Disappointing my Guru…

I started my back yard patio/garden with not just good intentions, but also with firm resolution.  I laid a patio, tilled the ground, added topsoil.  I started seedlings in the house and tended them carefully.  After I planted things, I hovered like a mother hen, plucking offending weeds and watering religiously….

Then life and summer hit.  It became not just warm, but HOT.  Scorchingly hot.  So hot that being outdoors drained me of any ability to DO anything.  I spent my summer in my air conditioned home.

And this is the result…

I know she’d be pleased that it’s growing…. but my failure to weed and control the Amaranthus would certainly not make her happy!

I think I need to weed this evening, when the temperature FINALLY drops below 30 degrees!

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have.  I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.

Guest Blogger – In Roxane’s Garden (Part Four)

I’m thrilled to be able to introduce you to my friend, creative mentor and gardening guru, Roxane.  She’s helping me out by being a guest blogger while I’m recovering. 

Some things you need to know about Roxane.  She’s absolutely one of the most vibrantly creative people I know.  She’s a Master Seamstress (and makes her living manipulating fabric and thread), a generous hostess and a whiz with her camera.  Her websites are Creative Clothing by Roxane, and Sewing the Titanic.  Please take the time to visit.

Roxane has one of the most exuberant, welcoming gardens I have ever seen.  Have a visit, why don’t you?

Part One of “In Roxane’s Garden”

Part Two of “In Roxane’s Garden”

Part Three of “In Roxane’s Garden”

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Here are pictures of some of my garden flowers at different times of the summer.Azalea A coloured squash grew under the dahlias!"Honeysuckle vine: Lonicera. Some of my hibiscus.Bouquet from my Stargazer lilies and carnations.Stamens of Tiger Lily. My woodland Cactus in flower.  The biggest flowers there are as big as my hand.

Butterfly weed.

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And that’s it for today’s post!  Tomorrow, there will be more beautiful photos of Roxane’s garden.

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have.  I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.

Guest Blogger- In Roxane’s Garden (Part 2)

I’m thrilled to be able to introduce you to my friend, creative mentor and gardening guru, Roxane.  She’s helping me out by being a guest blogger while I’m recovering. 

Some things you need to know about Roxane.  She’s absolutely one of the most vibrantly creative people I know.  She’s a Master Seamstress (and makes her living manipulating fabric and thread), a generous hostess and a whiz with her camera.  Her websites are Creative Clothing by Roxane, and Sewing the Titanic.  Please take the time to visit.

Roxane has one of the most exuberant, welcoming gardens I have ever seen.  Have a visit, why don’t you?

Part One of “In Roxane’s Garden”

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My flower beds are not neat, well-aligned French or Italian style gardens. My style is more correctly described as *English Country*. That is a polite way of describing the rather intuitive and haphazard way I plant things. I don’t really plan in rows and I really like TALL plants, not the little tiny low things most people have in their beds. I prefer to put things where they are most likely to grow if there is a bare spot. And I try to make a pleasant arrangement within the confines of their needs. If they make it to next year and the next, it makes me happy. Sometimes they will grow well but not flower… so I make a mental note to move them to an opposite sun-level place for the next season.

 I like to think that I don’t put that much energy in my garden but I guess I do in the spring. Once everything has started growing though, I let it do as best it can with occasional watering only. Some years I can weed the extras out more often but other years there is less time for that if my *real* workload becomes heavier.

 The bishop’s sleeves languished for 3 years before*taking* and now I am pulling it out constantly. It’s a tedious job as it runs underground at about a 3 cm depth and unless you pull the whole runner it grows back within about 3 days. Both the all-green and variegated types grow well anywhere… They produce tiny umbrella-shaped bunches of flowers with no scent on the ends of long stalks that tower over the plant by at least a foot. Rather a good display when there is a continuous border of them or a large clump. Not as pretty if there is just one here and there!

 The thyme has had some difficulty but I still have a patch or two that enchant me when I brush my hand over it to release its smell! I have many other plants that smell really nice when brushed: the cranesbill geranium is one. Then there is Artemisia in two forms. Both grow silvery grey-green: they are in the Dusty Miller family and are very feathery and delicate! I make fall wreaths with them to scent the entrance hallway. Another very pleasantly perfumed and eager grower is mint. I have 4 kinds: peppermint, spearmint, penny royal and *another* one! Mint is not grown for its flowers: they are minute and not very pretty I must say! I harvest it in the fall and dry it upside down in the darkest corner of my mud room: it gets used to cook with over the winter and also *naturally* freshens the air for many months.

