The end of April already

This month has zipped right along, actually this year so far has been zipping. Our heat and humidity our starting up. It’s the time of year you just want to hibernate, from 11 a.m. on. I like to get out as early as possible. A lot of you are just being able to start planting as your last frost days are behind you and I know you are so ready to play in your gardens.

Thank you all so much for your kind comments about my last post and my little video. It was fun to do and I look forward to making more.

Yesterday I went to HD to buy some spackling and some ready mixed grout. Of course, I ‘had’ to go through the garden dept. and 4 little pots of herbs that were on sale came home with me. Two bee balm, 1 stevia and 1 Mexican tarragon. Then I went further on down the road to drop off some boxes at GoodWill. That felt great. 

I kept going on down the road until I came to the little nursery I’ve passed the past few years, but never visited as I don’t go out that far west much. Since they’ve done some building up around it you almost don’t see it anymore. It’s a narrow property but about 1 acre and full of plants. It is rather on the ‘wild side’, kind of like Plum Cottage Gardens. If I had unlimited funds I would have bought more than I did, but alas I held myself in check. The lady who worked there was sweet and has worked there for 15 years. Another lady works in the afternoon. There were also 2 felines hanging around. One let me pet it and she said he liked me because he hardly lets anyone do that.

Here are the plants I bought: 2 ‘Drift’ roses, one coral and one pink, (she gave me one that had no flowers that was looking worse for wear). 3 geraniums, 2 are purple and the other is reddish/purple. One reddish/purple Buddlia, and one plant I’d never heard of or seen before, X Ruttyruspolia or Ruddy Rose Pink.

Ruddy Rose Pink ~ You can read about this plant here. Butterflies love it as well as other insects.

Buddlia ~ I love the honey scent of these. Butterflies were all over it this morning.

Geraniums ~ the purple ones have waxy like leaves. I got these for $1 each.

‘Drift’ roses. I really like the pink.  These aren’t going to stay in the antique concrete containers as the one is in the shade and roses like sunlight. I have not seen these roses before.  Googled them when I got home and I’m happy with my purchase. These both have more buds and you can read about them here. I’m hoping the one I got for free is the pink. Time will tell.

There is a possibility that I might work at this nursery, mostly the afternoon shift. I gave her my name and number. I was all excited about that yesterday afternoon, but this morning I got to thinking about how hot and humid it is here in the summers and I just don’t know if I could handle sitting in the little open sales area with no shade over head covering the roof. Not to mention mosquitoes. I’d have to find something natural to take care of mosquitoes as I don’t want to smear myself with chemicals. Anyway, if it is meant to be, it will happen. If not something else will come along.

I really like this area of plants against my newly painted cottage. I’m planning to paint the hanging bird cage the aqua color. It will really stand out then. You can see my 4 little herb plants sitting on the top shelf, waiting to be repotted.

Here are some other blooms growing in my gardens.

Golden Rod that I bought last spring. This one is a Florida native.

A lovely pink hibiscus.

Some orchids that are in bloom.

That’s it for now. Tomorrow morning I hope to get out early to repot some plants. It’s also one of my days to water plants with the sprinkler, which I move from area to area, using a kitchen timer set for about 15-20 minutes each section.

Next week I hope to do some spackling, grouting and painting inside. I need to finish up the bathroom, for one thing, and work on other walls in rest of house too.

Whatever you are up to, wherever you are, I wish you God’s love & peace.

Have a great weekend ~ FlowerLady

Thank you

Hi Folks ~ First of all, thank you for all of your kind wishes and prayers. It’s been since the 8th of April that I’ve done a real post. It might be the longest I’ve gone and today I felt ready to post again.

Secondly, I want to thank Debbie Harris of She Graces Her Home in God’s Beauty, for the lovely give away that I won.

Inside was a lovely journal, to the right below, and beautiful beaded writing pen, both of which will be used for gardening notes.

A lovely note pad, a wonderful gift set from Camille Beckman that is lavender scented. Oh so nice.  

A sweetly painted rock with the word Trust, a gentle reminder to keep my trust in Jesus. 

Look at the sweet little ‘Hydrangea Lady’.  Isn’t she adorable? She makes me feel happy.

And a lovely 3 CD colletion of praise music that blesses my heart.

Thursday morning I ‘was’ going to do some indoor things, but then felt the ‘need’ to get out of the house, so since I have a year’s membership to the Mount’s Botanical Gardens, that’s where I headed.  It was just what I needed to help nourish me, body, soul and spirit. There was a really nice breeze, the temp was nice, some cloud cover, just perfect.

I only took my smart phone to take pics with and of course, I ran out of battery power. I did get some nice pics though. Couldn’t see the screen very well in bright sunlight though and unbeknownst to me, I took a couple of weird videos. I look forward to going again, it’s about 20 minutes from here. I took some more gift $ with me and ended up with 10 plants for $49. I spent almost a couple hours there.

