Tag Archives: gardening
Topiary is Fun
Before the Storm
We are due for some possibly severe storms this afternoon and evening, so I got out yesterday to take more pictures of my elephant ear plants, just in case the storm is ugly and mean, and batters and breaks my plants.
I feel lucky to have be able to enjoy these all summer long and into the fall. I hope they last until we have a hard freeze. Every time I go out in the yard they lift my spirits. :0)
Filed under Gardening
Terrific Topiary
Tantalizing Topiary
After the Storm
Last night we went to bed about 12:30 am and the wind was gusty and there was lightning. I didn’t hear it rain, but severe weather was possible overnight into this morning.
We awoke to 60 degrees F. and bright sunshine.
I took a walk around the yard to see if there was damage. We lost a couple of leaves on my elephant ear plants and there were leaves all over the civilized part of the yard around the house and our driveway, but I didn’t find any damage yet.
I did find several things that brought my spirits up –
There’s a bird’s nest in the tulip tree!
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
Creative Planters
Filed under Creative Planters, Gardening
The Topiary Cat 2
Richard Saunders created The Topiary Cat in his own yard, then got the idea to place him in places all over the world via Photoshop.
Continuing Work Outside
I’m about to fix lunch, and then I’ll go do a bit in the yard.
Today I’m going to mix up a container of KillzAll. I mix two gallons at a time in a nice sprayer. I’ll lug it out to the garden and see what needs to be sprayed. If I’m not totally pooped after that, I may mix up another container full….
Filed under Gardening
Rock Garden
Rock Garden – DeWitt “Old Dog” and Joyce Boyd
Article by Beverly L. Jenkins – inspiremore.com
Filed under Gardening, Rock Art, Stone/Pebble Art
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring…
I finished the weed whacking I wanted to do yesterday! The tomato planters are clean, the debris is gone, and I got the grass and weeds down from around the planters, under the house, under the deck, down the back sidewalk, and around the brick planter beside the garage pad. And now it’s raining, right on schedule. Hooray!
We’ll run our errands in half an hour, delighted by the rain even if we drown while we’re out. My husband will spew bad words because he’s tired of mowing for the season, but the plants are all breathing a sigh of relief.
It’s quite dark outside, looking like nighttime instead of morning, but we aren’t supposed to have severe weather, just a cold front with cooler temperatures. I’M READY! :0)
If the wind isn’t blowing a lot when we get home, I may get out my umbrella and enjoy a walk in the rain.
Enjoy your day!
Progress in the Yard 9-20-2021
I finished clearing out the tomato plants from the two brick planters and dumped the debris.
It’s almost 100 out there now, according to our thermometer in the SHADE on our deck, so I’m opting to wait to try to use the weed whacker until about 5:00 or so, when hopefully, it will be a bit cooler. :0)
In the meantime. I wanted to share how the elephant ears are doing!
They don’t have too much farther to go until you won’t be able to see the windows in the garage behind them. I’m thrilled.
They are truly happy in this pot, with enough sun, the irrigation system, and a bit of protection from the winds we get up here.
When the weather is such that the leaves are spent after freezing, I’m going to just cut them off level with the soil and then cover them thickly with mulch, hoping to get them through the winter and able to thrive again next year.
Filed under Gardening
The Yard Work Continues
This is the way I feel at times working in our yard. I don’t know how long it would take for things to go back to completely wild if my efforts had to stop, but I don’t think it would be long. We live on top of a ridge line and have left most of our 8 acres wild. We keep a small ‘civilized area’ at the very top, around the house and shop, with space for my square foot garden.
I will go outside soon to try to finish the latest effort – clearing out the two tomato planters and weed whacking around them, plus around the yard. Today is supposedly the last of the really hot weather here, with a cold front, rain, and cooler temperatures forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Hooraaaaaaay! I’m ready.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Almost Finished
I’ve just finished my third session in the yard today.
