellow iris
Feast or Famine
All spring it has either been heavily raining or SUPER hot with strong sun. Nothing in-between. Today I was only out for about half an hour, and came in huffing and puffing, wiping my head and face, and wanting to glug water.
I found these yellow leaves on my tomato plants yesterday. My friend, Laufrain, and I looked up the problem last night. It suggested bone meal and fertilizer. I just added both of those to the planter and watered. Fingers crossed they like it. I have nice green tomatoes and am hoping for a good crop.
This is our other tomato planter. As you can see, the plants are good and healthy. I have no clue what’s going on with the longer planter.
This is my first trial at growing zucchini. I have several that SEEM to be doing well.
Sweet red onions.
Radishes I just started a few days ago.
And THIS is the excitement for the day! It is a cantaloupe! Ta DA! If it doesn’t croak and continues to grow, I have a plastic bowl thingie with lots of holes for drainage and legs to keep the cantaloupe up off the ground. I’ve never grown one of these before. This was my husband’s choice of what to grow (other than head lettuce), so I’m really hoping we grow at least one and that it’s good.
On my way back in, I stopped to take a couple of pictures of the flowers on the deck. They make my heart soar every time I see them.
Now I’m very thankful that we have air-conditioning!
A Truly Stellar Day
We’ve gone from torrential rain, to “pea soup” humidity here. Last night a cool front came through, taking the humidity with it. Right now it’s 80 degrees F. outside, bright sunshine, and absolutely wonderful. AHHHHH!
I took a walk around the garden and yard to celebrate and wanted to share –
GARDEN
You can see the HEIGHT of the zucchini plants here – well over my head as I stand at the planters.
Lots of vines, greenery, and blossoms. No cantaloupe as yet.
The zucchini is producing nicely.
The tops of my sweet red onions were trashed during the last few storms we had. I cut off the broken tops and trimmed the bent ones. The actual onion bulbs are looking okay, though.
FLOWER PLANTERS
Lilies
Phlox
Roses and Impatiens
Roses and Phlox
Clematis
I’ll show you the deck and our view in another post.
Sharing a Beautiful Day
I just enjoyed walking around the yard, taking stock of what’s what while marveling that it wasn’t raining! Right now it’s 70 degrees F.! Just gorgeous. I wanted to show you the results of my trying to create a bit of order from the chaos created by Mother Nature recently. Here is one of our Rio Samba rosebushes. I pruned the three we have so they’ll bloom again in a couple of weeks. You can also see the tarp that is hopefully preserving the potting soil we removed from one of the two planters that collapsed. We are trying to gear up for rebuilding these ourselves, since the only estimate we’ve been able to get from an actual bricklayer was WAAAAAY too high.
Here you see one of the planters I weeded, cleaned out, and pruned. You can see I need to weed whack next….
The second of the trio planters between our front yard and the driveway.
And this is the third planter. These are end-to-end .
Another.
And another. We have 14 planters we built 30 years ago. We live on top of a ridge line, so what soil there is was trucked in when we had the house built. With the potting soil and an irrigation system, we are able to grow the flowers we love.
This is one view off the deck. We have lots of wave petunias and periwinkles on the deck this year. You can see our view in one direction. We love to pretend we own all this.
Here’s a view the other direction.
Some Impatiens on the front porch.
and more. You can see this planter needs some work.
And finally, I my travels around the yard I found –
Amber
Molly
Smoke
and Abby, all enjoying the screened porch on this lovely day.
I hope it’s really nice where you are, too!
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
Decorative Focus
I love the idea of grouping several photos of something you love as a focus of your office, your den, or your living room. You bring gorgeous photos together, don’t spend a fortune, and create a happy place you and anyone who visits you will love.
Here’s an example –
I love lighthouses. I’ve been fascinated by them since I was a child. Living in Arkansas, I don’t get to see lighthouses very often. But look at these!
Using a variety of layered effects filters, Joe has created a unique artistic rendition of these photographs. These are open edition prints, printed on archival card stock with satin finish. The prints are 8×10 with 11×14, acid-free, white mats that are ready for framing with a standard 11×14 frames. Of course, no watermark on actual prints. Signed on the mat by the artist.
If you love pretty windows, sailing ships, flowers – see more of Joe Parskey’s photos – to make your own collection!
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography, Holiday Gift Ideas
creativeartworksblog 