Secret Flower Lover

When Emma thinks I am not looking she will go around and sniff the flowers in the pots to see what they are all about. Although she stripped my Cone Flowers a little bit one year - she is really good about not digging up my flowers or eating the plants. I do spend a bit of time on the ASPCA web Site looking at their lists of Dog Safe plants. (Also good for bunnies, cats, horses......) I got rid of my chives and rhubarb after reading how toxic they were.

It's another hot week here in Minnesota, so there is much watering of the plants after the sun dips down everyday. I just plug in my headphones, throw a ball or two for Emma who often walks around with me - staying well out of range of the hose, (Our girl is not a fan of the hose!) and go from garden to garden. It's nice to see what's changed - what's popped up or what is struggling. Plans to transplant or split a plant often happen while I am watering. I will also recite the names of the plants (if I can remember them!) so that I don't forget what they are called. A nice summer ritual.

Herbaceous Flowering Plants

My Cone Flowers (Echinacea) are finally opening up! I love these flowers. A shock of pink that attracts birds, bee's and butterflys. I loved these so much that I picked up some white ones for my front gardens as well.

These pink ones are next to my deck, so every morning when I let the dog out (and the sun is up) I get to see these happy flowers. I also have Spirea and Aster in this bed - so there is almost always something blooming. It's a very happy place!

Verbena, Geranium, and Lupine - Oh My!

Emma and I have been working away in the gardens. I have a couple of hanging plants now and slowly I am getting all my annuals planted to give my gardens some POP. I love Humming birds and have been trying to plant things that will bring them running.

It's a bad picture, but that top right hand picture shows a bee that was so large I couldn't imaging it flying. It was like a little Volkswagen!

I got my tomato and cucumbers in this week too - so I will have some fresh veggies in a few weeks/months. Nothing like a garden fresh tomato!

I have thoughts that some day I will use photo's of my flowers to use for yarn dying combinations. If only I had as much time as I had dreams!

Bloomin' Pee on Knee Bush

Every year I wait for our Peony bush to bloom. Our flowers are hot pink and so pretty! Sadly they have NO scent. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Finally this past weekend they bloomed! Just in time for my family to come for a visit too - which was really nice. Rather like having a peacock that only opens its tail up once a year and your family happens to stop by right then and see it.

It's been three days since I took these pictures and the blooms are already wilted and will soon fall apart, but I was quite pleased with the show this year!

Tonight I stopped after work at the flower hut and picked up more flowers to surround the bush so there will be blooms here all summer. It was nice to work on this little bed and get to admire the blooms one last time before they completely fade away again for the year.

Aren't they pretty? I just love the colors. There is a tiny hint of bright yellow way down at the base of the flower that you can only see when you really look. I just love this flower!

Yippie Skippy it's FRIDAY!

Most of my flowers have died out for the season, but I still have a few that are fighting against Old Man Winter. (OK - I know it's fall, but Fall in MN is kind of like Winter anyway....) This sad little white Echinacea has popped up in my front garden and has greeted me everyday when I come home from work. It's dark out in the morning when I leave so I don't get to see it then.

In my back garden this purple Echinacea is still hanging in there. You can see the dried up Aster next to it and a bunch of leaves have curled up from frost - but this one is still hanging in there.

Yeah, I'm hungry too Em.

I am SOOOOOOOO Happy it's Friday! What a long week! Work was stressful and occupied my thoughts a lot. I missed two work-outs this week due to Zombie status (Insomnia) and I just feel like my shoulders are up at my ears. You know that feeling? When you are just so stressed out that you just can't seem to unwind? Argh. My mission this weekend is to get my shoulders down to a normal level. ;)

Tonight I am looking forward to dinner, some Ghost Adventures on the TV, and working on my KAL. I am up to the cable section and Vickie put up this video on Utube which is super helpful. I love doing cables, but about half the time I get confused and cable the wrong way. Very frustrating when you realize your cables or going all wonky. So I will watch the video again and get cranking on my KAL Cowl.

Happy Friday!

For the Birds

I had a little garden bed on the side of the cucumber hut that housed rhubarb and chives. Since Tom is sugar-free and I am on a perpetual diet - it didn't seem to make sense to have a pile o' rhubarb hanging out in the yard. And as for the chives? We never really ate them. I think once in like four years we cut some and put them on shrimp we grilled the piss out of. But mostly they just got huge, flowered, fell over and then I would trim them. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

So I yanked them all out and started over. Ran to Linder's and after much research found a bunch of dog-friendly plants that attracted birds, butterflies and Hummingbirds.

Bam! I have awesome garden! I think I did all the planting at the start of June. (We had a really long cold spring this year.) A few weeks later we got a swing arm and a Hummingbird feeder and put that up. We used a length of fishing line to hang the feeder to help keep some of the bugs/ants out of the feeder. (This last week when I changed it there were a shit-ton of big black ants in it. Yuck. BUT the Hummingbirds have found my feeder and I am really enjoying watching them flit in and out of my garden. They feed at the feeder and then jump onto the rungs of the cucumber hut and have a rest. My next Hummingbird feeder will be this one but with posts for the Hummers to rest on while they feed. Otherwise this feeder has been great. I am following the 1 part sugar to 4 parts water recipe that came with the feeder. My system is pretty smooth. I take my glass 6 cup (or is it 8 cups?) measuring glass and fill two cups of HOT water. Then I take a half cup of plain white sugar and stir it in. Then I nuke it for about 1 minute and stir until it dissolves. (It does not have to boil.) Then I fill the feeder. It's just the right amount - doesn't fill it to the top - but I clean it out about every week to two weeks so it never gets empty.

The birds and butterflies have been happy as can be here too. The birds love the bath and hang out all over the cucumber hut. We have seen lots of Butterfly, bee and moth activity as well. I am really happy I changed this bed out.