fall blooms

We've had two very windy days now, and I'm happy to report the oil/gas film on the lake from our neighbors' boat sinking has disappeared.

Our boat was pulled yesterday, so this weekend we'll be getting that winterized and ready to cover for the winter. If the weather cooperates, we'll also try and get a start on taking the dock out. It's way more fun getting all of these things out in the spring than putting them away this time of year! Here are a few more of the blooms I've been enjoying the last week or so.

Carefree Beauty rose

hibiscus

turtlehead

snakeroot (I think "Brunette")

anemone

veronica

John Davis rose

too much work evidently

Good grief - September 5th already! I am running as fast as I can and still falling behind. I am very behind in checking in with friends' blogs - sorry! I'll be there soon.

I want to thank all of you for the nice comments about my first video. It was fun to do - and hopefully future ones will be more polished!! Thanks for the encouragement!


I'll just take a minute and catch you up on some of my current projects. First, Zoey at Perennial Passion sent me a seed packet. I think this is so fun. Next year I'm planning to collect seeds and share too. She sent the cute seed packet above and an information sheet. I've never grown rose campion, so this will be fun. I think I have a couple perfect places picked out in the gardens. I can't wait until they come up next year. Thanks, Zoey - I loved getting the seeds and the packet you made!



I've been busy weeding gardens and think they are all finally done. So no doubt I can plan to start all over again in a couple days. Weeding is a never-ending chore in my gardens. I still have several areas that need mulch added - another big chore. I'm also hoping to get some cooler weather to move some things around - something I seem to do every year! My neighbor has some beautiful dark coral daylilies that I'm going to divide and add to my garden. And I want to put the Knockout rose in the ground (it's in a half-barrel planter in the driveway now). And I'm pretty sure I'll find several varieties of tulips etc that will have to go in this fall too. I think I'm going to be busy for awhile yet!


This is my hibiscus that was supposed to be a pale yellow. Still looking pretty white - but I see in the photo that the camera picked up both a little yellow and a little red - cool! The center of the hibiscus and the rose are very similar in color.

This is an iron table and chair that was on Craig's list. Mark ran over and picked it up yesterday while I was at my French class. It's child-size - which was a surprise - but way cool. I think I will probably end up putting it in a garden and let the flowers grow up around it. In the bottom photo you can see that it's quite a bit smaller than my "normal" size table and chairs on the patio. (Well, actually, it doesn't look all that much smaller does it? Hmmm...guess you'll have to trust me on this one.)

I also read an interesting article the other day about butterflies. In my previous post I referred to the caterpillar and the cocoon for the Eastern Black Swallowtails. In fact, moths come from cocoons. Butterflies come from chrysalids. I had thought that chrysalis referred to the process. It's good to learn something new!

Also, I wanted to share how my French teacher, Nadine, prepares her tomatoes to put in the freezer. She washes them. Then she puts the whole tomatoes in large freezer bags. When she wants to use the tomatoes, she removes as many as she needs from the bag - puts them under running water - which removes the skin with no further effort on her part. I'm not sure I have the freezer space to do this - my little bags of roasted tomatoes lay nice and flat in the freezer. But it sure sounds easy!! And it would be much nicer to roast the tomatoes for an hour in the winter before I make soup or lasagna than to heat up the kitchen in the summer. Thought I would pass it on to anyone who might be interested.

