Impulse Purchase Put to Use

I just know some of you are wondering what the heck I did with that metal thing with the bird on top. Remember I showed this to you a few days ago?

Well, I found a spot to hang it in the kitchen and I clipped a few magazine pages to it for future meal inspiration.  It looked like a mess--ripped out magazine clippings hung on the wall--was not even cute.  . . sorry, did not a pic of that.

When I got up Sunday morning inspiration of another kind struck.  I went to the basement and brought up a box of my red-handled vintage kitchen utensils. I wired them to the cage.
Ta da!  I like this  much better!

DH does not need any meal inspiration. He's doing pretty good on his own.  He made square burgers to fit on the grilled bread...genius!

Ladies in the grocery store are even asking him for recipes.  Saturday an 80-something year old lady struck up a conversation in the produce aisle and was amazed that he did all the shopping and even cooked.  She asked him what he was cooking for dinner and then asked for his recipe for cucumbers in sour cream.  He got a big kick out of that.

A Working Weekend at Home

I feel so good about all the work we completed this weekend. Our biggest project was removing all the shutters and repainting them.

This took most of the day today as I had to put at least four thin coats of paint on each shutter.  We do this about every five years.  As soon as I finish this post, we will go out and rehang them.

On Saturday I showed DH how to make chicken pot pies. We had to clean  all the veggies, cook them to the al dente stage,  then cook the chicken breasts, cut everything into bite-sized pieces, make a roux, and do all the clean up.  We used puff pastry so we did not have to make pie crust.   We had two for dinner (very tasty!) and froze enough for three meals later this winter.  I don't think he will ever make them on his own...he thinks they require too much work! :)  Imagine what he would think if he had to make the pie crust, too!   He just took over the cooking duties in May--grilling season. He has done a great job of grilling  all summer, but he has no idea how much effort it takes to cook winter meals. 

I am feeling autumn in the air and decided to take this lantern

and turn it into a fall display.  This is what I ended up with Saturday morning:

It was a quick fun project and goes nicely on this table under my sailboat oil painting.

I also did something with this bird cage picture holder that I bought during one of my 5:00 am shopping sprees two weeks ago. When it was delivered Saturday afternoon, I wondered whatever possessed me to buy this--I really have no pictures that I want to put on it....I did not even know where I would hang it!  The picture is misleading as it only came with 4 clothes pins.

As it turned out, I did not even use the clothes pins. I will show you on another post what I ended up doing with it.

I hope you all had a wonderful late summer weekend!

Sedum Autumn Joy Turns Pink and Fraternal Twin Coleus

My Sedum Autumn Joy  has reached my favorite pink stage.

Did you notice the denim rag wreath I recently made hanging above the garage planter?

Can you also see the greenish coleus in the planter under the rag wreath?

hmmm... maybe not, so here's a close up:

It's a nice green color with red edges.


Can you believe that green/red-edged coleus is the same plant as this vibrant red one on the opposite side of the garage?

 

 This side gets a lot more sun than the other side which is just a few feet away.
 
I really like both colors. I wish I knew the name of this sawtooth-edged beauty, but when I bought it, there was no name tag.  Don't you just hate that?  I know I do!

Update:  Thanks to Eileen, who knew this was 'Henna' coleus.  I must remember this one for next year.  It is the most beautiful coleus I have ever planted.

Grasshopper on Red Dahlia & Butterflyless Buddleia

It has been a few years since I've seen one of these big grasshoppers.

My Buddleia (butterfly bush) began to bloom over a week ago and NO butterflies came around to sip its sweet nectar.  I did have a lot of  bees:

 and hummingbird moths...

but no butterflies!  What's up with that? 

Are you seeing less butterflies this year?

Trebbanio Dahlia and Toad Lily Whiskey Barrel

This year I planted my Trebbanio dahlias in two whiskey barrels on my deck.  These dahlias start out as nearly black and gradually the outer petals turn a ruby red.  I adore them! I also planted Elephant Ears and toad lilies  (Tricyrtis) in the barrels.




