The Creeping Phlox is Blooming

on the sunny side of the rockwall garden.


The center section is not yet ready as it gets less sun.



Sometimes I think dandies get a bad rap.
Look at how lovely this large dandelion looks next to my big mossy rock.

Yesterday afternoon we removed all of the containers from the crawl space.
These are callas, cannas, and dahlias that I over winter in their pots and soil

I am sure this is NOT the expert's way of saving these bulbs/tubers, but I know of no easier method.

Jut remove the foliage and stick the whole container in a cold, but not freezing place and leave it until spring.

I put these in hibernation last October...they have been 7 months in the dark without one drop of water.

See how dry the soil is?
Yet they are already coming up.

I will start watering and fertilizing them and I expect all to make a healthy return.


Confucis say, "Much work ahead to make this big empty deck look inviting. Only crazy lady attempt such task"

Destined for Round Up?

There are thousands of species of Euphorbias in the world (poinsettia is one).

The Euphorbias are named after a Greek surgeon of a North African kingdom called Euphorbus. He is supposed to have used their milky latex as an ingredient for his potions.



Euphorbia cyparissias (often referred to as spurge) can be an invasive perennial reproducing by seed and lateral root buds. I daresay there are those who would vehemently refer to it as a weed. Cypress spurge emits a poisonous milky sap when broken, as most euphorbias do. If you have sensitive skin you must wear gloves.

On the plus side, it is low-maintenance growing in partial to full sun and it will even grow in rocky compacted soil. Its foliage looks like evergreen trees, but it is very soft to the touch. I love to run my hand over it as I walk past. In the spring it has these lovely yellow-green bracts and in the fall its narrow green leaves turn shades of red/orange/yellow.

I have it as an underplanting to a yew hedge where I want it to spread and fill the entire area. I planted it two seasons ago and it is already spreading like crazy.


It may end up being too much trouble to keep contained. I have been trying to make sure I cut off the flowers before they seed, but that is not so easy to do when you have a ton of it (Of course, I have it in other areas besides this one).

I will be keeping a close watch on this plant. As much as I do like it, I fear I may have to destroy it due its aggressive nature.

Note to Self

Run around yard with litttle spade and dig up oodles of grape hyacinths to fill in bare areas around these tulips.

I like the color combo.

Since this area is near the garage, I will see & appreciate the little hyacinths more than I do now where I can only see them if I take a stroll around the "Ponderosa" (as hubby refers to my massive garden plantings).

Bergenia in Bloom

I must admit that I am not in love with this plant. Many people rave about it, but as yet I have not been overcome with the same emotion.
The leaves do stay green, but really they are not that beautiful. A hosta leaf (in my humble opinion) is much more lovely.
I guess I should have picked off the brown-edged leaves. In fact, I did pick off some a few weeks ago, but I see I missed a few.
Maybe they just need to get bigger to look better?

I Really Like Primroses

I think they are beautiful and easy to care for, yet I don't see them being planted as often as I would expect.




I wonder why?

My flowering crabapple tree (on the left) only blooms once every two years.

It's a long wait between blooms. When it does bloom, it only lasts a few days.

This is the year it will bloom.

It is loaded with buds.

In a couple more days it will be completely covered in pink flowers.
I am anxiously awaiting.................

Strobilanthes Dyerianus

Now that's a mouthful, isn't it? LOL.
I just call it Persian Shield.
Other than my 4 hibiscus trees, it is the only plant I tried to overwinter in the basement.


It looks a little sick, but it did survive with almost no sun and just a small drink of water once a week.

I should look like this

I am feeling pretty confident that it will after a few weeks of warm sunshine and a few treatments of miracle grow.

Had to perform a little surgery this morning before work

I left this Osteospermum outside in the rain storms yesterday and the poor thing was jostled so hard it's roots were sitting on top of the soil.

I don't want to lose this one because it has those spooned petals that are so difficult to find in my area.



Aren't they the coolest? They are not all the way opened in this pic, but trust me, they are very cool.

I brought him to the kitchen sink and tried to recover the roots. It was kinda of tough to dig around that little container as it's pretty full of the root ball. I must get this guy planted soon...this is why one should not buy plants too early ...but I do it every year.

1st Trip to the Garden Center

After work yesterday, I stopped by the local garden center to see what was available.

I did not find too many new exciting offerings.

I did buy these trailing plants because I always need trailers for the front of my containers.

The white flowers on the bacopa seem to be unusually large. There was no marker in the plant so I don't know its name.

Last year I could not find any trailing coleus, so when my friend at work told me they had some of the duck's foot type, I made a special trip there to get some.


I also bought some Parrot's Beak (Lotus berthelotii).


This is a new one for me. I like the soft silvery-green, pinelike, tailing foliage and thought it would be a unique addition to some container.

