In a Vase on Monday: A Simple fall Posy

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Mominthegarden

A collection of potted plants

Well hello there! Have you come to see what I’ve gathered from the garden this week to create a vase for the meme “In a Vase on Monday”? I do hope so! It has been a lot of fun finding different vases, flowers and ideas for this meme. Cathy at Rambling in the Garden is the lovely host, and you can visit her blog here: http://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com . While you are there, you can check out the links to other vases too.

Geraniums, marigolds and calendula flowers bathing in afternoon sunlight

The weather had been quite mild for September and October. But recently we had our first hard frost, and the forecast is for more cold weather. So I thought I should feature my potted plants (quick, before they are destroyed!).

Pewter Vase & awesome afternoon sunlight

The vase is pewter and was given to me by a very special friend (thank you Jean!). I thought it was perfect for my little posy.

Simply lovely

The afternoon sunlight coming in the house was absolutely lovely. I have been going at warp speed of late, so it was incredibly wonderful to take some time to pick, cut, and photograph the flowers in that sunlight. It really is amazing the difference lighting can make.

Later that night…

See? That picture doesn’t have the same “sparkle” as the ones with sunlight.

A nice arrangement all the same

Still, I’ll take the arrangement as it adds some life to our kitchen.

Fall Posy

And that is me and my “In a Vase on Monday” all finished! A quick one today. But I do hope you enjoyed it!

Until next week 🙂
Dana

A last look at the garden in April

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Mominthegarden

Bramley Cooking Apple tree

Today is the last day in April, and I just wanted to show you some of what has been growing in the garden this spring. I really think it is picture worthy. Of course, I might be a little biased. 🙂 The picture above is of our Bramley (cooking) apple tree. The blossoms are so pretty! My husband is responsible for pruning the apple trees every winter and I think he’s been doing a nice job. We moved our other (eating) apple tree this winter, so it doesn’t have as many blossoms just yet.

Bramley cooking apple tree blossom

New to this part of the garden are some supports for peas. My friend Susan gave me some useful Hazel sticks which my husband used to make tee-pee like structures. He then wrapped them in chicken wire. The peas climbed the wire quite happily last year, I just didn’t like how it looked in a straight line. I already like this look much better, even before the peas get going! The peas were planted this week.

Newly built supports for our peas using hazel and chicken wire.

Strawberry beds

Here’s a little peek at my strawberry beds. I’ve weeded them a couple of times this spring! They are coming along really well. Last year was an amazing year for strawberries. I have my fingers crossed that this summer will be as good! At the far end of the garden, closest to the red playhouse, we have raspberries growing. They look good this year. This is one fruit that has not thrived for us (yet). This year at least looks promising!

Mallow

On to flowers! This beautiful mallow plant was courtesy of a bird. Well, at least I didn’t plant it. The color is a lovely plum. We had to stake it as we live in a very, very windy area. Nevertheless, it is doing quite well!

Mallow

Ditch Wall Garden

This garden is affectionately called the “ditch wall garden” as I uncovered a ditch wall while creating this garden. I wrote about it here: https://mominthegarden.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/ivy-ivy-everywhere-finding-a-lovely-little-rock-ditch-wall-under-the-ivy/ . The current star of the garden is this primrose. It has really taken off since I planted it last year (given to me from a friend’s garden).

Primrose

Also adding to this little garden is this dark euphorbia. My friend Susan visited me yesterday and she loved the color combination of the euphorbia and my Freeman tulips. 🙂

Freeman tulips and a dark euphorbia

I know I’ve already posted about my tulips, but I had to add a few more pictures of them. They have done so well this spring!

White tulip

This white tulip is new to me this year. I like it, I just didn’t order enough of it!

White tulip close-up

I have a tulip correction, too. I mistakenly called my Foxtrot tulips “Innuendo” tulips. Yikes! The REAL Innuendo tulips are these:

Proper Innuendo Tulips

While the Foxtrot tulips are these:

Foxtrot tulips

How did I mix them up???

My favorites: Ballerina tulips

But without a doubt, my favorite tulips this year are my Ballerina tulips. I have loved every minute of them! The last flower picture is of some flowers that were in a flower pot from last year. I did nothing with the container over the winter. It sat at my back door, completely neglected. So it is funny to be rewarded with these lovely Calendula flowers after so much neglect!