 I also harvest oregano for the same reasons. It gets hung in another corner of the same room. As I grow many herbs, I cut and save many of them. It smells good in the kitchen when I first bring in all these bunches. And there is good cooking had as we use the drying leaves over the winter. I grow celeriac, basil, dill, coriander, parsley, chives and sage. This year I added garlic, courtesy of a very good friend who gave me several bulbs to plant in early spring. I discovered that oregano is a perennial, as well as parsley and chives! They now spot the entire grounds with their offspring! Both at the front and the back of the house! Its cool to have edible plants in amongst the flowering decorative ones! I taught my children very young which were safe to eat and which to avoid… They never got sick!! I guess I was lucky! 

 I never used ginger much in my cooking: only at Christmas, but Justin (my husband) gets fresh ginger and uses it in many of the meals he prepares. One day I noticed a root we got had a germinating bud on it and so,, of course, I planted it. That was 4 years ago! We have eaten some of the ginger I now grow and I keep two tubers every year to grow. They are not fancy plants and have a funny little flower, but I enjoy that I am able to grow them!!

I like the idea of growing unusual plants, or difficult plants. I also really like it when I manage to make tropical plants flower… That is only usually achieved in greenhouses. But I have brought my old Dracaena, several Asparagus ferns, Hoya and a Coffee plant to flower in my living room and that is so cool!

 Coffee beans.

The garden has a wild and overgrown appearance at first. I have often called it *hairy*. It was especially so in the first years of trying to grow things in there. But it is finally coming together in a smoother kind of way. Especially since we put the pond in! We dug a pond in the front yard 5 years ago. I keep Koi and Goldfish in it.

 I have planted 5 water lilies and several decorative grasses in and around it. I worry and fret about its water level which tends to give me a lot of grief when I first start the pond again in spring. I have built and rebuilt the falls more times than I can remember now.

 This year’s version of the rebuilt falls.

 But I digress.

 My garden grows every year… not just the plants that are already there, but the space it takes. I should have said expands! I recently have started cutting up the ground on the other side of our driveway as it is always in the sun. That patch now has Cana lilies, Dahlias, a Linden Tree, oregano and gladiolas in it. The Cana, Dahlias and Glads require removal in the fall… a little work. I also added some tulips there. This year I will be pulling most of the tulip bulbs out form everywhere they are, as they require a *rest* and cleaning and replanting because I observed that they didn’t flower much this spring. I ordinarily have dozens of them up and happy but they didn’t do that this year.

 Last fall I had to prune my relatively young wild rose bushes. I decided to see if I could get the trimmings to grow and planted 3-4 *sticks* in each of 10 holes along the front edge of the yard. It was exciting to see at least one of each group had sprouted leaves and was growing this spring! I gave many to my neighbour… They haven’t fared as well, sad to say.

Several years ago I had to move many of my walkway peonies to a new location as we were repaving the walkway… I planted them closer to the house. They struggled for 4 years or more. Last year I decided to move them to the back garden, where they would be in the sun all day long and I am very happy to say they are about to flower too!! They surround two new rhododendron bushes I got last spring. Today I photographed their flowers too. This is exciting because I have read it is difficult to overwinter those in our climate. We protected them with simple *sandwich boards* or tents. We took those off in March when we had a heat wave… quickly followed by the usual weather for April and I thought I had lost my rhodos… But they bounced back and will do nicely!!

  Rhododendron this year!

I get a few annuals every year to have constant colour on our deck and in a few spots in the front garden. The rest of the garden flowers in sporadic phases from spring tulips and daffodils to the fall mums and asters. I would like to enumerate all the flowers and plants I have now… but I don’t know the names of everything I’ve collected!

It always surprises me to see the abundance in my garden. It is so ugly just after the thaw. It’s a muddy area, with rocks strewn across it. They mark more or less where I have some special things. I watch how slowly at first, a few little brown or reddish points appear… always delighted to welcome an old favourite and sometimes disappointed that a particular one didn’t make it. After a couple of weeks there is a sudden surge of green everywhere at once!

