More rain, yay

 

Winter 2011

Things certainly were a lot greener in 2011. A lot of perennials  stayed green all winter.. It was a disconcerting winter.

winter 2013

 

I had plans this morning to dig in more compost and get things ready for planting, but delayed by blessed rain.  It is in the 40's and I love to be out in the garden when it is like this. Maybe I can do a bit this afternoon. It has been looking like a repeat of 2011 when Texas had extreme heat and drought and grass fires all over.

This will be a good day to check out just what I want to plant.  The nurseries are not carrying a lot as of yet. I hope to make use of the time and plan what and where things will go.  Almost all of the plants I salvaged and put into pots are doing well.  I may have too much of a good thing if they all survive and make good plants.  If so, I will try to find someone to share with.

most of these are mums and to the left are lavenders

a few surviving lavender

Just a little rain

Sunday morning and woke up to lightening and thunder.  I'm not sure how much we got but it is sure welcome.
I had worked on the cone flower bed and dug in a whole bag of compost. Just in time to get soaked and settle down..
I am anxious to see what I can do to resurrect the garden.
Part of the process is to decide what anti rabbit plants I can use.  Some plants get too large and would defeat the cone flower plan.  It would be so wonderful to be able to take the fence down!!  I can take it down now since nothing is green.
That is my task for today. Take the wire part down and maybe leave the posts. Hope it is not too wet to work.

This picture was taken early October. The landscape cloth wrapped around the fence is a bit more tattered now.

Found this photo from spring 2010.  California poppies among the cone flowers. This looks like as good as it gets. Unfortunately, the poppies (not these California but the corn poppy) hadn't really gotten going yet and I blew it big time by letting them get the upper hand.

I did get one other task done.  Something I love to do even though the plants may not be as healthy as new ones, it gives me no end of satisfaction to plant something I salvaged and watch it grow.

A few sprigs of lavender and one tall one, the rest are Country girl mum.  I am reworking the mum bed with compost and additives

Productive morning

I haven't worked on my bunny repellant plants but did spend a productive morning.

The temperature is about 46 degrees and good chance for rain.  We need it.  I took this opportunity to finish cutting back 2 of my landscape grasses.  What a messy chore and a little too windy.  I will be cleaning up grass cuttings all summer.

I am concerned that I should probably replace this ravenna  grass.

I whacked off the taller grass blades with a hedge trimmer.  It was certainly a lot faster than trying to cut with a pair of scissors. More than likely, the hole in the middle of this clump is due to not cutting back short enough.

This is a second grass that I cut back.  The weeds? Poppies. They were hiding under the grass growth from last year. 

Plans for spring

My mind never stops gardening. When I was working, I could spend an entire day (at least 8 hours) in the garden and yard. This was usually on the weekends. Now, I manage 3 hours and try to husband my energy by having a plan on what to work on and attempt to stay focused on just that (heh,heh)

It is hard to stay focused when there are so many tasks needing to be gotten to. I realized this morning that the biggest task is the RABBITS. The critters have been around all winter. The trashy looking fenced in area left over from last summer is a wreck. It needs a lot of work. I spent an hour yesterday cleaning only one side of the little area. Muttering and fussing about how had I let things get so out of hand. The day was perfect, overcast and in the low 60's.

Later that afternoon, I spotted the long eared pests and resolved then and there that first on the agenda is selecting plants that (might) repel them or at least be distasteful enough to go elsewhere for goodies,from my lists I made last fall. That being said, next is to clean out the mulch, weeds and trash and add compost. No small chore.
We have a pickup now and I am going to see about getting a load of compost instead of bags. Bags are always easier to handle but cost wise, it is cheaper when you need at least 10 bags. Getting the compost from the truck to the garden area may be a problem since the moles have completely undermined my sandy yard and the truck may bog down................. Also on the agenda?? Getting back to the fitness center and getting in shape.

So, time to find the list and make plans for what and how many of each plant I need.  I haven't had much luck over the years with seeds and don't plan to start now.

These stones came from New Mexico they are so interesting to look at when it rains

Poppy story

Early days of loving this flower

      

This is the story of a love hate relationship with one flower.

This is the wildflower not the oriental.  Officially named Corn Poppy, Flanders Poppy and several others.

When I started my south side of the house gardens, I was still in the wildflower mode.  We have half an acre that used to be filled with flowers in the spring, summer and fall. There were blue periods,yellow periods and then lavender.

They are not so plentiful now. Weather, critters and over spray from a lawn (no weeds) fanatic neighbor have all seriously affected the flowers.  At one time we were blessed with a field of more than a dozen types of wildflowers.

I still love these bright red clusters of flowers in spring. I had the mistaken idea I could incorporate the clusters in my new gardens.  They are very easy to transplant. They bloom like mad for over a month. This is usually around the time the bluebonnets are blooming. They also have tiny seeds that blow all over and reseed quite prolifically.
 

Beginnings of garden

Corn poppy, California poppy

In my mind I could see the gardens layout.

 I had a "shape" of the future layout in my head for a long time.  So, I laid a path, planted a Ravenna Grass and started moving flowers around from other parts of the yard.

The lavender plant is a very aggressive wild verbena

I accumulated plants and kept them going in pots of all kinds for future transplanting.


























The grassy area behind the flowers is where the wildflowers were.  Now, the pervasive grass has taken over and gets taller than most of the poor wildflowers.

