Blooming Tuesday

Don't ask how I got two of these images...I have no idea. I have been playing with the image for a long time to try to make it link back to Jean's blog. I could not get that to work, but somehow I did something to multiply the image!

Hey, wait...I think I did get them to link back....when I put my cursor over the image, it has Jean's address! Wooo hoooo! Now how did I do that???? Click one and see if it works for you.









I don't have a lot of nice images today because after a week of very cold nights nothing is looking very good in my garden.

The poor Elephant's Ears have seen better days.

This one is really bad.

This whiskey barrel is looking pretty decent. I have been waiting patiently for the orange phlox to bloom....finally it has burst forth....see it way in the back of the barrel..........no?

The reason you don't think you see it is because it's not orange at all! It's hot pink!!! To top it off, it has a bad case of mildew. I expected it to be a new mildew-resistant variety.
Nothing I bought this year turned out to be what I expected.

Even the Sedum Autumn Joy is not up to par. It's OK, but the heads are tiny this year.

It could be because it's a new planting. This is the area I dug out and replanted in 2008. Here it is before planting:

I am planning to cut down a lot of things this weekend. It's that time of year...if I work very hard in the fall, I won't have to do much next spring.

How did those Veggie Patties turn out?

Betty, thanks for asking. Here they are:



DH loved them even though I forgot the caramelized onions that I had made earlier with the plan to use them. I completely forgot about the carrot patties and put all the onions in the meatloaf! A soon-to-be-senior moment? LOL. O.K. in some circles I am already a senior.

Just so I remember how to make these again, here is what I used: shredded carrot, tiny bit of shredded celery, mixed with one egg, salt, pepper. Then I sprinkled Panko bread crumbs on top and bottom and fried in mixture of oil/butter at medium heat. Next time I will add onion to the mix.


No time for blogging right now as I have to head to work.

Happy Monday everyone!

Carrot Cake Cookies, Powdery Mildew, Silver Artemesia and BOO!

As I like to do on Sunday mornings, I was cooking before 8 a.m. today. The crisp cool air of the past week inspired a nice Cheeseburger Chowder with carrots and potatoes. That is for later in the week. For tonight I have a meatloaf with caramelized onions ready to go in the oven. I think I will also make mashed potatoes and gravy. The veggie will be a shredded carrot and celery patty breaded with Panko crumbs and fried in butter. I just made that up, so we shall see if it actually tastes good!

When that was done, I still had a bunch of carrots that I wanted to use up, so I surfed the net for a carrot cookie recipe.

I found a recipe that sounded good on my first click and within an hour, I had these cookies made.
Just like most carrot cake recipes, this cookie recipe called for crushed pineapple.


I omitted the raisins & walnuts because DH is not fond of either. The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, which sounded like way too much, so I used just less than one tablespoon. The recipe also called for a baking time of 20 minutes. I found that 18 was all that was needed in my oven. I frosted them with some leftover cream cheese frosting I had in the freezer. I think these cookies really do need the frosting.

We both enjoyed them. The recipe only made 12 cookies because I made them fairly large. A dozen is just perfect for two people.
If carrot cake in the form of a cookie sounds good to you, click for the recipe Allrecipes.com

Besides cooking we moved all the furniture from the dining room and living room to the family room and basement. I am expecting the contractor to start tomorrow. With contractors, one never knows...he was supposed to call me last Thursday to let me know, but, of course, I have not heard from him. Good thing I am not in a hurry to get everything done.

My poor plants are ready to be cut down. Yesterday I cut down this Silver King Artemesia that was beginning to seed.
I did not want the seeds sprouting all over. It's a challenge as it is to keep this plant in check from the underground runners. I love the color and it's great for bouquet fillers, so I put up with the extra work.

Most of my potted dahlias have powdery mildew.

Ugly! I don't remember having this problem with dahlias before.

I did get my Christmas tree skirt sewn together this morning...yeah, it's a different shape for a tree skirt. Everybody has a round or square tree skirt... how many people do you know with an octagonal tree skirt? LOL. I still have a lot of work to do before this is ready for the spot of honor under my 7.5 foot tree.
I also finished this little project that I started a few weeks ago.

Any idea what this could be? The colors probably give you a hint that it's for Halloween.

