Faerisweet's Garden Diary

29 Dec '07 5:22 pm

I think this could be addicting, I have a little sleeping gnome, who has faded over the past few years. I am going to repaint him and brighten him up. It is something I can do for the garden during the winter season. I have also painted a little birdhouse I picked up for a quarter at a yard sale. It had faded wallpaper glued to it, looked really bad, but I peeled all that off and painted it.

29 Dec '07 6:06 pm

I would love to see your things when they are painted-a 'before'photo is good if you remember to take one.
I have just gone out to the garden and photographed some painted things for ideas.All cost nothing,and I used cheap test pots of colour.
Dixie.

26 Feb '08 5:51 am

spring is not quite here. tho I do have a few bulbs just starting to send up shoots. The roses have the new red growth coming on also which means spring is soon to be really here. The garden centers, of course already have plants in full bloom out, still a little early (by a few weeks) to feel safe putting them out in the garden tho. I bought a few anyway, after winter it is so hard to resist. I have been working out in the garden trying to get it cleaned up (weeding...weeding...weeding) for spring. Still have a lot to do, it is still a little chilly to be out long on most days. I have managed to play with the camera the past few days, so here are a few pics.

26 Feb '08 6:03 am

I took a few shots of the birds who would be still long enough for me to focus.

1 Apr '08 8:35 pm

I have gotten most of the beds cleaned up, all except the annual butterfly border on the side of the house. I want to get planting it but we had a roof leak over winter (temp. patched at the moment) and that side of the roof needs some work. I am afraid to do much to that bed because when the roofers get up there and start tearing the old shingles off, I am pretty sure they will be tossed straight down into that bed. So I am trying to be patient and wait for the repairs to be done and the mess all cleaned up before I get that bed going again. Just glad it is an annual bed there, except for a few perennials that I may need to move or cover to protect them.
Banjo's bed is off to a good start, bleeding hearts, vinca, and violets all blooming. Hosta, clematis, hydrangea and lobelia starting to grow back. The front garden is doing really well, everything is coming back, and the daffodils, tulips, pink salvia, pink iris, hyacinth, and dianthus are blooming. Other things are budding, climbing Queen Elizabeth, clematis, purple iris, and Indian Hawthorne to name a few. I got the new rose hubby bought me planted, climbing Orchid Masterpiece in the south side garden. So after weeding and feeding I rewarded my labor by buying lily's. I got a few Royal Sunset and a few Royal Present, already budded up and about to bloom, also a plant I think is a type of creeping phlox, no tag and the only one left. I couldn't resist it tho, little white flowers with a baby blue vein from the center, extending to the edge of each petal. It looks like a little blue star. They had azalea's on sale but I will have to go back, didn't carry enough cash for everything I wanted, probably a good thing or we might be eating light this week Smile

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2 Apr '08 5:48 am

Your roofers must be related to NZ tradesmen...There might be a patch of lawn or path,but they throw the old stuff on to the garden with deadly accuracy-carpenters,plumbers,roofers.
your garden plans sound exciting-a lovely range of plants.I love seeing your birds.
Dixie.

3 Apr '08 2:38 am

Isn't it fun to see everything awaken and grow again after a long winter's sleep. The dark bird with white breast at your feeders may be a Dark-eyed Junko. It's a little hard to tell with his dark coloring, but that's my best guess. Have fun with your gardens and animals this spring.

3 Apr '08 4:05 am

July! Holy moly. Well it's drizzly today and Lia has a bad cold I really don't want to get so a good time to catch up.

The last time I was here we were talking about working in the garden, mornings being a favorite time, keeping it fun, finding time around the demands of parenthood, etc. I had to laugh when I read your thoughts on becoming empy-nesterrs:

"Then again, I look forward to having more time for the things I enjoy and to being more a couple than parents. Sounds a bit selfish, huh?"

My initial response was, yep, "selfish" if by selfish you mean "sane".

I just made it to October. (I've opened it in another window so I can read there and switch over to here to write.) Belated congratulations on your birthday! It must be nice to be so young! I liked Jack's way of putting it, something like: 'old enough not to care too much, young enough to do something about it'. I'm 55 this year and yet amazingly still alive. My wife, poor thing, is older still! I've got to say I like everything about every year I've put on except for the decrease in strength, stamina and durability. But I don't have much to complain about and by far more reason to be glad. Oh, your foggy morning photos with the sun shining through are wonderful. Did I mention being jealous of the pond you have across the road? Water is so precious here I'd be pulling water out of there if I could.