I’m trying to get the two brick tomato planters cleaned up. I’ve collected three wheelbarrow loads of greenery packed down. I’m ALMOST finished with that. I’ll try to finish that tomorrow, and then finally do the weed whacking I need to do around both planters, and then as far as I can reach under the deck.
I got overheated the first two sessions. This last one was better. The sun is starting to ease off for the day, so I’m not huffing and puffing badly this time.
I’m debating with myself about whether to just leave them for the winter, or to haul Mel’s Mix out there, filling up both planters, and then putting tarps on them. Much will depend on the weather over the next weeks.
For now, I’m glugging a big bottle of cold water, putting my feet up, and saying “Ahhhhhh!” :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Sunday 9-12-2021
We’re having nice weather here in Arkansas today. I’m planning to spend some time in the yard again today, pulling out spent plants, trimming, pruning, etc. I’m concentrating on not overdoing it, since the people on TV keep insisting on calling me ‘the elderly’ when they’re talking about Covid and vaccinations. GRRRR!
I would like to remind them –
So we will run an errand or two and then I’ll spend several sessions in the yard today – resting in-between – and see how much good I can do out there. :0)
Have a wonderful day!
Elephant Ears
These are from the bulbs I gave up on when nothing happened in the spring when I re-planted them after over-wintering them in peat moss in the garage. Even though our heat index is still around 105 degrees F., these continue to bloom. I threw them off “the edge of the world” in the front yard. There is no irrigation there. Amazing.
These are in the planter to the east in our yard. This planter has a lot of shade – I think TOO MUCH shade for the plants to be happy.
These are much happier. They are in a planter beside the front porch.
And these make my heart sing. I don’t know whether they will get taller than the windows behind them or not. They are way over my head now and seem to be smiling.
Filed under Gardening
Pass the Sass, Please
I love this picture.
I’m heading out to my square foot garden soon to pull up the sweet onions. Our weather is such that, even with our irrigation system, most of our plants have given up the ghost. This was a weird summer, much cooler and wetter for a lot of it and then super-hot and dry with sun hot enough to almost boil the plants right on the vines.
The only thing left in the garden now is the onions. My plan is to go out this morning, armed with my 2 gallon sprayer filled with EIGHT, and pull the onions. If ants start swarming, I’ll hose everything down with the EIGHT and try again tomorrow. We have an old trailer which basically sits in one spot all year round. It has a metal mesh bed that allows great drainage, so it’s a wonderful place to spread the onions so they can dry. I’m hoping to get the onions pulled up and drying today.
I’m hoping that I can get the garden boxes weeded, topped off with Mel’s Mix (peat moss, Vermiculite, and three kinds of compost), unhook the irrigation system, and then cover each of the six 4’x4′ raised boxes with a tarp to keep the soil alternative IN and the weeds OUT until I’m ready to plant again. I’ll try to show you my progress.
Please keep all appendages crossed that the fire ants don’t attack me. :0)
Filed under aging, Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Happy Elephant Ears
If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you remember that I was devastated when I tried to winter-over elephant ear plants my friend, Laufrain, had given me, but failed. I re-planted them and nothing at all happened. I finally bought some ‘bulbs’ (is that what you call them?) from an online nursery. I got six and spaced them around the yard a bit. As you can see, they seem to be happy, and I’m thrilled.
I’m especially happy because my square foot garden is over, except for harvesting onions, and our tomato plants are looking very sad. Many of our flowers have just given up in the heat, even though we have an irrigation system.
These are to the left side of our front porch. They seem to be smiling, too. They have good protection from gusty winds and blowing rain here, too.
These are on the far side of the house. They seem to be doing fine, but aren’t as large as the others.
I just love these huge leaves!