Calendula flowers in a flowerpot

April was quite good to us, don’t you think? I hope your spring is as lovely for you!
Dana

The garden in November.

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Mominthegarden

Orange Pumpkins!

November?! Really? I hope you won’t have forgotten me, as it’s been too long since I last posted! I’ve missed you. 🙂 Lately I’ve been wearing two of my many different hats; Mom of Swimmers hat, and Mom of Irish Dancers hat. We’ve all been working really hard! After two months into the full swimming schedule our girls improved all of their racing times at the first swim gala (meet) a couple of weeks ago. That’s a great way to start the season. Our three Irish dancers have been working since the summer towards the Ulster Championship Feis, which took place this past week in Donegal . It’s harder for the littlest one to keep that focus for so long, but she did well. (She’s finally making progress on keeping those feet turned out!) My kids also dance on teams, and it is just fantastic to watch as they keep their straight lines and perfect formations while dancing around the stage! We are so proud of them. They all danced their best, which is all we could ask for. It is rewarding to see the kids really putting their all into their activities and to watch them improve through their efforts. Sometimes it takes more work than other times, but thankfully we’re all going in the right direction!

As for my Mom in the Garden hat, I too, have been putting in some “hard work”. It’s called weeding! The fence line is pretty much in constant need of clearing. I really like how it looks after I get a section finished. It’s nothing glamorous, not really even picture worthy, but if it isn’t maintained it sure is noticeable! If you know me, you know that I’d rather spend a week weeding than even think about using chemicals. I just think it is better for the environment and better for us. The hard work is worth it, and it is great being outside.

Anyone curious about my pumpkins? I had very green pumpkins when I cut them off of their vines in early October. https://mominthegarden.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/the-race-is-on-green-or-orange-pumpkins-for-halloween/ I brought them inside, and placed them in sunny locations. I was completely skeptical that they’d ever turn orange, they were *really* green, but turn orange they did! Little by little, the jack-o-lantern pumpkins completely changed color. My cooking pumpkins were much slower to change, and have more of a marbled look. Doesn’t matter, I am looking forward to making some pumpkin soup!

Pumpkin soup, and lovely orange pumpkins to decorate with. Yes, that will be perfect for Thanksgiving in a few weeks. No rushing into things for me!!!

Happy November 🙂

Dana

Beech hedging changing color in October.

Weeding along the fence of beech hedging.

A bird party on our house! A little distraction while I was weeding.

Early morning mist on the apple tree and blueberry bushes.

My favorite fall picture (so far!).

Calendula (apricot twist) still going strong!

Burgundy Ice Floribunda Rose in October.

Weeding … and new blooms in the garden!

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Mominthegarden

Weeding, it’s like housework, it just has to be done! I confess to much preferring being outdoors and weeding to being inside doing housework, though. Today I had the privilege of listening to my kids play on the trampoline with their friends while I was pulling weeds. Lots and lots of weeds. Funny how the kids never want to pull weeds with me. We could make a game of it; something like “let’s see who can pull the most weeds!”. I’ll have to give that one a try tomorrow…

I’ve mentioned that our garden is in a constant state of change as we grow it, learn, and figure out how we want it to look eventually. The area of our “fruit orchard”, I just have to put that in quotes since the area is so small we call it that affectionately, is not the shape we want it just yet. We discovered this year that we’ve planted too close to the fence, so we’ll have to bring that area back a tiny bit. That lovely black carpeting (read: ugly) is where we’ll have stone paths eventually. We planted more asparagus this year, so that space was expanded. We’re planning on two rows of peas for next year, too, since they are growing so nicely. When we get the shape and size finally right, we’re planning on enclosing the area. I really want a small white picket fence. Can you just see the pretty pink climbing roses along the fence with white hydrangea? I’m sure I’ve pinned something like that from pinterest!

Back to reality, and our current garden! The first of my Dutch Iris is blooming, and I think it is so pretty. The first of my roses has also finally bloomed. The sunlight this evening captured it so brilliantly. The mess in the middle of my front yard is my next garden project. I have to kill the grass (with newspapers & cardboard). I’ve also put the sod which was dug up from other places in the yard there, to incorporate it into the new garden. There’s no point in wasting perfectly good sod! I’m glad my husband is a patient man, and doesn’t mind the mess involved with killing the grass the slow way. Good things come to those who wait 🙂

I hope you don’t have too long to wait for blooms in your garden!
Dana