Taken April 2011 before everything is in full flower

April 2011, this is the same area as the earlier photos

As you can see, the poppies are scattered all over.  They are so pretty that I do try to keep a few blooming and then pull them out before they go to seed.  It is hard to yank out a lovely flower, but the tiny seeds seem to germinate from previous years anyway.

This was a hard lesson to learn.  I am not proud of this picture. After pulling out all the beautiful poppies, this is what was left. The poppies grew so large they shaded the cone flower seeds and no new cone flowers is the result.  I am still struggling to have a garden full of cone flowers.

......

I took these just a bit past daylight. The sun was in "just the right place".  My little Canon camera does surprising stuff sometimes

Creative people

Inspiration comes from many sources.  Bloggers of any stripe are a fascinating group.
One of my favorite bloggers is FlowerLady's Musings. Click on Where I Create.

She is a wonderful photographer, which is what I like most.  She has a busy blog some subjects are not of interest., but then some are lovely. Haven't read all of her archives yet.
She also creates beautiful needle work. One of my passions as well. She has pictures of her workplace that cause me to marvel how she can create in such a tiny space.

I have been lamenting the clutter in my semi-organized computer/guest room.
When you live in a small house and have many interests, things can slowly get cluttered and look like a scene from The Hoarders TV show.
Clutter makes me twitchy and I get sidetracked from what I was originally going to do.
That said, this blogger took pictures of her space. It is 8x6 feet. Her house is about 700 sq. feet?  With shelves that go to the ceiling. Due to copyright laws, I cannot show the pictures here. You can see them on her blog. Where does she put her ironing board? Where is the printer and all the accumulated paper? Where does she pay her bills?

I am still learning the blogger dos and don'ts. I see other blogs with long lists of links, so I think this is ok.

My space is 9x10. My house is about 1200 sq.ft. While her space has shelves up to the ceiling and over desks and such.  They are all crammed with interesting mix of books, boxes, and decorator items.

In looking at the pictures of her space, I keep thinking maybe I could learn to live with my crafts and needlework in boxes on my bookcase shelves, along with books and favorite things.

This is a challenge I am not sure I can master. The main reason? I can become frantic and obsessively search for something and waste a whole lot of precious time. I want to be able to just go to the item, idea or what ever without digging through boxes without labels. Granted, having the whole stash all in one place may be better than under the bed and in closets.

I have tried different ways of storing things I do. have started, tools that were so clever for sewing or quilting. Take for example Christmas. I love Christmas ideas. Have tons of fabric in the closet. I have 2 boxes with Christmas ideas that migrate from one room to another, depending on where I stopped working on them. So, I know where these things are.  Well then, why do I wait until 2 weeks before Christmas to haul things out and start working to finish a project from last year?  This has been a yearly pattern. I have a Christmas quilt in a 10 year old magazine, I could work on piecing all year and still haven't started. I reeeely want to make this quilt. Right now, I don't have a clue where it is.

Her idea of having everything on bookshelves, in plain sight in plastic containers and such.  Everything is crammed on shelves in plain sight.  (twitch, twitch)
Right over her head. (twitch)
Oh well, maybe I could hang curtains over the stuff? Maybe have cabinets lining one wall (a lot of money to build) to hide the stuff? (twitch, twitch)
Sigh. In one of her photos, she is serenely doing needle work under a wall of stuff. (twitch.........twitch)
twi........................maybe not.

I don't want to think about it.  Not at all! Sigh.

Maison Decor8.blog

this is a blog that fascinates me and I love the name.

old windowcreations


This blog has great photos for building a conservatory.
I have dreams of making my own garden conservatory.  I can see it in my garden. Not that it will perch on a granite block as hers is.  Cinderblock? Concrete slab? Wooden shipping pallet?

The windows are for sale at my favorite flea market, Canton,Texas.  They are, unfortunately, more expensive (25$ a window)since I first saw them in this creative idea. At that time windows were selling for $5.00 with all the panes intact. I figure at 25 dollars for one window, 6 would cost $150.00. Need to search for cheaper windows.  "Good Luck"  What happens to a new creative idea is that sometimes it catches on and vendors at flea markets are aware of the "new kid on the block". They are selling a product to make money and I can understand that.


I first saw this idea done with broken china embellishment some years ago at Canton and cannot get the idea out of my mind.  The lady's blog has been closed down and now am searching for any information on how to do these creations.

when I came upon her booth at the flea market, i was blown away with the creativity.
I let too much time pass and am on my own.

I did a bit of searching and did find her work.  This is from a great web site I wasn't even aware of! Check it out.

Robomargo (for the china creativity site)


The link at the top of the page (old window creations) gives good instructions and pictures for basic building.  I don't know if I can ever replicate the broken china designs of the first designer/builder...............nice to dream about.

with my garden now sort of established...........................barring moles, heat, drought, age (mine), money, and sources for supplies, I yearn to make at least one...  Maybe I should put this idea on my to do list for the new year.
I should print off a picture and put it up on the wall as a reminder of what I think would be a wow factor in  my garden.

Now that I have found one or two of her creations, I will print them and put them on my wall for inspiration for the new year.

OK, cannot stop here; looking for one thing always leads to new places.....This blog is wonderful.
Dishfunctional Design 
Arrow down through the great pictures of her ideas until you see one of an old shovel against a picket fence.  To the right of this picture is a list of Popular Posts of other bloggers.
Well, gee, I didn't intend this to be a post of recommendations of other bloggers.  It just took on a life of its own.

I don't know if I will continue sharing Blogs and web sites, but it is such fun.