Most of the plants, if not all, are for butterflies. Lantana – multicolored, Cuphea – orange, Twinkle Pink, and Sriracha Rose, Candlestick Senna Alata – yellow, Sunshine of the Gods – yellow, Lions Ears – orage, Angel Trumpet – peachy/pink, Tropical Lilac – purple, and another plant I don’t even know what it is. I forgot to write the name down, so right now it is a mystery. 

The plants are the ones below sitting on the bench.

Here are a few pics from the gardens at the Mounts.

Here is the main entrance with a little fountain. I took this photo looking through the gate as the gardens weren't open yet.

One of the larger views.

I’m not sure what this is. Maybe a ginger, but I don’t really know.  This was in the herb garden. I thought she said it was a coriander, but that isn’t what this is.

This is a vanilla bean flower. It was a huge vine with leather stem and leaves.

This was called a Mouse Trap tree.  Leaves are velvety and huge and the flowers are huge too.

Angel trumpet. They had several of these in this color and in pure white. I had one like this many years ago, but lost it in a time of drought.

 

It seems like this was a jasmine of some sort, but I’m not sure. Flowers are large on this also.

Some of my flowers here at Plum Cottage.

Amaryllis

Confederate jasmine ~ this is absolutely wonderful. 

only blooms in the spring and I look forward to it every year.

Garlic vine with purple blooms

Barnhouse Rose

Bermuda’s Kathleen rose

Yesterday morning I did grocery shopping and bought some potting soil.

This morning I repotted all the plants I got and moved them to where I want them for now. I have to keep everything where I can keep an eye on them as to water needs. We’ve not had rain for a couple of weeks now and what I don’t hand water or the sprinkler waters, is browning up. Rain has been predicted and predicted and is predicted, so far nothing. We’ll see what happens this afternoon.  It is clouding up, so hopefully we’ll get some liquid sunshine.

After I got done repotting, I thought I’d try making a little video, for the fun of it. Very amateurish, but I did it and figured out how to upload it to my you-tube account.

It ought ot give you a little chuckle. I need to learn not to hem & haw, if you know what I mean. It is my first, so hopefully the next one will be much better.

That’s it for now.

I hope you all have lovely weekends doing outdoor things in the nice weather, spring in the US, and autumn in the land down under.

Thanks again for your kindness,

FlowerLady

Please excuse all the weirdness with the post set up. I do not like using blogger, but had to in order to insert my little you tube video. I'm too pooped now to mess with it anymore.

Somedays…

this is how I feel.

Photo from  La Maison Gray Garden

I will be back. Taking a little break, trying to get my motivation back.

FlowerLady

Need a good laugh?

 

Cats scared of cucumbers.

Out of my comfort zone

Well, today I had an adventure. I drove north a little over 30 miles and took the turnpike. I am used to driving between 35-55 miles an hour, mostly the 35-45 mph. I’ve not been on the turnpike since DH and I went to NC 10 years ago. I am a ‘home body’ so going on this little trek was a huge deal to timid me.

First I had to get a ticket, then I stopped to take a picture. Then I had to make sure I was heading north, then freaked out because I had to ‘merge’ into the speeding traffic. Someone was nice enough to slow down as I stepped on the gas and let this little aging ‘flowerlady’ into the stream. Sheesh!

As I was driving along, gripping the steering wheel with all my might, I was looking for a speed limit sign. When I saw one, I gasped and said “70 mph”. I then pushed harder on my gas pedal and finally made it up to 60, then 65, and finally 70, and even a little over, eased back down when I realized my foot had gotten heavier on the pedal. I was comfortable around 65, well, as comfortable as I can be racing along like that.

I went to see my BIL so that we could do my taxes. His workplace is halfway between where we both live. He could do multiple returns on his tax program, so I wouldn’t have to buy a program this year. It didn’t take long to do my taxes, and then we went to lunch at Park Ave. BBQ. Nice lunch and visiting, talking about projects he’s going to help me with here at home.

I am so glad to have the taxes behind me, now I can get on with my little life here at ‘Plum Cottage’.

This past Tuesday, one of the men from my church, called me and said, he  could change out my toilet that afternoon, if I was available. The one I had, had had a bolt in the tank rust and break off, tank wobbly, and a slow leak, plus it didn’t flush well at all, and the seat was low. I had been Googling toilets, came up with one that I liked, and HD had 5 of them last week.  They didn’t have any that day. The man checked his HD and the website said there were 3 of them. We headed off in his car, having a nice chat on the way. We go to the toilet section, and could not find any, and neither could the help. I started looking for an alternative.  He told me he had 2 American Standard Cadet 3’s in his home and was very satisfied with them. The price was $50 cheaper than the one I had looked at, and I decided to go with it. It even came with the quiet closing lid, and was ‘comfort height’.