It blooms with these interesting orange beak-like flowers.

It might look rather spiffy with this golden orange calibrachoa called 'Caribbean Sunset'.....then again, it may be too much the same color....

who knows where it will end up? I like to have a good assortment on hand when I start putting the containers together. . . makes me feel like a real garden designer....LOL

Oh, and we are finally getting the rain....LOADS of it....yup, the next seven days have rain in the forecast...I had no doubt that would happen...
I am on vacation next week.

Big Fat Tulip Leaves

Does this ever happen to your tulips?

Tulips can be very discouraging. First of all they must survive the deer, rabbits and underground critters that eat the bulbs.

If by some miracle they do survive, you still can't count on a good bloom.

Often you get a whole slew of these one-fat-leaf plants that will not produce anything but green leaves.

Why does this happen?
I've done a little research and this is what I found:

Something happened the prior year that did not give the bulb what it needed to make the flower...

Reason #1
The mother bulb may have rotted away after splitting into bulblets. These immature bulblets will take years to reach full size to produce a flower.

Reason #2
The bulbs may be planted in too much shade. The first year they will bloom wherever you plant them because the flower is already set within the bulb from the perfect conditions the grower's field provided.
But if you planted them where they lack solar energy, the next year's bloom won't be properly set. That's why, even in the sunnier locations, you must allow the foliage to brown completely before getting rid of the messy plants. I read someplace that it takes 30 days of good sun to supply the bulb with next year's food.

There are numerous other reasons. Incorrect feeding, lack of or too much fertilizer, soil too moist, soil too dry, and compacted soil may all contribute to flowerless plants.

Serious tulip gardeners just give up and plant new bulbs each year.

If you can afford to do that and have the energy to do all that digging and replanting then you will almost be guaranteed a beautiful showing the following spring.

If that is too much trouble/money/work, then you will just have to take your chances (like I do) and savor the fleeting beauty of a blooming tulip. The odds are great that you won't see the same one next year.

The Groundcovers are Filling in

And almost ready to bloom.

In a few areas the creeping phlox is just beginning to flower. You will be seeing masses of purple very soon.

I have planted a combination of ajuga, creeping phlox and snow-in-summer. Overall I am happy with this combo. It is beautiful in flower and has nice foliage when not, which is an important consideration when you plant large areas that will flower for only a few weeks.




This little area is where I thought I removed everything last fall.

But as you can see, there is a LOT of green in there. I guess I did not do a very good job digging everything out. Most of it is poppies that I had forgotten about (all of the poppy foliage was gone in the fall).


Ah, but aren't these big fat hairy buds beauties?
I may be glad I did not succeed in killing them off.



Look at these poor hibiscus stuck in the basement just waiting to come outside and play.

I will be bringing them out this week to begin hardening them off.

Now this is a suspicious-looking photo, don't you think?

My First Tulips of the Season

I succeeded in keeping the deer away from the tulips this year and have been rewarded with the first bloomers.

It looks like about half of the tulips will bloom. I have many of them with one big green leaf and no blooms.

If you have been with me since my beginning blog days, you may remember that the deer ate all of my tulips last year as soon as they emerged from the ground. I was not sure if any of them would bloom this year since there was no foliage for the sun to energize last spring.

They are certainly lacking in size and oomph this year, but I am happy to at least get a few meager blooms.

Still crossing my fingers that we get rain tonight. I did pull out the hose and water the ligularia (just in case).

In my comments someone asked me if we were having hot weather. It is still pretty early for hot weather in northern Michigan. Today it was in the mid 60's. Right now (at 7:30 p.m. it's 58).

We shouldn't plant annuals here until the end of May and even then, we may have to protect them a few times in June. Of course, I never wait that long. I am taking a week off work beginning May 15 and I will plant all of my containers then.

Then I will grumble every time I have to find sheets, etc. to cover them all.

No April Showers, but still a few May Flowers

This little spot (in the foundation planting) has some anemone (windflowers) and muscari (grape hyacinths) with forget-me-nots almost ready to open.

The anemone are very small and I really don't get the chance to enjoy them. I need to move them closer to my living room window so that when I stand inside and look out I can see them.

I must remember to do that this weekend.

Grape hyacinths are a favorite of mine. They look great with tulips.

This is a famous dense planting of these at Keukenhof Gradens in Holland. Imagine how many little bulbs must be planted to get this river illusion!



Last night I took a little walk-around and was excited to see this


It's my ligularia.

Remember I planted two of them last year?



They were a little pricey so I am glad to see they made it through the winter.

We are badly in need of rain. If we don't get it this weekend, I will have to start dragging the hose out. It's way too early to start with that chore!

