The house is all decked out, just waiting for you....

I thought this would be a good time to share some pictures of our holiday decorations. We have been collecting decorations for a number of years. This year we had a holiday party the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That is why I have the whole house decked out in the Christmas bling.

I have not figured out how to take pictures of the lighted tree. The tree looks so good with the lights and the sparkle of the glass oriments. But when you take the picture it never looks as good. I am sure if I had a better camera and more experience I could take better pictures.

Poinsettia

Last spring I wrote about this little guy. Should I keep it or compost it. Well I decided that if it survived the winter I would repost it and keep it for the summer. Once summer is over then I will decide. Along comes September, way too soon, and I had to make the decision. Well it was looking pretty good. Good color and bushy. I put it in the storage area with a grow light to control the amount of light it got and about 6 weeks later I started to see the color. You can see the after pictures what was once a small plant with a couple blooms now has a dozen or more blooms. I know that the color leaves are not blooms but you all know what I mean.

Celebrity??

This post is for the Plaza Art Fair guy. I am sure you all are scratching your heads wondering what the!! OK here is the story.
Saturday Sept 20th was our friend Jack's birthday. One of those he turned 39 for the 10th time. The plan was to meet up at his house and go to the Plaza Art Fair. This is what we all did. It started as a fun day, walking around looking at the art and some cases what some call art, but that is a whole other subject. With a group of nine people you tend to get separated as everyone has different interests or when something catches your eye. I think Scott and I were coming back from getting a couple of beers, I find some art is best to look at after a couple of beers, to where the group had stopped so everyone could catch up. This guy had stopped me and asked if I was the Garden Guy? My first thought was Paul James, The Gardening Guy on HGTV but then I don't look like him. Then I realized maybe he was talking about my blog, but not that many people read my blog and the ones that comment weren't from KC. I went back and asked where he would know the Garden Guy from and he said a website. Wow, he was talking about me!!
It amazes me that someone would recognize me from my photo on my blog. If you think about the several hundred other people that were there at the time it, is mind boggling? Whatever happened to have him stop me and ask about me made my day, no week, oh probable my year! Well this post is dedicated to him, Plaza Art Guy. Thank you for stopping me and telling me how much you like my stone walls I built in the garden!!

New Roof

Due to a hale storm on May 2nd we are getting a new roof. I will have to say I wasn't happy about it. Why wouldn't I be happy the insurance company was paying all but the deductible and leaf guards on the gutters. Oh and there was also the upgrade Scott wanted to Life Time shingles. He's always got to have the best. I guess that is why he has me ;) I was really afraid that my plants would be destroyed. I envisioned them shoving the old shingles off all sides of the roof into the flower beds. The roof guy said that they would set plywood up against the house so the shingles wouldn't land on the plants. I got to thinking, a sheet of plywood is 8 feet long and my beds are 8" from the house and the roof is10 feet up. I envisioned the shingles hitting the plywood and the plywood falling flat to the ground. But I took his word they would be careful. I was pleasantly surprised that they took the shingles up and carried them to where they had the trailer setting in the drive and put through them in. I could find very little damage to the flower beds.

Here are some pictures. Scott picked out the shingles and he did a great job!

What the old shingles looked like.
After the shingles were torn off and before the new shingles were put on.

The finished roof.

My 5 minutes of fame!?!?!?

Not sure if I should show this or not. This is anything from garden related but we had a blast!! Here is the website if you want to read the story.


http://www.kansascity.com/238/story/771140.html

How many common names can this lilly have?

Majic Lily, Surprise Lily, Resurection Lily, Naked Lady or August Lily, these are the names I have heard this lilly called. I remember as a child the hot dry August days when the grass was brown Most of the plants had gone dormate and there they were. These fresh buds coming up out of the dry ground and opening in the hot humid August days.
This lilly is like the first bulds that bloom in the spring. They get me excited that spring is coming. These lillies keep my interest going through the hot days of summer.

What I have been doing this summer!!!!

Here are a couple of before pictures. This is a pretty steep hill to go up and down. Also if I wanted to plant anything it would need to have a couple of walls put in. Still working on that but I do have the steps in. It has only taken a year but they are done.
Doesn't this look boring? I think so. I would much rather see some flowers and folige. Maybe an urn or two. I have a couple that I hadn't found homes for yet. The ideas are almost endless!!!

Here is the after..... Of course Bonnie has to get in the picture!! I'd say that was her best side but she would probable bit me!

I just have the stones stacked on top of each other to make each step. Most of the steps are solid, I have a few that rock back and forth a little. I need to shim those up with some smaller rocks.

Now it is time for a couple of walls to level it out some. Hopefully it won't take another year!

What's New?

I can't believe it has been so long since my last post. I blame it on the puppy, Bonnie. When I try and get on computer she wants to go outside. When she comes in she wants to go back out again. I will take her for a long walk thinking she will get worn out. Wrong, the only one that gets worn out is me! One good thing is she likes the outdoors so that gives me the excuse to be out doors but the bad part is I have to keep an eye on her otherwise she ends up running off. If she sees another person or someone walking their dog she is gone. At least everyone in the neighborhood knows her and where she lives. Anyway enough about her. Here are some pictures of what the garden looks like. But first a couple pictures of what Scott calls the demon dog!





Here are some of the cone flowers. The yellow one is native to Missouri but I guess the purple ones are also.


Here is my Bee Balm flower.


This is a plant that I have read about as being a spreader(don't know it's name). I can tell it likes to spread and may be an issue if you don't have a lot of time to tend to your garden. I have found that the little plants pull out pretty easy and the little bit of aggravation is worth the flowers!
This plants common name is Dotted Mint. It reminds me of pineapple top. You might think that mint would mean it spreads a lot. That is not the case for this plant. I have had the plant for the 3rd year now and it hasn't spread at all. Now that is a good mint!


I finish this post with my simple decorations I added to the pot at the end of the driveway to celebrate the 4th of July.

Marseilli, France

Here is the first stop on our trip. It was a rainy dreary day and who would think to bring an umbrella an a cruise. The tempature was warm enough that it wasn't too cold when we got soaked to the skin.

Iris flowers

Hello all,
Just to let you all know that we left the country on May 22nd. Right now May 30th we are back in the U.S. but not at home. We are staying in Chicago for a couple of days then we will be back home. Will post some pictures of the trip in the next few days.
Here are some of my Irises that were blooming when we left home.

What is this plant???

If you know what this plant is called let me know. The story behind them is this. Back last September I had ordered flowers to be sent to Scott at work. These two were part of the filler in the arrangement. After the flowers in the arrangement died these two looked good and I were planning a party so I thought I might be able to use them in an arrangement. Well I put them in water but didn't use them. The next thing I noticed they had sprouted roots. The roots were a couple of inches wrong and I potted them up. They didn't grow any just sat there for the winter and then in March they started growing. I figure they are tropical plants of some sort but if anyone could help me out it would be appreciated.