Note: my mom just left a tip in the comments section - she does the same as Nadine, but quarters the tomatoes instead of leaving them whole - so they fit into limited space better. Thanks Mom!! I still want the roasted taste when I add them to our meals, but it would be easy (with a little planning!) to do that before you use them with either the whole or quartered tomatoes.

more late summer blooms

On our walk through the garden yesterday, we found a surprising number of things still blooming, reblooming, and just starting to bloom. Maybe I'm the one who's tired - not the gardens!! Here are more photos.

dianthus (pinks)

Queen Anne's Lace

native rudbeckia or coneflower
These all started from seed brought by the wind or birds or ??
They bloom, like, forever! I love it!

plantegenia hosta
these blooms smell sooooo good!

dahlia

turtlehead

little blue stem grass

just starting to turn burgundy and develop seed heads

the phlox are winding down, but still some color

"David"

"Hawkeye Belle"

(this rose is just covered in blooms again)

one of the dahlias

hibiscus are still going strong

mallow reblooming

shasta daisy

"Autumn Joy" sedum, just starting to show color

hibiscus bud starting to open

delphinium reblooming

(surprising because I neglected to deadhead the first blooms)

one of the caladiums in the garden

fireworks and rain, courtesy of Mother Nature

Rain, glorious rain! Early Saturday morning, Mother Nature put on quite the show here in the Twin Cities. Non-stop thunder and lightning for at least 3 hours. And 2 beautiful inches of rain. Then Saturday evening, a repeat, with another 1/2 inch of rain and about 9 pm another fireworks show to our south. This was all marred by power outages, huge winds, downed trees, etc. But at our house, luckily, just beautiful rain and quite the light show. My gardens are doing a happy dance, and so am I, as no watering for 2 whole days!!!

This is a hibiscus I put in last year, and it is blooming for the first time today. It's supposed to be a pale yellow. The bud that will open tomorrow looks yellow compared to these blooms, so maybe the longer it blooms, the more yellow color I'll get. However, I am not complaining about the white - very pretty!

This is one I showed you in an earlier post (photo below). It started out white, but now has very definite pink coloring. Look at the great layers on this bloom.

Some of my hibiscus (the new one and the dark red "Christy") have fat leaves that are green.

The other three have skinny leaves - 2 have reddish leaves and one has super-skinny, serrated green leaves. Very interesting.

I was hoping to stay up and see the Perseid Meteor Shower tonight - but we have a lot of clouds right now, so may not happen. We had a lovely cooler, less humid day today, but tomorrow is supposed to be right back in the 90's with high humidity. This has been a very hot, dry, humid summer so far. Hope you all had a great weekend!

fun day

What a fun day I've had! We lived on this street for 5 years before we bought the home we're in now from our neighbor, Dolly. Dolly's daughter (M) and grandchildren lived with her for one year prior to our buying the house, so we got to know M really well. One of M's friends (C) lives across the lake from us in the house she grew up in, and we've known her for many years also. M now lives in California and has been visiting C for this last week, and today they invited me to C's for lunch, and then we all came back here so M could see the house she grew up in. (Both of these women are named Sharon, so I'm going to refer to them by their last initials.)

I had a ball listening to these two long-time friends reminisce about high school, who lived where, and places they had worked. I'm afraid they would have thought I was very, very boring and a goody-two shoes if I'd been in their high school, but they think they could have easily corrupted me! We talked about our families, and it was great to catch up with their lives and their kids.

Lunch was yummy - a wonderful chicken and mandarin orange salad (yes, I should have taken my camera!) and the best brownies - and the time flew by. We came back here and did a garden tour - they were so complimentary! Then we came in the house, and it was so fun to share the things we've done to the house since buying it, the things we've just left alone because they've always been perfect, and future plans. M shared great stories about the house. They both loved the porch - I had the ceiling fans turned on, and we sat out there gabbing some more. A totally enjoyable 4 hours!!

Dolly was a great neighbor - like a mom and grandma rolled into one. We absolutely loved her. She'll be 94 next Monday and just moved from her home in California into an assisted living home. I think of her so often - it was really nice to hear how she's doing from Sharon M.

After they left, Mark and I took the kayaks out for awhile. And tonight we took the pontoon out to enjoy the sunset from the lake. A very nice ending to a very nice day.

The hibiscus pictured above is one a neighbor gave me last year. I honestly thought that it was a dark red one - but I guess not so much!! I think it's really pretty and it has dark red leaves which are great. I have two hibiscus left to open - and tons of buds still on the 3 that are already open. What fun.