And the surprise of the day is here. We have an area around the house we have dubbed “civilized,” keeping it mowed, etc. The edge of this drops off into woods we just let grow wild. A lot of yard waste we throw “off the edge of the world” here. If you look really carefully, you can see – two batches of elephant ears! I threw the failed bulbs here and some of them have NOW made leaves! Wonders will never cease. :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
UGH
Our mailbox decoration represents a return to our ‘normal” summer in Arkansas, rather than the cooler, rain-filled summer we’ve had this year. We’ve gotten quite spoiled, not fearing heat stroke as we mow, weedwhack, tend our flowers and square foot garden veggies.
All that ended about a week ago now. The rain stopped, the sun came out with a vengeance, raising our actual temperatures to 100 or more in the afternoons, and the heat index to surge even higher. UGH.
The only thing left in the garden now is sweet onions, weeds, and our two planters of tomatoes.
My husband managed to get the civilized part of our yard mowed, mowing right before dark one evening and then first thing in the morning the next day. I followed that with weed whacking right before dark night before last, and then finished it up last night and blew the debris off our sidewalks and driveway pad with our leaf blower. I was planning to use our push weedwhacker this morning in the area behind our shop and beside our garden, but we talked about it and decided I would really be risking heat stroke. I walk outside, with my headband on, and I’m instantly wringing wet. I think we will only do what is absolutely necessary until this “Punishment from Mother Nature” passes. We might even wait until fall…
I WILL pull the sweet onions and start drying them soon. I don’t know how much longer the tomatoes will make. Even with our irrigation system, the tomatoes are almost boiling on the vines. Happily, my elephant ear plants and phlox or doing well, even with the heat. I’ll try to get out and get pics for you.
When I get out there early enough, I’m still working on the refurbishment project of of our yard critters. Right now I’m repainting “Mama and Baby Snail.” I post a pic when they’re ready to go back outside.
Every summer I regret the fact that we ran out of money when we were building our home over 30 years ago. We managed the main house and the small shop, but we had to give up my dream of a pool. I taught swimming every summer from age 14 through college to help pay for my education. We live on top of ridge line, and had to dynamite several times to be able to have our basement, septic system, and the pool. We got the first two, but not the third. Every summer I dream of a beautiful in-ground pool. Of course, I also dream of Sven, the gorgeous pool man, coming to take care of it – and me. (If I’m going to dream, I’ll include it all… :0) )
I hope summer is being kind to you.
Jury Still Out
The jury is still out on whether the two plants of lettuce I bought at the grocery store yesterday will live or not. Last night I flooded the soil with water and then left the pot in the sink drainer overnight. Today I cut off a lot of limp leaves, but things are still alive. This is a fun project whether it works or not.
We’re supposed to get a lot of rain over the next three days. I’m hoping this keeps the temperatures down low enough that I can work in the shop a bit without croaking. Yesterday I got the “Dog With Bone” yard critter cleaned and ready to start re-painting. When we get home from Lunch Bunch, I’m hoping to be able to work out there.
Meanwhile, I found these wonderful things I would love to have –
Filed under Gardening
Current Experiment
Today I bought two lettuce plants in the produce section of the grocery store. I put both in a pot of potting soil and put them on the divider between our kitchen and our dining area.
I’m HOPING that the air conditioning will keep the plants cool enough and that they’ll get enough light that they will perk up and continue to grow, allowing me to snip off enough leaves for a nice salad for us from time to time. It would be a glorious luxury, wouldn’t it? Fingers crossed.
Filed under Uncategorized
Harvest 7-14-2021
I made a quick trip to the east side of the house where our two tomato planters are to see if we had any ripe tomatoes. WOW!!!!! I left the ones that looked ripe, but were still firm out there. We have enough that I can share with our friends!
Two updates:
- The experiment where I bought and planted two live lettuce plants last week was a bust. It’s just simply too hot now for them to live. There is the possibility that a plant or two could live IN the house on the window sill, but I didn’t see them the last time I was in the store. Maybe next time.