It's a Boo banner!
It was quite easy. Most people would have it finished in a day, but I set it aside and did not feel like working on it.

Finally I decided I needed to get it done so I could clear off the ironing board.


I will embellish it a bit more and you may see it again next month.......although at the moment I have no idea what I will use it for.
I do crazy things like that all the time....most people would not make something unless they had a plan for it...not me..........I just start sewing and figure out later what to do with the items I make. Weird, I know.

I hope you all had a nice weekend!

A Few Comment Answers

I hope you all know how much I appreciate when you take the time to leave a comment on my blog. There are millions of blogs out there and I never take it for granted if someone takes the effort to leave a comment on this blog. I don't respond to every single comment, but I try to resond if a question is asked or just to say thanks now and then.

Sometimes I post a reply in the blog itself. Today is that day.


My first comment is from Karen: Get this,I think I actually killed my obedient plant.....

Zoey: No! Please share your secret. How did you ever get rid of that thug? LOL.


From: ankhorite
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ankhorite has left a new comment on your post "Look at all the 'Broccoli Flowers'!":

...
Your 'Elijah Blue' grass should come back next spring. Named after Cher's son with Greg Allman, if I recall correctly.

Love the jagged-edged green plant above the echinacea in your final photo. Never seen anything like it. Under the begonias to the left, is that a fern drooping down, or something creeping out of the pot?

I'm leaving this comment going back to my own blog instead of my tumblr account in case you want to say hi. :)

Ankorite, I would love to say "Hi", but you posted as anonymous so I could not reply to you. That is why I decided to post the reply here. I hope you see it.

The jagged edged leaves are Ligularia. It gets a tall yellow spiky flower. This year it was the best it has ever been. You can see the bloom, if you look under "Ligularia" on my side bar.

Under the begonias I have creeping Jenny. If you mean the big blackish leaf, that is Elephant's Ear.

I had wondered if "Elijah Blue" was named after Cher's son. I am happy to hear that it should come back next year. Thanks for the info!



Mon, September 6, 2010 12:45:18 PM[Perennial Passion] New comment on A Few New Bloomers.
From: becomingkate
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love how you include the background, so that I can see how you've grouped them, or added garden art. Beautiful!

Hi Kate,
Thanks so much for saying that.

I always like to show the actual garden, not just close-ups of flowers. That is a pet peeve of mine--I can see flower close ups in any catalog....what I enjoy seeing is the full landscape. Like you, I want to see what is planted beside what, the size of the border, the shape, etc.

So I am just tickled that there is someone else out there who appreciates that I attempt to do that!

and from Betty in Canada who has been a loyal reader for a long time (Thank you for that, Betty. I so appreciate all of my loyal readers!):

Thanks Zoey for the recipe, I am making that dressing very soon with the potatoes of course:) I need to look for wholegrain dijon mustard..don't know if our grocery store carries that....

Betty, I think any mustard will do. If you have only plain yellow mustard, just give it a good squirt. It will be fine.

Once again I want to thank all of you who take the time to leave a comment. If you want an answer, PLEASE make sure you don't post as anonymous because there is no way I can contact you.


For the past few days, I have been working on a Christmas tree skirt that I want to use this year. I posted about it on my sewing/quilting blog. Just click here if you want to see it.

A Few New Bloomers

Just in time for Jean's What's Blooming Tuesday.
While looking over the deck railing at my side garden, I admired this color combination of dark purple Buddelia with the black-eyed Susans.
I have two butterfly bushes. The other one is a lighter purple. The lighter one seems to get many more butterflies. It's bigger so maybe thart is why. There is a butterfly on one of these blooms. Did you see it?


It looks like I finally have a true 'Picasso' canna. I bought these this year at the end of June when Home Depot had them half price. What a bargain! They have bloomed true to the package description.


I bought 'Lucifer' at the same, but am still waiting for its bloom.
It appears to be a late, late bloomer.

Here is a zinnia from the seeds I tossed in a few containers.


Perfect splotchy colors for the cannas its planted with!
Tropicanna 'Gold' is putting out some nicely colored flowers.


My first ground-planted canna is about to bloom. That is very exciting for me because I have never had one that I planted in the ground bloom.

Pardon me? Oh, did someone ask what was in the background?

Click here to see my latest shaggy bags.

