Miscellany

This beautiful hydrangea called "Incrediball" is one that I planted 3 years ago.  Each year it gets bigger, and this year it's loaded with more flowers than ever.

And here are a few quilts I have finished in the past few months.

This is a quilt top that my Mom made several years ago.  My sister got it after Mom died.  I found some fabric in my stash to do a border, back, and binding.  So I finished it for her.

This is the donation quilt I made.  It's similar to another one I made earlier for friends.

This is from a kit I bought at a shop in Grand Rapids, MN, during the Minnesota Shop Hop a few years ago.

I've done a few smaller projects, but will wait until next time to post pictures.

Hope you are enjoying summer!

Garden Work in Progress

 

 

Life has been very busy lately, but I have managed to make some good progress on that messy garden area.

 

 

Now the Baptisia is no longer competing with a tangle of weeds.  The pink geranium in the lower foreground was lost in weeds, and I was surprised to see it not only still surviving but blooming as well.

The iris are not crowded anymore.  There are still a couple of small oak seedlings growing in here.  I hate to just cut them off, but I don't know if they would survive being dug up and transplanted.  I may try it though.  The blue in the background is a sheet.  I didn't put mulch over it because I want the weeds to die out and then I'll put down mulch after I plant some flowers in that area. 

You can tell that there is still a lot of work to do, but I am pleased with the progress so far.

Re-doing a Messy Garden

Good morning!

Lately, I've been re-doing one of the flower gardens.  Over the past couple of years I have neglected it because of other things going on.  When we moved here eleven years ago, this particular garden had phlox planted in it.  They were pretty, but they act like a weed!  They crowded out almost every other kind of flower that I planted.  So, they had to go!  As you can see, even a couple of trees got started in there, as well as lots of weeds.  It was a mess.  That poor iris looks so lonely.

So, I've been pulling up the phlox and weeds, digging the roots out, and covering the area with a couple of old sheets and then wood mulch on top of them.  It looks better already.  Will post a picture when I am finished with it.

I've used old sheets to keep weeds down in other flower beds, and they work very well. The very few weeds that do try to come through are easy to pull.  I only grow perennials, so these beds have become very low maintenance.  Works for me!  As much as I enjoy working in the gardens and digging in the dirt, I don't want to spend a lot of time with weeds.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought two garden statues at a garage sale when I was visiting my daughter and her family.  They were $8 for the pair.  At first I was only going to buy the boy statue, but the guy at the sale talked me into getting the girl as well, and now I'm glad I did.  They look very cute in this garden. 

 

I was going to post some quilt pictures, but that will have to wait until next time.

Hope you are enjoying these nice early summer (late spring officially) days.

I'm Back!

Wow! That was a long break.

Here we are going into summer, and I'm loving it.  Spent most of the day outside yesterday cutting the grass and working in the flower gardens.  The Siberian iris are blooming, and they are beautiful! These are all from one overgrown clump that I divided 3 years ago.  I hated to throw any of them away, so I just put them all on the east side of the house where they get lots of morning sun.  This is the first year that they have bloomed.

Also, the Columbines are in bloom as well as the Wiegela.

Isn't summer grand?  I never tire of looking at the green grass, the leaves on the trees, the flowers, etc. after winter is over.  And it's fun to greet the arrival of the birds who migrate to the area for a few months.  I love having the Barn Swallows swooping around to get insects while I cut the grass.

So, what did I do all winter?  Among other things, I spent a fair amount of time working on quilts which I will show you in my next post.

It feels good to be back!