 View of the pond from the inside. Next: View of the front path from inside.

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Liz here…  Walking down that little path to Roxane’s front door is always an adventure.  No matter how swiftly I move on the pavement, I just have to slow down when I hit the path, just to experience all of the beauty there.  When it’s in full bloom, the surrounding growth is higher than my waist and the scents are enchanting.

More of “In Roxane’s Garden” tomorrow!

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have.  I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.

Guest Blogger- In Roxane’s Garden (Part 1)

I’m thrilled to be able to introduce you to my friend, creative mentor and gardening guru, Roxane.  She’s helping me out by being a guest blogger while I’m recovering. 

Some things you need to know about Roxane.  She’s absolutely one of the most vibrantly creative people I know.  She’s a Master Seamstress (and makes her living manipulating fabric and thread), a generous hostess and a whiz with her camera.  Her websites are Creative Clothing by Roxane, and Sewing the Titanic.  Please take the time to visit.

Roxane has one of the most exuberant, welcoming gardens I have ever seen.  Have a visit, why don’t you?

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 I have always loved planting things. Where that comes from is anybody’s guess: my mother only had a few plants in the house: a dracaena, a sansevieria and a couple of violets. They were the fashionable plants in those days!! Our yards were not gardens: neither of my parents was much inclined to planting flowers or anything at all. We had a weeping willow in the back yard and a privet hedge at the front. The willow was not actually what we planted. My father bought a poplar sapling which got blown over in a bad storm one summer and a neighbour came over to help. She strapped the sapling to a stick she had lying about her garden…. And THAT is what grew whilst the poplar withered away. It was a branch she had cut from her willow! This has stayed with me all my life! That was the most amazing thing!!!

 I can remember buying seed packets in spring on my trips for groceries with my mother. I invariably picked alyssum and hollyhocks with occasional marigolds and sweet peas. I had visions of glorious plants soaring over my head: for the hollyhocks at least. I discovered that alyssum and sweet pea really smelled nice. Marigolds just had flowers later in the season with an exotic, cloying scent… not a rose that, but intriguing nonetheless. For an eight to ten year old, that was all that counted. That lovely house in the suburbs had large expanses of sunny garden which made it almost impossible for things to go wrong!

 We moved to the city the summer I turned 14. The new house had a very small and shady garden which was good for the lily of the valley my Mum loved so much. As well as for daylilies, some violet irises and sedum. There was an extravagant weigelia at the front near the steps to the front door. It flowered twice a summer if the flowers were removed after the first spring budding. I sub-consciously decided to have one of those as soon as I could!! This picture below is of my weigelia this year.

 I was exposed to roses, peonies, thyme, hydrangea, ephemeris, lily of the valley and variegated *bishop’s sleeves* at our summer cottage as well as many wild flowers and more subdued *ground cover* things. One of my aunts was the gardener there. The lily of the valley grew under a very large old oak tree. The rest of the plants grew on the top terrace in the sun in very sandy soil. To this day I love the scent of thyme! When the cottage was sold close to 20 years ago I was allowed to make away with some thyme and some bishop’s sleeves as well as one peony and one rose bush.

 In this picture of a peony you can also see some variegated Bishop’s Sleeves.

 But before that, I had already discovered inside gardening!! In my late teens, I got a job in a flower shop called The Flower Pot. There I learned about tropical plants as well as flower arranging. My dad had a few books about tropical plants and I read them inside out and back to front. I became the plant doctor at work. The one they sent to the homes and apartments of people having trouble with their plants. I would bring the small sick ones, the ones that weren’t bought, home from the shop and got them growing again. The owners often told me to not bother bringing them back and that was the start of my indoor jungle. I still have many of those now! They have grown to large plants that go outside for 3 months in the summer and purify the air in our home all winter long. I recently had to dispose of a jade plant I got way back then: I kept some of its tips and they are growing very well. The princess philodendron from the shop is still growing… it has been transferred from pot to pot and home to home and is still hanging in there!

From reading about those plants I went to learning about herbs and garden plants as well as wildflowers. My best education came from actually experimenting with everything. I had very little money to spare on plants at first. So I would buy the last ones at half price or less and I also brought many wildflowers home from the woods and fields near my first house.