Cooking Marathon Day

Whew! I've been cooking all day.
I made the cabbage rolls and a broccoli casserole - enough for 4 meals for us and I took some to my Mom & Dad for their dinner tomorrow.
I also made two meals of Petite Steaks in mushroom sauce. So tomorrow's dinner is cooked.
The refrigerator is stocked with meals for next week and the freezer has a few for the future. If your going to make a mess cooking, you may as well go all out.

Needless to say I did not get outside. It was only in the 50's anyway ---too cold.

During my cooking breaks, I did get all of the paper removed from the border.
This is what you have to remove.


You just find a loose spot and stick your finger in and pull it off. Most of it came off easily in nearly complete strips


Here it is ready for the garbage man


As I write this, I am watching "Little People Big World". Have any of you seen this? It comes on every week on The Learning Channel and is about dwarf parents in Oregon raising their family of three regular-size children and one little person. I find it interesting.

We never think about how difficult every day life can be for little people.

They are just a normal family trying to overcome life's obstacles. Their son who is a little person is actually a twin. His twin brother is not a dwarf. Zach, the dwarf twin, just came home from a little person conference and he is saying how difficult it is for him to reenter his normal world where he has to look up to everyone. I can only imagine how tough it is for him.

I am impressed with this family. They work hard to make a living and seem to be doing a fine job raising their children.

I Shopped Till I Dropped

I don't really like to shop, but every now & then I get the urge.
Tonight was the night.
Look at all this fabric!
I didn't have any orange or yellow fabric so I stocked up.

I just know somewhere down the line I will NEED these colors.

I also bought 3.25 yrds of 120-inch muslin for the backing for my quilt.

Earlier in the week I bought some 108", but decided to buy the wider to make sure I would not have any piecing on the back. It was 50% off so I couldn't go wrong. I will use the 108" for another quilt.
Thread was also 50% off so I bought a bunch.

Then I went to another store and bought some make up and these beaded flipflops. For some reason they appealed to me.


I hit the clothing store next and I made quite a haul there, too--2 pantsuits, 2 skirts, and a pair of dress pants.


Almost everything has to be hemmed, so that's on my weekend to-do list. (It's not fun buying clothes when you are barely over 5 feet tall.)

I must have been overcome with a shopping virus because my next stop was the grocery store. In my family I am not the grocery shopper. Somehow I managed to buy a whole cartful of food items. DH will be soooooooo surprised when he gets home tonight.

As I walked by the produce section, I thought cabbage rolls (or "pigs-in-the-blanket" as they are are known in this area) sounded good. I bought a head and plan to make that tomorrow for dinner. I even found the rice aisle and grabbed a bag of that as I remembered I was getting low.

I am hoping to get outside this weekend. I have not done any outside work since I dug out the sedum last week. It's been too cold and windy. I am quite the wimp when it comes to working outside in cold weather.

Spikey Border Blocks

Are Finally Done!



I am very happy with them. The border was my first paper-piecing project and it took a long time (about 33 hours of actual sewing time)-- much longer than it takes to just cut strips of fabric and make a plain border. But it was worth it.

Every block finished at exactly 10.5 inches. It was quite a breeze to sew on.

There was not one piece where I had to "make it fit" -- how wonderful is that?

I am happy to report that tearing off the back paper is not nearly as tedious as I expected it to be. I've only just begun that part, but it's going quite quickly. I've already discovered that the secret is to sew with a very small stitch (which is NOT so wonderful when you have to rip out sections--believe me, I did my fair share of ripping out).

I can't wait to start my next quilt. I've purchased another Carol Doak book full of 9-patch paper-pieced star blocks.

I am now an official paper-piecing addict!

Do You Eat

Flowers in Your Salad?

To me it is a total turnoff.

I just can't bring myself to munch on a flower.

I've tried to eat chive flowers in my salad, but had to push them aside and leave them on the rim of the salad plate.


For me,flowers belong in the center of the table or maybe as a garnish on the side, but not in my food.

Did They Survive?

See the baskets of sweet potato vine on each side of the arbor?







Last fall I decided to try to save them. I just cut off all the foliage and stuck them in the crawl space under the house for the winter.






I pulled them out yesterday and I think they have survived.

It's hard to see here, but there are little red live-looking pieces coming up. I gave them some water and will keep them in the garage (setting them out for a few hours each day to get some sun) until there is no danger of frost (end of May here).

I Finally Have a Bloom to Show

Flowers have been blooming all over blogworld, but none in my blog.
Well, finally I have a few...to be sure, it's not much to brag about, but here they are all fancied up in heart frames...




And I saw two of these little tree frogs on the deck tonight. (I've always called them tree frogs, but not sure if that is correct.). I see them all the time. They are usually climbing the walls or behind the wall planters.

I've never seen one in a tree, though.