Back home, out came the old, in went the new and I ‘love’ it.  It is a cutie-patootie and just right for this cottage. It uses 1.28 gal of water to flush, flushes fast and I laugh everytime the lid closes quietly and the flush happens. I am  so thankful for my new toilet.

Yesterday I went to HD to get some caulking for around the base of toilet which doesn’t quite cover the old cut out in the lino floor. I also checked out ooops paint to see if they had anything I might use for a new paint job in the little room. –0- So, I went to the paint colors, went back and forth with colors. A light peach is on the walls now, which I like but it needed to be freshened up. The color I chose has a little more ‘red’ in it, so that it is a pinkish color called Cherubic, I think.

I had tried a peach color of paint that we had that was an old can, paint still good, but smelled a little off, and the color was way to garish. I hope this color will be nice once the whole space is painted.  If not, I’ll tweak the color a bit. I need to clean the walls first, then paint, that I plan to do next week.

You can see the three colors in the photo above to the right of the toilet.

Before Ted left Tuesday, he fixed my lock plate on kitchen/entry door, so that I can use it again. YAY. I am so thankful for help from my church family. I’ve never had to have help before, DH and I did everything ourselves. I always appreciated and thanked him for all that he did around here, and now that he’s gone, I appreciate all of his hard work all the more.

(Speaking of DH, I had two different dreams the other night, where he ‘showed’ me three sweet words, in two different ways. He did not say anything, just showed me the words, I Love You. Needless to say, I woke up feeling happy. I miss him more than words can express, but we will be reunited again one day.)

Dear BIL will be cutting some baseboard for the walls of bathroom.  We’re also going to put more faux beadboard paneling up in the bedroom and do some other trim work in there. It all takes time, and he works a full-time job and his commute to work is a couple of hours at least each day.  I am very thankful for all that he has done for me and continues to do. I know my DH is thankful too.

-------

Now for some flowers.

Hibiscus with a Spanish Needle bloom in the back ground. SN’s are a ‘weed’, but a great butterfly attractor.  DH did NOT like them at all as their seed heads stick to your clothing, and they spread like crazy and are hard to pull up, once they get established. I have a mini field of them, plus they come up all over. I pull up a LOT of them, getting them when they are young they are easier to pull up.

I love the colors of this frangipani.  Bought last spring/summer.

There are buds on my two normal gardenia bushes, and buds also on my ‘Tahitian’ gardenia. Roses have buds too. I have new growth on an angel trumpet that I got as a cutting. Got six of them, but only two have rooted and are growing.  I think they are yellow varieties.

Let’s see, remember Miss Rosie.  Well she left us something we’d rather she hadn’t. Fleas. I should have thought about that before bringing her in here, but alas, hind sight is 20/20. I’ve been dusting the place with diatemacious earth, vacuuming, combing Miss Tork for fleas, which did help but she was still being attacked. I ordered some Advantage II and it came yesterday afternoon. I opened a tube and put it on her. At first she was going nuts as the fleas seemed to be attacking in ernest. But, this morning she was calmer, and today she has slept on my bed and hardly scratched at all.  Bless her little heart. She has her appetite back, is more relaxed and we are both so thankful.

Here she is below. I woke her up by coming into the room. She’s my little sweetie pie and I am thankful for her.

Tonight we both should get a good sleep. She from fleas not hassling her and me being worn out from my adventure, and didn’t get to take my nap today.

Hope you all have a nice weekend. I will post more bathroom pics when the job is done, hopefully in the next week or so.

Love & hugs ~ FlowerLady

***

If you count all your assets,

you always show a profit.

Robert Quillen

 

Roses that speak to my heart

Good evening Friends ~ I hope you all had a nice weekend, some of you have gotten later winter weather, frigid temps, winds and more snow. For some of us, we are starting to feel early summer temps and down here, more humidity.

The last couple of days I’ve been viewing roses on pinterest and made my own board titled “Roses that speak to my heart”. I have been pinning roses and then took a look at my freshly created board and WOW. In eternity, I hope to have a beautiful rose garden where there will be no disease for them, if they have thorns, we will not be pricked. Just had an idea, maybe they won’t have thorns because they won’t be needed to protect them from predators.

https://www.pinterest.com/flowerladylor/roses-that-speak-to-my-heart/ 

I really ‘love’ roses. They just do something to me that I can’t really describe. I am so thankful to my DH for all of the roses I have grown, am growing and will grow.

Here are some favorites from 2012.

That’s it for now. My heart is full.

FlowerLady

“The rose speaks of love silently,

in a language known only to the heart.” 

-Anonymous