I have moved twice since I got the plants from the cottage… The roses didn’t survive the first transplanting. The thyme did better and somehow, the peony survived two moves! They don’t like being moved at all and it’s preferable to do that in the fall!!

I moved to my present home 13 summers ago. It has a large front yard that contained a sadly overgrown and unkempt cherry tree which didn’t flower the first two years I was here… There was dying Forsythia which I pulled out, a huge purple lilac and about 8 old peonies along the front walkway as well as 4 other well-established peonies along the living room window. The back yard had nothing except for non-variegated bishop’s sleeves and a row of honeysuckles between two gigantic maple trees.

This is the front garden near the house, looking from the driveway towards the pond which is under the cherry tree. To the extreme right you can see some of my indoor tropical plants on their summer holiday. This was taken early June.

  This is my house from across the road. The cherry tree is in flower and hardly anything has grown yet along the pathway. This was taken early May.

Since then, the gardens have taken a rather different course. I cleaned up and pruned back the cherry tree in the fall and was rewarded with a glorious display of dark pink flowers every spring ever since!!! I’ve even been asked if neighbours’ daughters could come for their prom pictures aside it!! And I now face more garden than lawn… covered in plants I brought in from the woods nearby or have bought at various nurseries, hardware stores and local plant sales or got from other avid gardeners.

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This is just a taste of her garden.  There’s much more, so come back.  Roxane’s garden will continue tomorrow. 

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have.  I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.

Fantabulous Friday!

Earlier this week, I intended to walk around the condo complex I live in to take a few photos.  It didn’t go so well, so I hobbled back home.  Hobbled, because I’m sporting a brand new accessory!

That, friends and neighbours, is an Ace bandage firmly wrapped around my pudgy little right knee.

Elegant, isn’t it?

I’m blaming this accessory for the fact that I didn’t yet get the spare room done.  After I went for X-Rays on Monday, the Ogre forbade me to do anything for two whole nights!  Ogres are like that, you know.

Originally, I thought I had wrenched my knee putting the patio in two weekends ago.  After two weeks without it getting any better, I caved and went to see my doctor.  I was actually worried that the injury was something serious…

It is, and it isn’t.  Apparently, I now have an arthritic knee.  Fortunately, medication, exercise and elevation will keep this under control.  My doctor suggested walking, but belly dancing is also a low impact usage, so I can keep dancing!  Woot!

Back to the reason I was trying to navigate my condo complex.

Folks in this complex take a LOT of pride in their homes.  The condos were built in the 70’s and really aren’t that special, but they are well maintained and groomed.   The common areas are nicely manicured and groomed.  About one unit in every 6-plex seems to have a gardener living in it.

Like the lovely, retired Diane who lives right next door to me.  Coming home this week, this is what I saw.

All of this bounty in a teeny, tiny little space!   This is all at her front door.   It makes my heart sing when I walk toward my door and see hers.  What a wonderful gift she gives me!

My front step looks NOTHING like this.  I hope it doesn’t embarass her.  I have planted perennials, so it’s a bit sparse right now.  With any luck, however, later in the summer (and all of next) it will look much better and complement hers!

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have.  I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.

For the Garden – Tutorial Tuesday

I spent the majority of the Victoria Day Weekend getting my back yard into some semblance of shape.  There will be photos, of course, but that’s not what this post is about!

As you’ll see in the reveal, my backyard is a really simple and basic space.  A small patio, some plantings and very little else.  It will need ornamentation beyond the growing things.

Suzy from Worthington Court has a wonderful article about creating a wonderful outdoor space.  As time goes by, and I have less to do in the house, I’ll be using a few of her pointers.

Ellen from Ellen’s Creative Passage replaced her torn umbrella with a drop cloth.  Here’s the result!

Meredith from Wait Til Your Father Gets Home created a planter a whimsical, fun planter.  I think something like this is going to look terrific somewhere in my back yard!

Shelley from Sew and Dipity has a wonderful walkthrough on how to get your garden ready for planting.  I maybe should have read this last one BEFORE I got into the back yard!  Ah, well… I’ll know for next year!

I’m hoping to be able to show off my back yard/patio later in the week!  Stay tuned.

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have.  I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.

