Hello! You are very welcome to my blog. I have so much to tell you. I’ll start with why I missed last week: we were away all weekend at the Irish dancing World Championships in Belfast, Northern Ireland. What a great two days we had! My daughter’s girls ceili danced on Saturday and my daughter and son were partners for their mixed team ceili on Sunday. Both teams did great and we are so proud of them. It was such a treat to watch them dance together. My son ‘retired’ in 2014 after his mixed ceili team *won* the World Championships (talk about going out on a high!). So it was lovely to have him back dancing this year and be able to partner with his sister.

Then, unfortunately, it finally happened: I came down with Covid. While I appreciate that really I am fine, at the same time I feel kind of miserable. I’m definitely over the worst of it, thankfully, but still have a bit more to go before I’m fully myself. This comes at a time when so much needs to be done in the garden! My husband has been a tremendous help, and of course whatever doesn’t get done, simply doesn’t get done. And while my handy dandy list is getting lots crossed off of it, new items are being added (daily!).

I am excited to show you what’s new in the garden this week! I showed you last time that we planted a border of Little Lime hydrangeas at the far end of our raised bed garden. We now have a small Rosemary border on the opposite side of the Little Limes, and a lavender border planted along the length of the garden. It is going to take a season or two for everything to fill in to its place, but I am so happy with it. The next step is figuring out a system for dividing the hoggin from the mulch, but my husband is already working on that. 🙂

Another new item is on our playhouse: my husband made an ‘American red barn’ style window cover. This ‘window’ is actually a space that a slide came out of when the playhouse was used by our kids. But after we pulled the slide out, we covered up the space with plexiglass and I have disliked it ever since. You might remember that my son and husband put new roofing on the playhouse a couple of years ago. Now all we need is to give the house a fresh coat of paint and it’ll be looking brand new!

There’s more, of course: there’s the Stellata magnolia that had a last burst of a few new flowers before they all faded, and blooming tulips, and the last of the daffodils. It hasn’t been all good news, though. A bunch of my seedlings didn’t survive. I tried them in a new location and that just didn’t work out. I have done a second round of seeds, but I’m not sure if I’m too late or not. We’ll see! This week I’m joining The Propagator’s meme Six on Saturday.

I hope you are keeping well. Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy the tour 🙂

In Peace,
Dana

1 – Tulips! I just love this photo, actually, as it has the Heaven Scent magnolia tree, the rainbow garden with tulips and the start of peony plants, and you can see the new cover on the playhouse. The white tulips are fringed and called swan wings. The pink ones are called Finola.

2 – New window cover. What’s not to love? It makes such a big difference to me!

3 – The borders of the raised bed garden. It’s going to take some training for me to get used to not just walking through the plants. I prefer to have plants than to have a fence, though. I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks as the rosemary, lavender, and hydrangeas grow. The lavender plants are tiny, but I bought them that size before and they grew almost full size in two seasons. Getting the black weed mat covered is the next project.

4 – Stellata magnolia flowers. After all of the first flush of flowers had turned brown, I discovered a few pure white flowers and they just looked so pretty. I am now a huge fan of this magnolia!

5 – Apricot Parrot and Apricot Beauty Tulips. I know that not everyone likes parrot tulips, but I certainly do. They just have so much personality! They aren’t afraid to strut their stuff. These were a new purchase for me this year. I wanted to find some to match my pink parrot tulips, and these actually worked out really well. I mixed the parrot with the non-parrot, and I’m still on the fence if they’d all look better in their own groups or mixed in. What do you think?

6 – Double daffodils. These were planted this year, and I have to say that I really like them. I’m always torn about cutting flowers and bringing them inside, but these were too pretty not to. I am planning to plant some in a large container next year.

I so appreciate you visiting! Have a great week. I’ll leave you with a picture of my two favorite Irish dancers 🙂