After doing that, don't forget to head on over to Jean's to see what everyone has blooming.

A Little More of Manhattan & Aunt Mary's Cooked Potato Salad Dressing

The Manhattan lilies I planted last week have really opened up. They go nicely with the Sedum Autumn Joy. I moved the whiskey barrel orb to this area to enhance the display. It's great to fill in bare spots!

It's only in the mid 50-degree range out today, so I have been inside cooking all afternoon. While looking through my old 1970's recipe box, I came across aunt Mary's potato salad dressing recipe. It is a cooked dressing with a bit of ZING from vinegar.
I love these old recipes! Who says "oleo" any more? I used real butter because that is what I always buy. I just used about 1 tsp.


I cut up 5 medium potatoes.
While they were boiling I cooked the dressing. I did not have dry mustard, so I just squeezed a blob of this multi-grain mustard in instead.

You only bring this mixtue up to a boil and then remove it from the heat. You don't want the eggs to cook--although mine did because I let it boil a min. or two. No big deal, once I put the mayo in, you could not even see the small bits of cooked egg.

I cut up some onion, celery and red pepper to add to the potatoes. Here it is all done.

It's in the fridge cooling until it's time for dinner.

Tiny Bouquets in Vintage Vases and a Big Contemporary Chandelier

It's been too hot to go outside and look at the flowers, so I decided to bring some inside.

What kind of a bouquet can you make with just four flowers?

Well, if you have one of these vintage lady vases, you can make a lovely little ditty like this:
It looks like a bustle! So fun!

This tiny little pitcher seemed perfect for some buddelia and black-eyed Susans.
Unfortunately it has a hairline crack and all the water leaked out. So I removed the flowers and put them in a ceramic chicken that I bought in 1989. So I guess I can call it a "vintage 80's" vase.



My last vintage vase is actually the first one I did tonight. It's a tiny bouquet to showcase the one yellow/gold Rembrandt dahlia that I have blooming. I just love the color of this dahlia and wanted to be able to admire it close up so I brought out my Knowles 'Modern Plaid' sugar bowl to use as a vase.



After all that vintage, I am now going to show you what I picked out for my new dining room chandelier. I really love this chandy!
I really do not like stark contemporary decorating, but I am growing fond of traditional with a contemporary flair. That is the look I will be shooting for as I replace all of my old furniture. It will be a gradual process. The contractor is supposed to start the middle of next week. He will be replacing all the windows, covering a cedar plank wall with new drywall, re-drywalling the dining room (remember when I removed that wallpaper only to discover that the last contractor skipped a few steps before applying it?), replacing all the plain Jane interior doors and hanging this chandy.

It will be an awful mess---I thought I was done with drywall dust----not looking forward to all the cleanup!

Gilding the Lily

I have been such a lazy blogger this week. I have had plenty of time after work to blog, but I just have not felt like it.

Each afternoon I came home from work and did almost nothing, except for this:



My only accomplishment for the whole week was that I finished reading two mysteries and did a bit of denim sewing:


Fortunately I found more energy for the weekend.

Saturday I went in to work for about an hour and then came home and went to Home Depot to look at dining room chandeliers. I didn't find a chandy that I liked, but I did find 8 lily plants--

too bad that it did not even occur to me to take a pic before I planted all of them! It does not take long to get out of the blogging mode! By the way, they were on sale for $4.98 each.

I bought 4 of these dwarf Tango lilies 'Four You'. They are only about a foot high - like the Pixie lilies I have planted along one of my paths.

I did not even know there were dwarf Tangoes, but as soon as I saw them,I had to have them.
These remind me so much of the 'Kentucky' Tango lilies I had this year.

They also had another dwarf asiatic called 'Manhattan'. Even though it's not my favorite color, I bought 4 of those also.
'Manhattan' has a huge pink flower. I planted them all along the path closest to the main arbor. I doubt that these will bloom this late next year. I suspect they were forced into bloom so they could be sold this late in August. The end of August is pretty late for Asiatics to be blooming in Michigan.

While I am on the subject of lilies, do you remember those Pineapple lilies that I bought from Breck's? I planted them in April. One of them has finally bloomed.

It's another big Breck's disappointment this year. I have never had an order from Breck's that was as big a flop as this year's was.