- Yesterday I showed you a breathtaking picture of a Cerinthe Major – Pride of Gibraltar – Purple Wax Flower
- I managed to find a place selling seed packages, so I bought two and will read more about what they need. (Here’s the link to the post if you missed it)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Beautiful Way to Start A Day
I found this yesterday in my travels around the net. This may be the most gorgeous flower I’ve ever seen. My heart filled when I saw it. I’ll have to look it up to see if I can try to grow one. Fingers crossed.
Good/Bad News in the Garden
The grocery store was selling lettuce plants yesterday! I bought two, having little hope that they would do anything this time of year, since they are a cool-weather plant. One of them has already croaked :0( – but this one is still alive as of this minute. I’ll probably have to go ahead and clear out the garden for the season, since my yellow crookneck squash plants are producing lots of huge leaves by very little else. I’ll go ahead and pull everything out, unless this sweet plant is still alive. I’ll pull the onions and start drying them out. We have possibly severe storms coming in this evening-into-tomorrow, so this will wait until next week. It was a fun thing to try, though.
Meanwhile, though my tomato plants don’t look pretty, they are producing. This is what I brought in this morning. There are more to come tomorrow. This is the time of year we feel super rich. We have lots of ripe tomatoes to each for both lunch and dinner. :0)
I’ll take pics of the onions when I get them onto the trailer screen to start drying.
Love and Tomatoes 7-7-2021
We hit the lottery on tomatoes today!
Usually, I have the better crop from the two plants in what we call the ‘nook’ planter – a brick planter we converted to a square foot garden planter that is square and is in a niche beside our back porch and in back of the house. It is protected from a lot of the wind that whips through here and doesn’t get the unrelenting sun the other planter gets.
This year it’s the opposite. The eight foot planter – also converted to a square foot planter – getting full sun and unprotected from the wind – is giving us the better yield.
We are very grateful to have ANY tomatoes because I’ve heard from others that this is a ‘hard year’ for tomatoes. People are getting plants, but they aren’t blossoming or growing tomatoes. We have sharing one larger tomato or two smaller tomatoes as part of our dinners this past week – the first of the crop – and enjoying every bite. When I told my husband that we had hit the lottery today, he wanted to have some – RIGHT NOW.
You can’t get fresher than right off the vine and still warm from the sun. Love and tomatoes! :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Happy Elephant Ears
I have elephant ear plants in three places in our yard – one main planter and then two where I really didn’t expect them to come up and thrive. This one sprouted up about a week ago. I had honestly forgotten I planted this one. I’m delighted.
This one is in one of the tall brick planters on either side of our front porch.
This is the main planter. There are three plants here. They seem to be happy and thriving!
Filed under Gardening
Hooray for the Elephant Ears!
Last year I had a truly beautiful display of elephant years – two plants given to me by my good friend, Laufrain. I tried to over winter them in the garage in a trash can of peat moss, but nothing came up when I replanted them. :0( I ordered a set of three bulbs online and planted them. Nothing was happening. I planted some Impatiens so the planter wouldn’t be completely empty. Suddenly, the plant on each end of the planter sprouted. Nothing in the middle. Two days ago I noted something different. The plant in the middle had sprouted!
HOOOOOOORAAAAAAY!
AND – to put icing on the cake – our irrigation system worked as it should have last night, coming on just when it should – proving that my last reprogramming effort was correct! My husband is a bit miffed that “I” figured it out, but I’m just ignoring that. He’s so smart, fixing everything in the house and yard and making me feel stupid most of the time, so it feels REALLY GOOD to have figured something out. :0)
Filed under Gardening
Hot!
We got out first thing this morning to tackle getting our irrigation system going. Mother Nature suddenly turned on summer here – going from unseasonably cool with lots and lots of rain to NO rain and ‘feels like’ indices of 100+.
Thankfully, no blowouts this time. I managed to reprogram the system, which thought it was January of 2007 when I started. I THINK I have it programmed now to start this evening, water for 10 minutes on station 1 followed by 10 minutes on station 2. I have my alarm set to check to make sure the system for the garden is working at 4:30 and then the yard system starts at 6:30. Fingers crossed.