Last year I had the Tricyrtis along a walkway in a perennial garden. But toad lilies bloom late--at a time when I rarely walk the perennial paths, so I decided to move them up on the deck when I could enjoy them every day. I think the color goes nicely with the Trebbanio dahlias.

But ,overall, l I find these barrel planters rather blah, so I added a flamingo to one of them.

That's a bit better. :)

See the pot of pink starburst 'Park Princess' dahlias further down the deck?  Over the weekend, I moved the rain lilies that Patti from Osage Bluff sent me in January of 2012 (read the post here) and put them right underneath the dahlias.

 

I think they make a nice complement down on the ground level.

Today we called a tree service to get a bid on removing 13 more trees from my front yard and perennial gardens.  Whooo hoooo! Can't wait to get rid of more scruffy trees!

 

Black Varnish Pseuderanthemum--common name: Chocolate Plant

I finally found the name of my mystery plant! 

After a Sunday morning-to-mid-afternoon full of heavy garden work, I was sitting on the deck perusing a small stack of old garden magazines.  I opened a Garden Design mag from 2008 and immediately saw this photo:

 

 

I think I made some sort of noise as DH looked over at me to see what was up.  "I knew I would eventually find it!" I exclaimed to his questioning look.

 

"Find what?"

 

  "The rubbery black plant in my container!". 

 

 He still looked puzzled. 

 

I explained how nobody on my blog knew what this plant was and I have been Googling terms like "black leathery plant" for months trying to find out what it was.  I finally have the answer:

 

Here it is on my deck (lower left):


Once I had the name, I found some info on the net.  As I suspected it's perennial in warmer climates

I love the color. I doubt if I will find it for sale in my town for years to come.   For those of us who love dark-foliage, it's a pretty unique container plant. As much as I dislike trying to overwinter plants indoors, I am going to give this one a try. 

Wouldn't it would look great planted underneath this canna lily with the dark striped leaves?

I wish I had purchased a few more!

Look Who Came to Visit at Work Yesterday

Sasquatch!

  Our hotel is hosting a production crew and actors for a fishing reality show.  Sasquatch is making commercials for Jack's Link's (beef jerky ), the main sponsor for this show.  He has been spotted all around the town doing all sorts of crazy things.  The whole town is enjoying our week of fame.  We cannot wait for the shows to air, beginning in January.

 

Since I had my camera at work, I snapped a shot of one of the four containers I do each year. 

There are a  couple of Tropicana flowers almost ready to bloom.  The creeping jenny has been gobbled up by the Ipomeoa. Jenny is not as aggressive as I had hoped.  I really wanted that shot of chartreuse to hang down in the front. 

 

Here is a close up of the foliage plants -- Persian Shield, Coleus, Ipomeoa and licorice plant instead of Jenny in this one.

 

 

This container is on my porch at home and Jenny behaved beautifully. Of course the container is shorter and has no Ipomeoa.

 

.

 

The licorice plant shows up nicely in the containers flanking my garage.

I will have to remember to use the golden licorice plant instead of Creeping Jenny with Ipomeoa.

 

I always enjoy my containers in late August when the perennial garden is pretty much done!

Sunday Morning on the Deck

What a beautiful Sunday we are enjoying today.  It was very cool (40's) at 6:00 a.m. and 80 degrees by 2pm.  Perfect weather!

I was outside early taking pics of the deck before the sun got high enough to cast shadows.

Last year I bought this container of switch grass 'Rotstrahlbush'. I overwintered it in it's original pot. I thought it had died until a few weeks ago when it finally came up! Really...it was late July before anything began to grow.  It is still not very tall. I decided to put it in a deck vignette where I would get much more enjoyment then I get looking at it alone in this ugly plastic pot.

 

I love its soft feathery panicles against the rough 'Tropicana' leaves.

 The panicles should get taller and turn a reddish color as fall approaches.

I love August on my deck.  This is the time when my tropicals began to flower and I can move the containers around to make different combinations. 

 

This Rembrandt dahlia began blooming this week:

The petals look paint splashed ....I love it!

 

Here is another Rembrandt in golden yellow and red:

 

The coleus planters I bought the first week of July have really exploded in size.