Things That Rock

About 2 weeks ago, Chris & Laurie over at "Miss Flower" tagged me for a meme - 7 Things that Rock. It takes me awhile to think of things for these memes, but I have finally come up with some good ones. Hope you enjoy them too. (Thanks Laurie & Chris for tagging me!)

ONE: Gardens, of course! But especially beautiful tropical plants growing in a Minnesota garden. That ROCKS, right? This is called "Christy" (so I had to have it!). It measures almost 12 inches! WOW!

TWO: Living with a lake right outside our door totally ROCKS. This year we've added kayaking to the mix, and we are having a ball. Today was our longest ride - we did 4 miles this morning. Way fun!

THREE: Fun things in the garden ROCK. I go mostly for rusted iron, but one of my favorite decorations was a birthday gift from Mark several years ago - this cool gazing ball. You can see through it, but it also reflects everything around it. I love it!

FOUR: About 11 years ago, we replaced a deck with this very cool porch. It fits the look of our house so perfectly and is a wonderful place to sit and read, eat dinner, entertain. It's screened because we do live in Minnesota where the state bird is the mosquito - so it ROCKS.

FIVE: Our glider literally ROCKS! This glider originally belonged to Mark's grandparents - for as long as he can remember it sat out at their farm. When his grandfather died, Mark's parents moved the glider to their home. When we moved into this house in 1980, they gave it to us. I sit out here and read or watch the lake or enjoy my gardens almost every day. The dogs love to glide with me - I don't plan to ever part with it!! (If Mark's dad comments on this post, we may learn more history...)

NOTE: A comment left by Mark's dad, Everett: Supposedly Mark's Grandpa bought the swing from Sears & Roebuck in 1929. I fixed it up in 1949 for the first time and then maybe three times later. I bought it on the estate sale and it is so good to have you have it.
Thanks, Everett - Mark and I are both happy to have more history on the glider!

Mark has put new wood on once and painted it a couple times since we've had it - and it's due to have both painting and new wood again. Not bad!

SIX: The great lazy dogs ROCK my world. Pets of all kinds rock - but standard poodles are really great dogs. Ours are naughty and undisciplined and drive me crazy - but I would be totally lost without them.

SEVEN: I can't show you any more photos - but tomatoes from the garden ROCK!!!! We inhaled our BLT's - soooooo good! AND, the best part, there were 2 more turning red, so yesterday we had cheeseburgers with fresh sliced tomatoes - can you say Cheeseburgers in Paradise? YUM!

Let me know if you decide to play along!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOSH!!!

blogger awards

perennial hibiscus

Recently I was privileged to receive blogger awards from Karen at "Over the back yard fence" and Violetlady at "Violetlady at Home" and Tristi at "Tristi Pinkston". The descriptions for these awards are:

The Creative Blogger Award is for those who bring unique and creative elements to their blogs. For those who incorporate art, music, creative writing, photo's, and other beautiful visual effects into their website. For those who put a unique spin on things and come up with new ideas. This award is for the artsy, the funky, the inventor, and even the rebel. This award is for those creative individuals who stand out from the crowd.

The Thoughtful Blogger Award is for those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others' feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous. Also for all of those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping other bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.

I don't know that I really deserve either of these awards, but thank you, thank you, thank you!!! When I started my blog back in February, I never dreamt that I would meet so many nice, fun, generous, crazy people - and that they would visit my blog and leave the nicest comments. But I have, and I truly appreciate all of you who come here and compliment my gardens and share information and make me smile. I love visiting all of your blogs. I feel really fortunate to have met so many great bloggers - I am in awe of the ideas, photos and passion that you all share with me every time I visit.

So, thank you for the recognition - I love it! But the real gift is that I get to share this experience with so many talented and generous people. Thank you to all of you for that.

Casa Blanca - oriental lily

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVERETT!