Around the House
Zinnia patch is a hit!
Last year, my husband and I started a new flower bed in our. It was kind of an eyesore through the winter, as we’d covered it with cardboard to help get rid of the scraggly grass and weeds. This spring, we planted a ton of zinnias and cosmos to give a pop of summer color in the one sunny spot in our yard. All grown from seed. It’s been fun to see it grow full with so many colors and varieties of zinnias. An added bonus: the birds, bees and butterflies like it, too! The colorful bed is cheery and
Love the Colors of Summer!
It’s lily season! The first roses have finished their cycle, and the hydrangeas are just beginning to bud, but the lilies are in their glory days! The orange daylilies are pretty ordinary, but planted in a mass, they make a colorful statement. And I love that they give some color up off the ground. Flowers are one of the best things about summer! What’s blooming at your place?
World Traveler Welcomed Home
Recently, grandson Sam, visited Egypt and Tanzania where he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. While there, he texted his mom and asked, “Do you think it would be rude, if when I got back we invited ourselves to Grandma’s house for pot roast?” I think he was ready for some good ole’ down home cooking! The day after he got home we gathered to feast on pot roast with carrots and potatoes, asparagus, fresh zucchini from the garden, and kale salad. Oh, and a cake made with French vanilla pudding mix. We heard of his travels and viewed his collection of travel
Flowers thrive in summer sun
The property around my home is quite shady, thanks to several old, giant trees. So growing flowers is a challenge. I don’t have enough sunshine for most of the summer flowers to thrive. We have a few lilies and some roses, but the lilies have a short season, and the roses do well at the beginning of summer then kind of waste away. But I love flowers! So this year, we decided to dig up a spot that we can only see from one room in the house, but that gets full sun. Fingers crossed that it will soon be
Bring summer–skip the bloodsuckers
Summer is my season. I don’t mind the heat, as long as it doesn’t come with high humidity and inch toward the upper 90s. I love almost everything about summer—vacations, long days that allow me to enjoy the evenings outside, warm temps, summer flip-flops, reading by the pool, tropical iced tea, the flowers in bloom, and probably much more! Pretty much the only things I hate about summer are the bugs, mosquitoes, and spiders. Ugh. I’ve tried so many different ways to keep the mosquitoes away. Citronella candles make me sneeze. And I hate spraying chemicals on my skin or
First Roses
The roses in my front yard are blooming now, and I cut some recently to bring inside. I’m enjoying them as I proof the final draft of my novel, When Heart Shall Fail. See the stack of pages behind the vase—that’s what I have left to read through. What signs of summer do you have where you live?
Time for the shade to shine
Our yard has a lot of big trees and that means a lot of shade. Sometimes, that’s nice. But it also means I have a hard time growing all the plants and flowers I love. Shady spots hide critters like rabbits, and trees house destructive varmints like squirrels. This is the time of year when the shade has its moment in the spotlight. The hostas are leafed out and looking great. The astilbe are about ready to bloom, and this part of the garden takes on a tranquil, soothing feel. I always add a few annuals to give more color.
Sometimes fixing a tail light is difficult
In terms of maintenance items, fixing a burnt out tail light should be on the “reasonably easy” list. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me this time around. I replaced the bulb, but that did not solve the problem. The entire unit was out – turn signal, reverse light, brake light. Turns out, part of the ground wire was ruined and the pin it connected to had completely burnt off. Some drilling, soldering and sealing resulted in a not-so-terrible hack job that fixed the problem. One less Saturday spent writing. Since I was tearing things apart anyway, I pulled
And now the payoff begins
It’s always fun to watch something I’ve planted grow and thrive. At my house, it’s a struggle. We have many big, beautiful trees, which I love. But those trees house a lot of squirrels and provide a lot of shade–things that often work against me in my quest to grow a few flowers. We’ve got bunnies and chipmunks galore, and we do not have dogs to chase them away–more obstacles to growing things. But, hope springs eternal for gardeners, I guess. Last fall, my husband and I decided to try a new bed in a sunny spot and grow annuals