Memoral Day Weekend

In case anyone has some extra time this weekend I have 8 cubic yards of mulch to be put in the flower beds. Any takers?!?!?

Amaryllis

Here is another story. I have always been fascinated with the Amaryllis flower. I have always ordered them and enjoyed the great bloom the first year then the second year not so nice and maybe no bloom for a couple more years after that. So 3 years ago I decided to plant the bulbs on the south side of the house where my cannas continue to come back year after year. For the last 2 years they have come up and grew but this year is the first time they have bloomed. Actually this is the only one that survived this last winter. I guess it thought it better bloom or else. I am so happy it did. It is right next to the cannas that have been living through the winter for the last 5 years.

Woods out back

A couple of weeks ago after a rain shower I took the camera and went down in the woods to get pictures of the moss and ferns. Ferns and moss have fanticized me since I was a child. Not sure why. I guess part of it is how lush and green the moss gets and ferns go hand in hand with the moss.

In some of my other posts you can see all the rock I have moved out of the woods behind the house. After a couple of my rock projects were done I began to worry that I would destroy the beauty of the woods. What to do? I choose a couple areas to leave as is. Not to remove anymore rock and let nature continue doing what nature does best. I have tried to capture that in these pictures. I just love the rocks covered in the moss with the ferns sticking out of them. It reminds me of growing up on the farm during mushroom hunting season. When everything is green and lush. There were areas in the woods I could sit and admire the beauty.

One area in particular was next to Rudy's woods(neighbor) it was a triangular shaped woods and there was a big ash tree that was named Jane's mushroom tree. Jane is my sister and not real sure how she got a mushroom tree, no one else has a mushroom tree named after them. But she is the oldest of us 5 kids so she deserves her own tree. Anyway that area was the Northwest side of the hill and I always thought it was so green in the spring. The other area was the old mushroom patch, not that we had a new mushroom patch, but that area was always so green with new growth, ferns and moss. I actually buried a couple of my pets there when I was a kid because I liked that area so much. One other thing is the smell in the woods after a rain. You have the wet wood, soil and air is crisp. If only you could bottle it.

Anyway this is part of my woods I haven't disturbed too much. It is a far cry from what I remember from being a child. Hope you enjoyed my little story.

Moth

Last night I found this guy hanging on the wall on the front porch. I nick named him "The Hulk". this morning he was gone. I hope he didn't end up as some birds breakfast!!!

3rd set of garden pictures

Here are the most resent pictures from the garden. These were taken Saturday morning before I planted almost all of the additional plants that I had bought.

Garden Tour Article

Here is the article that was printed in our local gardening magazine. There are 5 gardens on the club's garden tour this year and each month since January the magazine has ran an article about one of the gardens. This is the article that was written about our garden by one of the board member of the garden club.

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I guess I better get busy and get the garden in tip top shape so I can live up to what the article says.

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I put two copies on here not knowing which one could be read the best by everyone. If you click on the picture it should enlarge it so you can read it. At least that is how I can do it. The first copy is a picture I took of the article and uploaded and the second is a scanned copy of the article.

Just wanted to share with you some pictures of the Missouri River here around Kansas City. We are lucky that the water stayed within the river banks unlike some towns I have seen on the news.

The first two pictures are from around the Argosy Casino in Riverside. One was taken from the top deck of the parking garage. The other is a park that was designed to flood when the river came up. That seems pretty smart to have a park to use 99.9% of the time and have it used as food control when needed.

Orchids

I was going through one of the photo cards for the camera and found pictures of our orchids in bloom from last winter. When I realized that I had not posted them here, or at least just a post dedicated to them.

This one we named Ophelia.












This one is named Dirk.

This is the first time he bloomed for us. We are so proud of him. We were getting worried since he didn't bloom last year but we were told it is common for them to skip a year before they bloom again. Now are the flowers have long faded and I have put them both outside for the summer. Dirk need to be in the shade all summer or his leaves will get burnt. Ophelia is more hardy she can be in part sun.

Can't wait to see if they bloom next year or if we have to wait another year.

Vist from an Oriole

Monday of this week when Scott got home from work he noticed this Oriole at our Hummingbird feeder. He opened the blinds to get a picture of it and before he new it the Oriole was pecking at the window. He called me at work because he didn't know what to do. I told him he was probable saw his shadow and thought it was another bird. He had mixed up a new batch of nectar to put in the feed because the other was a week old. Once he put the new nectar in the feeder the Oriole stopped pecking at the window. Maybe they are smarter than we think!?!?

Poppy

Two years ago I dug up some poppies that were growing at my mothers. She had had the same type of poppies as long as I can remember. Well I got them home and didn't plant them right away and they died. So I dumped the pots at the edge of the woods. Last year I was surprised to see that there was a poppy plant there and when it bloomed like my mothers I was really surprised. Now this year there are several plants with several buds/blooms. My mother was at the house this weekend and loved them planted at the edge of the woods. A happy ending to the story.

Peaceful Setting

One area of the garden that looks good as a whole right now. Someday I want to be like Gaylord(the gargles name) and just sit and gaze at the gardens. But I will have clothes on!!

Deck Accessories

If you are seeing this picture sideways please adjust your monitor or your head which ever is the easier.

Here is the deck all decked out with the new rug and fan. Isn't it amazing what they can make now days? The fan came from Sam's and the rug from Lowe's and all make to go outside. Also ordered a new top for the gazebo. Scott thinks it needs replaced. It is starting to turn green and has a few small holes along the edges. I guess he is right. I hate when he is right!!!!