Victoria Day Weekend – Day 2

For the first time in ages, I woke up early on a weekend morning!  At 7:30, I scrubbed the sleep from my eyes and poured my first coffee.  The nicest thing about being up was being able to catch up on my blog and email reading before I headed outside to till the planting areas.

When I purchased 15 bags of dirt, I honestly thought I had purchased a bit too much.

I was wrong.  Sooooo wrong. Continue reading

Victoria Day Weekend – Day 1

Saturday began with a nice, long, sleep in!  I guess I needed to catch up on myself before I got to the things I really wanted to do!

Since I had slept in and missed part of the morning, I decided to have a coffee of two in leisure… which I did.

Finally, I got to the outside.  During the hottest part of the day, of all times.  What was I thinking? Continue reading

Fabric to the rescue!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the projects that bring me the most rewarding feelings – whether it be in the planning, the doing or the enjoying afterward.  I know for some, paint is the answer to any question.  For me, it’s fabric and fibres (yarns, etc).

There’s really no surprise in that.  My Mom is a long time seamstress turned quilter.  Both of my Grandmother’s knit and crochet things of great beauty – and warmth!  My Dad is a knitter.  His Dad knew his way around a sewing machine, as well.

I started knitting when I was 18.  For about 15 years I designed and knit pretty much anything.  I used to joke with the Ogre that I could knit a couch!  I probably could, but can’t see any reason to, though.

I had to stop knitting, due to the repetitiveness of the motion.  I was experiencing too much physical discomfort in my arms, shoulders and neck.

So, I started sewing.  First by machine, then by hand.  I love working with fabric.  Feeling it in my hands as I hand sew is a relaxing, zen thing for me.  Most of my sewing is done by hand.  (I own two machines, but prefer my little needle and thread!).  I began belly dancing, and the costuming for that was exciting and thrilling.  There’s something so wonderful about taking a floppy piece of fabric and turning it into a bedlah (bra and belt) or circle skirt.

When we started planning for this move, I put my needle and fabric away for a while.  Walls need painting, furniture needs refinishing…  sewing and beading just had to be put on the back burner for a while.

Of course, I did do a bench cushion for the mudroom.  And a curtain panel for the doorway leading to the basement.  Now I’m working on some curtains for the patio door.

But I have an idea percolating in the back of my brain.  A way to use fabric to shore up the wood working skills I don’t have.  I’m hoping to experiment with that this coming weekend.  I’ll keep you posted.

I will tell you, though, that it has something to do with this lovely…

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have.  I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.

Something old, something new…

What do hollyhocks,

bleeding hearts,


and sweet peas have in common?

These are my favorite flowers from childhood.  My grandmother grew the sweet peas and bleeding hearts, and Mom always had hollyhocks up against the house.  They grew other flowers, too, but none were as pretty to me as these three.  I always promised myself that, should I ever actually have a garden, I would plant these three.

When I picked up the earth on Saturday, I also picked up sweet pea and hollyhock seeds, as well as three roots of bleeding hearts.  I know the hollyhocks won’t bloom this year, but I love the green on them!

That covers the old.  Now, to add the new.

When Mom was visiting last year, we dropped by the experimental farm and both really loved some of the ornamental grasses.  I’ve got ornamental corn and pampas grass seeding upstairs (though I’m not sure how the grass is really doing… I may have to get another pouch of seeds to throw in when I plant outside).  I’ve also picked up two other types of ornamental grass, so I’m well covered in that area!

I’m also the proud owner of four peony roots!  Peonies are probably my most favorite plant ever.  Like roses, but with full-blown abandon.  Peonies don’t care what others think, they just go full out.  (I’ll get tomato cages to house them in so the rains won’t completely crush them!)

To round out my garden shopping, I also purchased some poppy and amaranthus seeds.  I would have loved to get ferns and hostas, but I have no shade back there!

I have no idea how this is all going to come together.  I’m sort of taking a leap of faith that my work and the seeds won’t be wasted.   It’s really not a big space, so that’s all I’ll be purchasing this year – except for the mulch.  I guess I’ll have to do what farmers and gardeners have done forever… put it in the ground and pray!

I’d really love to see your comments on the projects I do and the ideas I have. I learn more from critiques than praise, but, honestly, I adore praise (and who doesn’t?).

Thanks for stopping by.