Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Cookout....

Contrary to belief..........I do things other than gardening........I do have a life other than working in my garden. We had a Luau-Cookout yesterday and I have some pictures of the setting. I was too busy hosting to take pictures of the guests that attended. Actually, it was my family and a neighbor-friend. Here are some pics that I took before the party.
(All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.)








The food was superb~~ too die for ribs, mashed potatoes, pineapple coleslaw, baked beans, pineapple upside down cake for dessert and pina coladas! It was a fun time and the food was awesome.
The finale--We toasted pink marshmallows in the firepit. A great finish to a great day.
"And a good time was had by all."
'Til next time, Love ya, Jean






Sunday, May 24, 2009

More flowers.........

At the risk of boring you to death with more flowers, I just had to show you what is bloomin' today. I can't help it, they are in my heart and I love them so much. I marvel at the beauty that God put into each and every one of them.

(All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.)

The whiskey barrel out front is still pretty.........

The Rhoddies are just starting to bloom........




These are not quite open yet........

A Yellow Iris...........




Peony buds about to open.......




A beautiful Iris.........




A close up...........





More Dancing Butterfly Peonies..........





An overall view of one of the borders.........


I hope you enjoyed the little tour.
'Til next time, Love ya, Jean






Thursday, May 21, 2009

May flowers..........

You'll be seeing lots of flowers now.........

(all pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them)
Azalea~~A big weed......Mullein.....
I'm going to leave it .......

My strawberry patch.....


Peony buds..........



One peony is open.............
This is called "Dancing Butterfly"......




Yellow brightens up everything........
These are water Iris and they are in my little pond......




This is a new Iris I just got a few days ago..........


These are my May flowers, there are more to show you, come back and see more later.
'Til next time, Love ya, Jean












Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Cherry Tree.............

Actually, this is an ornamental cherry................

And it certainly is, just that............

'Til next time, Love ya, Jean

Friday, May 15, 2009

An Award for Me?

I am so excited! I received an award from Marilyn at The Cutest Cottage Lamps. It's the Bella Award.

I was so surprised to receive this award. Thank you, Marilyn, I am honored, and I will pass it on.

So here is the scoop: To the recipients of this award, here is what you do: Please pass this Bella Award on to 15 people who have blogs that are new to you and you think are lovely (15 seems like a lot to me, but, that's the rules!). If you don't know 15 new blogs, it's O.K. to choose a blog that you really love! Also, this award is yours to take and post on your blog side bar if you would like, just put the name of the person giving it to you beneath. So, have fun, enjoy and congratulations on your award!

So here is my list of new to me blogs:

1. Kady - Life on the Edge

2. A Beach Cottage

3. Ramona - A Day in the Life of Ramona

4. Barb - Barb's Good Life

5. Brenda - Country Romance

6. Kim - Shabby Pink and Pretty

7. Kristi - Vintage Window

8. Counting your Blessings

9. Wendy - The Cozy Yellow House

10. Andrea - Vintage Bella Studio

11. Valarie - Glimpse of my World

12. Sassytrash

13. Jacque - The Creative Gardener

14. Sweet Repose

15. Mayra - Life is Bananas

Well, that's quite a long list! They are all new to me, or I have seen them a few times and think their blogs are beautiful! There are lots more that I could add to this list, and some of them would be my friends that I have been watching for a while - their blogs are just as beautiful!

'Til next time, Love ya, Jean

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Spring Blues................

Some of my favorite spring flowers are blue.............




Grape hyacinths~~


A close-up~~
Lungwort~~



Overall view~~



Blue Dwarf Iris~~
Some of my Favorites!!!!!
"Til next time, Love ya, Jean





Monday, May 11, 2009

Some accomplishments this week...........

I had a busy week and I got a few things accomplished. First, I shopped for my swing for my backyard. I found a nice one a Lowe's, bought it, brought it home, and my honey and I put it together and hung it up. It was pretty easy to do and I totally love it. It is made of cedar, nice and sturdy, well made, and I think it will hold up well. Remember the yard sale money? This is how I paid for my new swing and all the "extras".




I also shopped for some fabric to make new covers for my pads for the outdoor furniture, brought it home, cut out the shapes for the pads. I had to go to work, so I came home that night and sewed them.





Then, we decided we needed one of those little fire bowls that you can use in your backyard. We need to be able to toast marshmallows with the grandchildren. So, we go shopping again, and found one of those at Target. What fun! It needed to be put together, also. My honey took care of that and set it all up.


I set up a little garden in the center of the backyard. Here is a picture of it.

I also cleaned up my potting bench, swept off the leaves, spider webs, and dirt that accumulated over the winter.

I also bought lots of flowers, cold weather ones and some artificial ones. It is still not safe here to put out annual flowers yet. The safe date is Memorial Day (end of May), and so we can use cold weather annuals or perennials. I'm still cleaning out the beds and pulling weeds and getting last years leaves out of them.


This is where I put the artificial flowers......




My compost pile is growing fast. I should have usable compost by mid-June, hopefully. I love that stuff. My beds where I use it are so soft and everything grows so big and beautiful. It is so worth the work of making it.
So, this was my week, I got a lot accomplished and now I feel that I can work in the garden and that I have gotten a lot of the stuff that I wanted to do out of the way. My pond is coming along nicely and that will be another post later on.

'Til next time, Love ya, Jean

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Spring is Finally Here!

I know I have been MIA for a few weeks. There are not enough hours in the day to do all that I need to do. So therefore, my blogging has taken a back seat to everything else.

So, last weekend, we had a huge yard sale on Sat & Sun and the preparation took the whole week. Every minute that I was not working at the Sweet Boutique, I was cleaning everything, organizing it, pricing it, putting up tents and banners in the yard, and causing a lot of excitement in the neighborhood for the big sale, and it all took hours and hours of preparation. The sale was a big success and it was really hard to let it go, but I did get rid of a lot of my precious things. I just have an overload of stuff and I need more room, and that's the main reason I decided to do the yard sale. It was really hot during the sale (90's, a fluky thing, we're totally not used to it!), but it was fun and we had a good time. (And made some money.) By contrast, it is 56 degrees today.

I hope to buy a swing for my back yard with the money. I can't wait to start looking for it. I'll show pictures when I get it. The good part is, the thing to hang it on is already there. I've always had a swing back there until it totally broke 2 yrs ago and I said I would build one....but, it never got done! So now, I decided that I will just buy one instead.

So, I ran outside today, in the rain, and took some pictures of my flowers. As I said, spring is finally here and I am loving it. Today, I worked outside for about 3 hours with sprinkles on my back, and I loved it until it really started raining hard and I had to come in. By then my back was aching, so it was a good time to stop.

So here are some of the pictures that I took:

I love tulips, even though they are not as long lived as I would like them to be.


A closeup of some fuchsia colored ones:




My sweet cherry tree, it has the most delicious, sweet cherries, if I can beat the birds to them......


I love the wild violets and let them reseed in my yard. If they are in the wrong spot, I just pull them out.


A Closeup, you can see the raindrops on the flowers.











These are the flowers on my Pieris Japonica. I love that!






A big bunch of Phlox that is in the front foundation border.







This is a whiskey barrel that I have out front. I planted it with cool weather plants, until it's time for the annuals to go out.







Another patch of white Phlox. I love this and I have quite a bit of it around the yard. It smells delicious!


That's all for today. I will be showing more as the garden progresses.
'Til next time, Love ya, Jean