Aphids

These little buggers are starting to show up again. It seems every year at this time they show up on the Marsh Milkweed and the Butterfly Weed. I am not one to use a lot of chemicals but the last summer they killed the Butterfly Weed back to the ground. I was afraid that they had killed it for good but it did come back this spring. I guess the Butterfly Weed is pretty hardy. They grow wild along the highway in southern Missouri.

I also have the worst time with these little green worms. When I was a kid I called them inch worms. They would arch their middle up and then move their head forward and bring the back end up. I tried to capture how they move in the picture. These inch worms love to eat the buds out of my petunias, geraniums and roses. I have just about quit planting petunias because of them. They riddle the flowers with holes or the roses blooms turn out deformed because they have eaten a hole in the side of the bud before it opens. Gets me worked up just blogging about them.

Don't take time for granted!!

This post today is dedicated to Linda, a lady in the neighborhood who was killed Monday in a car accident. You might think, "Oh that is so sad that Cliff lost a good friend.", but I did not know Linda very well. I didn’t know her likes or dislikes, the number of children she had or where she grew up. What I did know about her was that she was a very soft spoken lady who was always very kind and congenial when you saw her. She seemed to radiate kindness or give off a vibe of kindness.
I think the other thing that has gotten to me is how sudden her death was. It is making me take stock of what is around me and what is important. No one on their deathbed is going to say, “I wish I had a few more hours to spend at work”!!



As I saw on someone’s blog recently, “Live for the moment, plan for eternity”. To me these are words to live by.

Flower Show

Do you ever wonder how some people do it? You know stay organized and they seem to be involved with everything. Well here is an event I missed. It was our garden club's first annual flower show. The club with the help of one of the shopping centers put it together. I had put it on the back burner since our garden was on the garden tour this year. I just figured I would worry about it after the tour was over. I couldn't think of two big things at one time. Well the tour came and went and when I was recovering from that I was thinking, I'm sure there is something else I need to be doing. Then last weekend we were at a friend's party and one of the other guests who belong to the same club was talking about her entries at the flower show. I thought that is what I should have been doing.





I guess it is my own fault. I never even put it on the calendar at home. Ok, now I will make excuses. The calendar gets so full of different things that it is hard to just focus on one date. When I look at the calendar it can be so over whelming. There is usually a couple things several days a week. There are birthday, anniversary's, Dr appointments(for us and some family members so I can remember to call to see how it went), friends coming into town or out of town, vacations and the list goes on and on. It is hard to look at just one day and remember that day. Oh well I just need to except that I missed it and go on and try and get better at writing the stuff on the calendar. I heard there were a lot of entries, so that easies the guilt about not participating in the club's activities.





The first picture is of the over all winner. I need to thank Vicki for being there and taking some pictures. She emailed these to me and said she didn't send me hers because she didn't want it to end up on my garden blog. So Vicki you were right that is where it would have ended up.

Clearing Brush

I took Friday as a vacation day so Scott and I could go to his lake lot and see how bad the brush had grown up since last fall when we had 3/4ths of it cleared off. Well, it looked worse than what I thought it would. We didn't get on the road as soon as we should have so we didn't get as much done as I would have liked.

This was taken before we started clearing. It was taken from about a 3rd of the way down the lot looking back to the road.



Here is the after picture.





The section that we cleared is where Scott's parents would pull their camper or pitch a tent.
Scott wants to get a tent and go down for the weekend?!? You know I grew up on a farm so I know the outdoors and am not afraid of a little hard work, but I always had a soft bed with a shingled roof over my head. This laying on the ground in a tent I am not so sure about.

To me camping is like staying at the Holiday Inn but Mound City doesn't have a Holiday Inn much less any other hotel/motel.

The last two are looking into the lot from the road. I didn't get any pictures of the before so you will just have to imagine what it looked like.

This last one is a patch of wild flowers I didn't use the weedeater on. They are just getting ready to bloom so I thought it would be a good ideal to leave them. If we make it down while they are blooming I will try and get a picture of them then.

More Pictures of the yard

I know it has been a while since I last posted anything. Well it has been nice just to relax after so many hours spent in the garden this spring and early summer. I am now trying to relax and enjoy my hard work. Here are some of the flowers that are blooming or have bloomed in the last couple of weeks.
Sorry I can't tell you all what the name of everything is. One of these days I will get organized and sort through the pile of papers and get tags next to as many plants I can. If anyone has suggestions on how to get organized. Let me
know.

Landscape before and after

This is my first paid landscape project!!!

This is our neighbors front yard. She has been trying to sell the house for several months with no interest. She asked me if I would help her do some landscaping in the front yard. We went to a couple of the big box stores and found some of the plants 50% off. Here are some of the plants I planted.
Variegated Liriope
Tasmanian Tiger Spurge
Pink Knockout Roses
Endless Summer Hydrangea






Here is the finished project. Enlarge the pictures to get a better look.

Rain

The last 4 days it has done nothing but rain off and on. I know I shouldn't complain it has been an easy rain not like what they have gotten in other parts of the country the last few days. the one good thing is that it has stopped raining long enough for me to take some pictures. These are of the Marsh Milkweed a native here in the midwest. It really attracts the bees and butterflys when the weather is nice. On the tour several people commented on how big the plants were. They are around 4' tall and 4 to 5' wide and still growing. Let me know if you get tired of me mentioning the tour.