Happy Thanksgiving...

My new flower pot and saucer...
filled with Delft Blue Violas. Bliss.

Wishing you a day filled with gratitude and blessings.

Have a beautiful day!

Vibrant...

Have a beautiful day!

Anticipation...

As fall darkens into winter, the bleakness increases, drawing me down. It is easy to think that months must pass before there are any signs of life and newness reappearing in my garden. But I have noticed, if I look carefully, I find niches of hope for the coming warmth. Even as the leaves of a hydrangea are falling, the beginnings of young ones are emerging.




New leaves of Iris pallida are forming.




Hidden bulbs are starting to show, telling me to hang in there, that spring will come.




The tendrils of sweet peas show the promises of a much larger vine and of the fragrance of the blooms to come in spring, while the little Johnnies will bolster me through the coming winter.


Have a beautiful day!

Fuzzy slippers...

Do you ever garden in your fuzzy slippers?



After the trauma of having to burn beautiful Madame Alfred Carriere, I was so antsy to get out there and do something positive that yet again I didn’t want to waste time putting on my gardening shoes. So, out I went in my fuzzy slippers. At least the 2nd time I went out to work, I remembered to put on my jacket!




There is a pot that sits on the corner of my deck. It had been partly hidden by the rose and contained the remains of summer that the frost blackened and the weeds that wanted to take over. Out they came to start again for fall, winter and spring. In went adorable Johnnies (Violas) and, of course, Muscari bulbs. Soon there will blooms to enjoy!




Have a beautiful day!

Promises...

Earlier this week, I went to New Garden Nursery to buy some little yellow violas (I call them Johnnies) because I know that in January I will desperately need the color they provide. There will be nothing else happening in my garden until February so these cheerful little guys will have to get me through a month of bleakness. On my way to the violas - o.k., so it wasn't the direct route - I went past the bulb display, now with a sign declaring the bulbs 25% off. To make a long story short, I came home with my Johnnies AND a bag of bulbs.




Bulbs are amazing. They are small packages holding so much potential. They don't appear to offer much, but we plant them, knowing they promise to bring beauty and joy. I did indeed plant my bulbs even though it was a couple days into December and the planting time clearly indicated that they should be planted September - November. Does the little bulb know that it is being planted Dec. 2 instead of Nov. 30? I don't think so. It still will probably get enough time in the ground and in the cold to do its thing before it is required to burst forth in the spring.




I have tried growing Muscari botryoides before, both the white form (Album) and the pale blue form. Both times the plants were already blooming when I bought them. Neither survived to grow and bloom again the next year. Somewhere a gardener wrote that he gives any particular plant at least 3 chances. That sounds like a good idea to me and so Muscari botryoides 'Album' gets another opportunity. Maybe this time it will live from year to year for me, slowly naturalizing in my garden.

Now I wait for spring and a promise to be fulfilled.



Have a beautiful day!

Thanksgiving Day...

"Thankfulness is the soil in which joy flourishes."

Have a beautiful day!