I’m adding more products to my HandmadeHavenByLinda site on Etsy. I have several sales of 25% off running now, so I’m adding more choices for people to take advantage of the savings.
We have had several cottontail rabbits in our yard lately. Our dog, Amber, is too slow to even think about catching them, though she makes a good show of chasing them and woofing. I saw two first thing this morning – a very happy way to start my day. :0)
Now that we have the irrigation system going (hope, hope) I’m planning to enjoy a lazy day in the air conditioning until it’s time to check on the watering.
Enjoy your Sunday!
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature, Thoughts on a ________
Thoughts on a Tuesday 5-25-2021
WEATHER – It’s a good thing I’m not water-soluble, or I would have sogged down into a puddle by now with all the rain we have had. We just returned from putting our trash out for pickup and running errands. I wore a hoodie, since my husband has no patience for me trying to use an umbrella. I just throw my hood up to stay as dry as possible.
YARD WORK – I pruned our rose bushes and weeded a bit yesterday. Some unfriendly bug bit me on the back of my hand. It swelled up and itched like crazy. I finally got the itching to stop and the swelling should be down by tomorrow.
I was watching for ants, since I react badly to their stings/bites, but whatever bit me snuck up and did it before I was aware. I am going to try to harvest more lettuce, since my plants are starting to bolt, but it will have to wait until the rain stops.
EMAIL HACK – I seem to be over the worst of the repercussions from my email being hacked. I spent the entire day yesterday, except for the time pruning the roses, contacting as many friends and family as possible, giving them my new address, plus getting on our important websites and changing email, user name and password. What a hassle! I did get to talk to people I would LIKE to talk to more often, so that was a really good thing. If I finally reach a real person at Google, I will try to enlist their help in finding out who is responsible for the hack.
GENERATOR – Just as your car will never act up or make the noise you’ve been hearing when you take it to the shop, our generator came on just fine when the tech came out to help us figure out why it didn’t do its weekly test and or continue to run when we started it manually. He looked it over carefully. It started right up and continued until he turned it off. We told him the ‘overcrank’ light was on when we went out to look. My husband suspected the carburetor, but the tech was looking more at the fuel regulator, whatever that is. He said he would check his manual for ‘old’ generators to see if he could be of more help if we need to call him again. Meanwhile, $131.50 later, the generator IS working…
WEIGHT LOSS – My newest motivation to lose the lard seems to be working – at least, so far. Last Monday we had our routine doctor appointment with blood tests. We were doing fine (for old people) and the doc said we didn’t have to come back for 6 months, rather than the 3 months we have been doing. I decided that I wanted to try to finally lose a significant amount of my poundage by the time we go back in November. Since Monday I have lost 4.6 pounds. I’m trying to keep my focus on trying to really watch my portions, try not to eat in-between meals, or if I do, eat a really careful snack. I’m trying to move more, and pick up my afternoon yoga stretches again.
So far, my yoga efforts have been a dismal failure. Usually, I’m out in the yard when I WAS doing yoga. I’m telling myself that if I’m up and moving, that’s good, but I know it’s not a substitute for the good stretching I do with my practice. I’m going to rethink WHEN I’m trying to do my practice so that I can work in the yard AND do my yoga stretches on a daily basis.
ART ROOM – I’m still trying to overcome my stupid fear of failure regarding trying a new art technique. I’m really fascinated watching people demonstrate ‘acrylic pours’ and then ‘pours with crackle gel.’ They are getting wonderful abstract colorful work with gorgeous texture and cracks highlighted with gold. I’m going to keep making careful notes as I watch (and drool) and see if I can get started on it in my art room this week.
I hope that you are having a fabulous day, enjoying the weather where you are, if possible, or if cooped up inside like me, changing over to something fun INSIDE.
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
creativeartworksblog 