I ordered two of these fairly expensivePineapple Lily bulbs. Here they are today--4 months after planting.

The second one has barely broken through the soil. It's been that same size for weeks. The bloom on the other one is about an inch long.



Nothing like their ad from which I ordered them:

There is not much you can do about false advertising from flower catalogs.........
except stop buying from them.

That's why I bought the lilies from Home Depot this year instead of from Breck's. At least I see what I am paying for before I plop down my hard-earned cash.

I suppose I should write to them and get a refund on all the duds they sent this year....Rembrandt dahlias--only 3 of the six I received even came up, the pineapple lily that barely sprouted................I really hate to be bothered with getting refunds/replacements. I expect to receive quality the first time I order!

I almost finished one of my denim projects today. I will show you that later.

Look at all the 'Broccoli Flowers'!

My twin sisters-in-law came over last week and that is what one of them said as she got out of car and saw this driveway planting. She is not fond of Sedumn Autumn Joy. They remind her of broccoli.

I, on the other hand, love SAJ! I spent two summers removing all of the sedum 'coral carpet' (super invasive) from this area. I replanted it with SAJ because I love its light green color against the dark green yews and it requires almost no attention all summer.

It is one of the few perennials I know of that looks good all summer.

As people walk up to my front door, they are surrounded by SAJ.

I also have it on the opposite side of the driveway:


It is just beginning to turn pink. By next week, this entire area will be a sea of light pink!

You know what that means. When the sedumn AJ turns pink, autumn is not far behind. We had a high of 68 degrees today.

There is one negative to SAJ. When it turns pink, the bees love it. There will be dozens of bees in this area next week.

Last year I got stung by a bee on this SAJ in the arbor garden.
Every time I walked down the path, my knee would hit the plant. One day a bee got annoyed and stung me right in the knee--Ouch!

I am not looking forward to a repeat of that, so I moved the SAJ from this area last Sunday and replaced it with the Elijah Blue grass I bought in May.
I have never had this grass before, so I don't know if it will survive the winter. If not, I will have to come up with something else next year.

When the SAJ turns pink I will show you some of the other areas whereI have it planted. Oh, did I forget to mention that I have over a HUNDRED of these plants? Probably even two hundred...I should count them someday.

DH Takes Me to Paradise....

Paradise, Michigan, that is.

It's a tiny town in the upper peninsula. Not to be confused with Hell, Michigan, which is in the lower peninsula. Really...I don't make this stuff up....just google it if you are skeptical.

We have been on vacation for the past four days. (You probably did not even know I was gone since I had entries all set to automatically post)

Paradise was having its annual wild blueberry festival.
We found a parking spot about a block from the main entrance and walked down to this craft show,
which was right on the shores of Lake Superior.

While walking around, we spotted these cute little dogs being pushed in a baby stroller! Talk about the good life...
I remarked on their cuteness to the man pushing them. He told me how he had adopted them from a shelter. The cutie in the center is named Zoey! How cool is that? I asked him if I could take a picture and he was nice enough to allow me to do so.

We decided to find something to buy that we could use in the garden as a memento of the time we spent in Paradise.

DH was quite impressed with this booth featuring stainless steel whirligigs.

I decided to pick one in the same colors as the cannas that are now blooming.

It was our only purchase.

We were hoping they would have blueberry ice cream for sale, but we did not see any blueberry anything! The church across the street was advertising pasties for dinner...pasties are a UP speciality of beef and veggies in a sort of pie crust pastry...but what do they have to do with blueberries?
Photo credit and you can find the recipe for UP pasties here.

We were a little disappointed in the lack of blueberry culinary concoctions. Maybe they had some in a different part of town. We drove through the tiny town, but saw nothing to suggest that they did.

We decided we were thirsty and drove another dozen miles to a brewery at Tahquamenon Falls. We have been to this place a few times and know that they offer four different brews that change frequently. I was hoping they would have some blueberry ale to coincide with the festival.

This time I was not disappointed!

DH got a pint while I ordered just a 1/2 pint.
I was surprised that I drank the whole glass! I am not a beer lover, but this was delicious...the two blueberries at the bottom were an extra special treat.
On the way back, we stopped at this quaint little quilt shop. DH really liked the moose quilt on the back wall. If only we had a cottage up north--I could make a moose quilt for the bed.