garden — Page 253

Garden Gone Ga-Ga

July 1, 2009 at 6:47 pm by Claudia

You are looking at part of my overgrown-garden-gone-wild back at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. Unless you have been ignoring all talk of weather, you know that June was one of the rainiest months on record back East. This has resulted in lush growth. However, that growth along with the fact that my husband has left the gardens alone because he is afraid to pull a viable plant rather than a weed has resulted in a lollapalooza of plants. Don has said to me more than once, “You’ll have a lot of work to do when you get home.” Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

I will be so happy to get my hands in the dirt again. Of course, I will probably let loose with some bad words when I see it in person. But mostly, I will be happy to trim, snip, pull, yank, and shear back.

I see some bee balm, some coreopsis, some catmint. I’m not sure about the rest. There are also garden beds in front of the shed, on all sides of the porch, on the side of the house and by the kitchen. Oh boy.

No, this is not in my garden. This is in front of the San Diego Zoo. I walk right by these elephants (there are two of them) every day. This guy on the right is obviously tired from a day of walking around the zoo. Good place to rest.

Tonight is opening night for Twelfth Night (my favorite Shakespeare play.) It will be fun to watch it without taking notes – just as an audience member.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

April 15, 2009 at 8:11 am by Claudia

This morning finds me feeling sad and emotional. I’m headed back to San Diego today. My little break with the family is almost over. Now I am looking at another 2 1/2 months away from my loved ones. These past ten days have been wonderful; but now I look at my dogs’ sweet faces and wonder how they’ll cope with me being gone again. Don says that Riley has been like a different dog since I’ve been back. Will he become depressed again? Scout is lying at my feet as I type this; how will she do? I love them so ~ they are my children. I absolutely hate being away from them.

Don is blue, I am blue – can I just say that I will never do this again? By this, I mean being gone from my loved ones for such a long time. I travel for my work off and on and I don’t mind being away for a few weeks. But not this long again. Ever.

Scout is feeling better. Her blood work came back clean and we are grateful. Both dogs have had Lyme disease and Scout’s levels are still high, so she will go back on antibiotics. Both dogs will take a joint health supplement and we have some Rimadyl for days when one or the other feels sore. (Riley has hip problems.)

My plans to have hanging pots on the porch and pots planted were dashed by a lack of plants at our local greenhouse. Makes sense, since I am doing all this about 3 weeks earlier than usual. So Don and I have decided he will go to the greenhouse in about 2 weeks, take camera photos of the hanging plants, send them to me, and I will choose the “appropriate” plant. But my pots, my window boxes….they will remain empty until July. I’m not happy, but what can I do?

This morning we are getting a new storm door for the front door. This house has no storm doors and we’ve been wanting some since we moved in. I persuaded husband that it would be especially nice this spring and summer. So, first the front door – next month, the side door!

I snapped this photo of the light from the skylight hitting my quilt the other morning. Lovely.

Have a wonderful day. I’ll be blogging from Mockingbird Hill Cottage West when next we meet.

Around the House

April 13, 2009 at 6:31 pm by Claudia

I’ve been mulching, mulching and mulching some more. I’m doing a lot of things in the garden that I would normally do a few weeks from now. Since I’m leaving for San Diego on Wednesday, I don’t have that luxury. The beds have been cleaned out, the mulch is spread, the plants are emerging, the hose has been hooked up, the glider has pillows ~ tomorrow I will buy some hanging plants and plant some pots for the porch. I’m holding off until then because we have another cold night tonight. After that, the rest of the week looks warmer. Oh, I will miss working in my garden this spring. This is my favorite time of year, and I love nothing more than walking through the garden checking on my plants, watering, weeding ~ everything. I’m embarrassed to say it, but I get teary at the thought of being away from all this.

Thought I’d share something we did to make the porch safer for the dogs. The open arch leading onto the porch is lovely, but we knew it needed a gate or some way to close it off so that the dogs could spend time on the porch. Neither of us was up to building a gate or even knew how to. We bought a small section of picket fence from Lowe’s that was in the clearance section.

We tried propping it against the posts, but then I bought these and attached them to the posts.