garden — Page 218

Getting Ready

April 16, 2013 at 7:53 am by Claudia

Be sure to check out my Poise Feminine Wellness Line Review. If you leave a comment you can be entered for a chance to win a $100 Visa Gift Card! Just click here.

Thank you so much for all the great comments on the quilt. It is far from perfect, but I love it. One thing that finishing this quilt has accomplished is to get me excited to start another one – which I will do once I get to Hartford. This next quilt will not be queen sized, however!

I’m in the midst of making lists, running errands and getting ready to pack tomorrow for the trip to Hartford on Thursday. Between books to read, craft supplies, a sewing machine (still to be determined), my iron, all my reference books and script, clothes and food, computer, camera and lenses – yikes – you see what I’m up against. But five weeks is a long time. And I’m a nester. Fortunately, Trader Joe’s is on the way to Hartford – we’ll stop there for food and some fresh flowers. This time I’m taking the pink hobnail vase along with me. A touch of home. And fresh flowers. All this stuff will have to be carted over to the apartments when I move there at the end of the month which only makes things more complicated.

Some signs of new growth in a spring that has been a long time coming:

daylily

Day Lilies

hyacinth

My miracle hyacinths

hydrangea

Climbing Hydrangea

lilac

Lilac

poppy

Poppy

It is April 16th and it looks like it should be March 16th out there in the garden. I’ll miss the tulips blooming and perhaps the lilacs. I plan on coming home for a few days right after the first of May, so that I can mulch, plant seeds and fill my pots with flowers, none of which I can do at the moment. It’s been too darned cold. I haven’t touched the porch yet. Did I mention it’s been cold? Yesterday, in the late afternoon, it finally seemed like spring. I could smell it in the air. But now I’m under a deadline and I don’t have the time to do much more outside. Ah well. It is what it is.

Don will be back tomorrow with the final installment of his Prague series. For all of you who have suggested he start a blog: he has started a couple of blogs in the past but it’s just not his thing. He gets bored. And yes, he is a wonderful writer. I’m always trying to get him to write a novel. If you want to see and hear his writing at its best, listen to the incredible lyrics he writes for his songs. He’s a poet, my husband. That he is.

My heart is heavy for my beloved Boston. Such heartbreak, such a senseless act.

Happy Tuesday.

signature2

Surprises in the Mail and in the Soil

April 8, 2013 at 9:02 am by Claudia

You all know my sister, Meredith, right? She blogs at Mereknits and she is an amazing knitter, crocheter and crafter besides all that other stuff: mom, wife, occupational therapist, wonderful person. She is my sister and she is my friend and we are very, very close. So, the other day, I opened the front door and there was a box on the front steps. It was from Mer. Hmmm.

I opened it up and this is what I saw:

sweater

Isn’t it beautiful? It was for me!

sweater2

I had been just about to leave the house to run some errands, so I quickly tried it on (it fit!) and took a photo of myself in the bathroom mirror with my phone and sent it to her. (I will not share that photo with you, my friends, as the mirror had not been cleaned and you can see the toilet in the background.) I ended up wearing it that day because I love it so much! There’s a story to this sweater: Mer wrote a post about it called “Can a Sweater Knit Itself?” Go over there and read it. She tells it much better than I could.

It fits like a glove and when I showed it to Don via Skype he said “Va Va Voom!” Thank you, sister!

Yesterday, I started the long project that is the Clean Up of the Garden and Yard. Oh my. It was windy out there and I, of course, did too much. But it felt good being outdoors, raking up the seemingly endless amounts of leaves and twigs that are covering the garden beds. It’s been a long, cold winter here in the northeast, but plants are coming up here and there.

sedum

Sedum Autumn Joy – always one of the first plants to peek through the soil

daffs

Daffodils. Will I see them bloom before I leave? I don’t think so.

As I was raking, I saw the hint of a green shoot poking through the leaves in a section of the garden bed where I didn’t have anything planted. After I removed the leaves, I saw this:

3bulbs

~~Four~~ Five plants. What the heck?

Then I remembered something from last year. I added that new garden bed to the other side of the house. It had previously been grassy there. I was digging in a section of the bed, getting the soil ready to add a new plant, and I found some bulbs rather far down in the soil. I had no idea how long they had been there or what the heck they were, but I took them over to the big garden bed and planted them, thinking what did I have to lose? And promptly forgot about them.

hyacinths

A little yellow due to lack of sun (they were completely covered by the leaves) but they look like Hyacinths to me. What a wonderful surprise! When I took them out of the other garden bed, I noticed that the bulbs were not pointed in the right direction, so I made sure to do that when I replanted them. I have no idea how long it has been since these bulbs have bloomed, if ever. We’ve lived here almost 8 years and the guy who lived here before us did absolutely nothing to the property (he was a weekender) and he lived here for four years.

These are the little garden miracles that make me so, so happy.

Temperatures are supposed to be in the sixties this week! Positively balmy for our part of the country. Don is on his way home, just got an email from him – he’s waiting for his connection in Zurich. He won’t get home until late this evening. Scout and I are very excited, indeed!

Happy Monday.

signature2

Riley’s Dish Garden

November 12, 2012 at 8:04 am by Claudia

This was Riley’s dish. That boy loved to eat and this battered, not-very-attractive dish was his version of a plate. When he was able to navigate easily, I would fill it with food and place it on the rug by the kitchen sink. It was easier for him to stand there. When he couldn’t get up and down quite as easily in the last month or so of his life, I would take the dish to him and he would chow down right there from his perch on the rug.

I can’t throw it away. It’s my boy’s dish. Just as I saved some locks of his hair and his collar, I am hanging on to his dish.

But what to do with it other than storing it in a cupboard?

I had an idea. It reminds me of a planting dish, so off I went to a local nursery. I bought some succulents and some special potting soil.

Each of the plants came in a terra cotta pot with little rocks on top of the soil. I shook out all the rocks and added them to the bottom of the bowl for drainage.

Then I filled the bowl with plants and soil.

While I was doing all of this, Don and Scout were out on the porch with me. Ever the blogger, I picked up the bowl to find the place to photograph it. As I set it down on the bench, this happened:

Immediately. Our girl misses her brother.

Riley’s Dish Garden

Yes, there are prettier planting dishes – I have several McCoy planting dishes right here in the cottage. But this may be the most loved planting dish to be found anywhere.

It helps a great deal. Creating this garden is a fitting tribute to my Riley.

Miss you, my dear, sweet boy. With all my heart.

dogdishcollage

Happy Monday.

Getting Ready

Surprises in the Mail and in the Soil

Riley’s Dish Garden

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Archives