 DH and I are both enjoying them.  It is wonderful having containers with no blooms to fade and fall onto the deck floor.  J gets all the credit for the deck plants this year. He has been super diligent in his daily watering/fertilizing. 

 

 

 Look at the size of this coleus sitting on the floor:

 

They look so good I am wondering if he is singing to them each afternoon....LOL. 

 

I hope you are all having a great Sunday, too!

The dark foliage planter Finally has two Flowers

Tropicana 'Black' is only about 3 ft. tall this year (usually gets over 6 ft) and right now it has one bloom.  I like it short and I like the reddish orange color of the flower:

About two feet higher, Canna 'Wyoming' has its first bloom in a lighter orange:

'Tropicana' still has no buds:

If it ever blooms, it will have a medium orange flower. But even without a flower its striped leaves are stunning.  The purple plant is Persian Shield.

Two weeks ago I bought my first hedge trimmer. 

It's electric with a 100-ft cord.  I'm in love!  I have been trimming all my shrubs with just a small Felco hand pruner for over twenty years.  I had no idea how easy this would be to use and how fast I could trim all the shrubs.  Today I used it to cut down gazillions of daylily foliage.  In less than an hour I cut down more than I used to do in a full day's work.  Love, love, love this tool!! I am sure you all have something like this already. Nobody but me would do all that hand trimming for so many years without one.

I am going to use this cut down all my perennial foliage this fall!

3 New Clocks

One day last week  I was surfing around in the wee morning hours and I found a blog that mentioned a site I had never heard of.....Joss and Main..................strange name... but I liked some of the items that were purchased at that site, so I wandered on over for a look.

I did not purchase anything that day, but I did register my email.  So, of course, they sent me advertising emails daily.  I think I went there at least five times before the temptation was just too much and I ordered.......................................clocks............................If you had told me I would be ordering clocks, I would have laughed and asked what you had been drinking...I had no idea I wanted clocks! :)

Somewhere in the inner recesses of my brain, I wanted clocks because I ordered three of them.  They arrived this week.  I opened the box and wondered where I would put these three clocks.  My original thought was to use them on my dining room table as a centerpiece...unfortunately the backs are not finished so that did not work. 

I ended up using them in these spaces:

 On top of the dining room curio cabinet:

 

On top of the dining room china cabinet:

 

 

Over the television cabinet:

I think they will be great decoration for a New Year's Eve party dessert table!  I have never had a NYE party, but maybe someday I will.....If I do, I will be prepared!

It's been a Pretty Dull Week in the Garden

It's that time of year when I wonder why I do all that garden work.  Everything looks dull, dying or drab. Everything that's interesting has already finished blooming. The daylilies are not very impressive this year. I cut down a few wheelbarrow loads of dead perennials today.

Even my deck containers are blah this year. The Ipomea vine in the center container has not grown at all since it was planted the beginning of June--that is unheard of!

This dark-foliage vignette still has no blooms:

I still like the color combination of the striped Tropicanna,  the silvery purple Persian Shield, greenish-brown canna Wyoming, Tropicanna Black , the Mystery plant (I still have never found out what the dark rubbery thing in the front is) and Sedona coleus. There are two buds on the Trops, so I should  have orange and orangish-red flowers soon.

The only colorful spot right now is the entrance to the deck.  DH gets the credit for this display.

He choose and planted the red and gold combination that flanks the main steps to the deck.  J loves marigolds. I am starting to like them more -- I told him it would look nice if he planted them all the way down that sidewalk border he cleaned out last week. That border leads to the deck entrance.
 

 

He had flowers left over so he planted a number of small containers in the same flower combo and placed on the steps  He insisted on doing all the planting himself.  I think he did a great job!

 

I am really enjoying J's new hobbies--helping with the garden and cooking.  He is even cooking on the weekends.  Last night he grilled this steak and foil-wrapped redskin potatoes with onions:

He also tossed some yellow squash with olive oil, salt and pepper and grilled it.

 

 The meal was delicious.

 

I have always envied women who had husbands who cooked for them. Now I have one-- I am a lucky woman!

 

I also did another project this week that caused this:

This pic was taken after 7 days of healing....No kidding!  If you want to find out what caused this click here.