On to December. It sounds like yours was a very satisfying holiday. Probably one of the best times to appreciate having the family around you. Lots of flowers still! Good for you. Your large pink salvia looks a lot like one I'm growing that smells especially good. I'm thinking of the one you called "bright pink salvia", the second photo posted on December 18th.

Your February Cardinals are beautiful. I've only seen them in Hawaii. (I know, weird.) Did I tell you I used to keep birds in outdoor aviaries? It isn't legal to keep a bird native to the U.S. but I certainly did look at them with an aquisative eye. Thankfully I've given up that chore for the much more satisfying chores of gardening which draws in birds that you don't have to feed or fret about when they get ill.

Then on to April. I hope you are enjoying Spring. I think I will go see if I can get out in the garden yet. Dixie's comment about roofers cracked me up. I hope your's will (or have?) exercise more caution or at least have a poorer aim.

16 Apr '08 6:13 pm

the roof repairs are done. I can finally get onto that side of the house and work. I'm glad I held off on planting anything new over there tho, I have shingles and debris to clean up. Not as bad as I thought tho, they did clean most of it up. Now waiting on the guy to come and replace the kitchen ceiling where it leaked. Always something huh?
Anyway, I have been busy on the other side of the house. Hubby built me an arbor and I have the Queen Elizabeth rose growing up one side, and planted the Orchid Masterpiece on the other side. Planted a Texas Star Hibiscus, John F. Kennedy white rose bush, and a blue plumbago in that garden, also have some love in a mist started to go over there. I put some sweet peas on the arbor to help fill in till the roses get going. Need to get my camera back from my daughter so I can take some pictures. I do like the way it is looking so far, there are 2 large beds in front with a grass path between them, it goes under the arbor and there are flower beds on each side of the path that leads to a garden bench with as yet small crepe myrtles behind it, and then the path turns off beside the bench, to go out to the basketball court (a goal and hard packed dirt from my son and his friends playing). I plan to replace the grass path with a concrete fake stone path (made from one of those pathmaker things) later on.

7 May '08 5:45 pm

It started out as a place to move the aggressive vinca, to get it out of Banjo's bed and away from a hydrangea it was intent on strangling. After a day of digging, pulling roots and grass, amending and raking, I had a nice size oval bed around a pecan tree, too nice to put the bully vinca in, so he went on the trash heap, just too invasive, and doesn't add enough interest to put up with it's aggressive nature, imo. So here I had this nice but alas empty bed.
I started foraging, there were a dozen or so clumps of a grass plant, (maybe mondo?) which some former tenant had planted in the middle of the back yard, it was growing fine in the shade and surviving well, even with weekly mowing, it hadn't (unlike the vinca) tried to take over the world. Seemed a good candidate, so I divided it up and edged the bed with it.
The violets in Banjo's bed could use dividing, so I put 6 small divisions of them ringing the tree. I had recently purchased 4 small gold standard hosta's, at least that is what they were marked as. 2 are gold with dark green edges and 2 are dark green with gold edges, I don't understand the opposing color pattern if they are the same thing, both pretty tho. Impulse buy with no set idea where they would go, so I put one each of the gold with green edge on the east and west sides between the mondo grass and the violets, and one each of the green with gold edge in the same position on the north and south sides.
I had a dozen pink impatiens large enough to plant out, I planted these between the hosta in groups of 3. I had 2 lime green mottled coleus left over from another planting and planted 1 on the northwest side and one on the southeast with the 3 impatiens on those sides around them. That left an empty space on each of the longer ends, so more foraging. A painted fern not doing well in it's current too sunny spot went on the west end, a sword fern that had no room to grow in it's current position went on the east end. Finally done and looking pretty good, will be really nice I think, when it fills in a bit. I am exhausted, but in a good way. The best thing is I didn't even have to go shopping.

Faerisweet's Garden Diary

Dixie,

paint

Not alot going on in the garden yet,

birds

Spring is truly here..

roofers

Spring gardening

Boy did I ever fall off of this thread a long time ago!

finally

added new shade bed to backyard