Also have paint to repaint the deck but that will have to wait until all the plants are in the ground and I can find anything else to do. Not going to be a fun job. Any volunteers to help??

Stick furniture update

If you remember one of my early post was on how I made the stick chairs and plant stand. Well I finally moved them out of the garage and into the yard. The plant stand is under the deck with my house plants on them and the chairs are at the edge of the woods looking back into the yard.

Update on the Potatoes

Here is an updated picture on the growth of the potatoes. I have added dirt 2 times now and they are 3/4 of the way up the pot. Need to add more dirt today. Mom should get a kick out of seeing this. Since we planted a half acre of potatoes growing up.

Fountain

Here is our fountain. Never been really excited about it. Was going to change it out this year but couldn't find anything we like more and the garden club article about our garden on tour mentioned the cobalt blue fountain. So that was reason enough to put it back. That reminds me I need to pick up extra copies of the gardening magazine to send to the family, so I can brag on the garden!!

I have added a spray head to top so that it makes more noise and add a little height. I also did the plants around it this year. Don't know how that is going to work. The grass hasn't grown any and the other plant, which you can't see very well in the pic is holly. Yea I know the holly is supposed to get 6 - 7 feet tall. Scott picked it out. I just hate always having to tell him it won't work so I let him go with it. But guess who will get to keep it trimmed? Me!!!! Sometimes I think I am the undergardener assistant instead of the gardener.

If anyone one has some suggestions let me know. This is what I think is funny about this fountain. Last year we looked at fountains and oh are they expensive. So being handy like I can be I thought I could save some money and have a unique fountain if I made one. I have a thing for pots(not Pot) especially blue ones. So we were at this nursery that had a great selection of pots and we picked out 3 different size pots or should I say $200 worth and brought them home. They didn't work. Went back and bought another. Not any better. Went to different nursery and bought the green one, blue one came from first nursery. So after spending about $400 lots of time, patients and gas we ended up with this. Oh lets not forget the $200 on the glass chunks and blue colored rocks that we put around the bottom of it. At least I gave it a try and no one else has one like it.

Things blooming

Here are some of the first things blooming in the garden. I know I can always count on the Dianthis to bloom, what a great cool weather plant. Oh and of course the Iris. I will have to divide them this year. OK here is the test what is the first pic of? Here are a couple of hints. My mother never let hers go to seed in the garden but then it was picked and eaten. Can't do that since we are on a low carb diet. Don't ask me why about the diet!!!!

Vacation

This is a pic of the sky for the last 2 days and what the weatherman say it will look like this today. Glad I took a whole week off for this. At least the first 2 days this week I got most of the plants I had bought planted. The last 2 days I have worked on planting my containers and hanging baskets so it wasn't time wasted. Plus I have been cleaning the house for my mothers and her friends visit this weekend.

They are coming up to see the Dead Sea Scrolls with us. I will put a short post on here what I think of them. I figured it was a once in a lifetime chance to see them.

Innovative retaining wall

Just wanted to pass on what I did with the sod I dug up when I made the flower bed in the front of the house. I was just dumping it at the edge of the woods in the back of the house. The problem with just dumping it was that some of it would roll down the hill into the woods and I want it to stay at the edge. The hill drops off at the back of the house, as I tried to show in the first pick, and I wanted to level this off somehow anyway. I don't know how this came into my mind but I thought why not stack the pieces into a wall? I mean they used to make houses out of sod in the pioneer days. So that is what I did. Not sure if it will work but I thought it was worth a try. I put the grass side down, since it is under the trees and grass doesn't grow there very well anyway and will cover it up with dirt and some kind of ground cover.

New Bed

Here is the latest flower bed I have added to the yard. It ties in nicely with the trellis. One thing that didn't make it into the pic's was a window box under the window.

The window box came from Gardener Supply Company, http://www.gardeners.com/. It is a self watering window box. It has a reserve at the bottom of the box that you keep filled. I will let you know how it works.

The basic ideal for this flower bed was to create something a little more formal for the cottage garden, which is what I am calling my col loge of plants that are in the other beds. I had a hard time deciding on what to put on either side of the windows. I looked at spiral trimmed evergreens, some sort of weeping tree, hydrangea tree and trellis on the house with roses climbing on them. What I decide on was tree roses from Jackson Perkins. Here is the website http://www.jacksonandperkins.com/, search for Diana tree rose. I let Scott pick which one he wanted of the 36 inch tree roses and he choose Diana Princess of Whales. I hope it works out ok. This is the first time I have had a tree rose and I am not sure how to over winter it.

Along with the tree roses I planted Azaleas. I picked these up at Lowe's after the frost when they were marked down to $1.99 each. I got 1 gallon pots of 4 light pink, 3 hot pink and 2 white. Here again I have not had much experience with Azaleas. The deer ate the only other ones I planted. I will add some annuals to give it color during the summer. Not sure yet what I will put in the window box. It is on the east, south east side of the house. I will add some pic's when it is complet so you can check out the finished product.

One fatality to the project is the spinker head that was next to the porch. Yes I said was. You know those little tillers can till up just about anything. Well it needed to be moved anyway. Other wise the 3 hot pink asaleas would have blocked the spray. Needless to say the sprinkler people have been called. I am sure that won't be cheap. Scott couldn't say much since he wacked one up with the edger along the side of the drive way. He says that it is the sprinker company fault for putting it so close to the drive. I say it is those crazy edger divers. They are worse than the blue hair drivers!!!(ok poor excuse for humor, but I tried)

I also want to point out and thank my assistant, he's in the last pic, for all his help and support during the digging and prep work on the bed. He likes to give out lots of kisses!! :)