Have you Planned/planted your fall garden yet?

It is hard to believe that fall is just a week away. Have you planned your fall garden yet? Are you ahead of the game and have it already planted? I am still in the planning stages. Fall is the best time of the year for us to garden. Our spring is notoriously short and planting our perennials in the fall allows them to get established earlier than spring plantings therefore making them stronger when our spring only lasts about 15 minutes. ( ok, that is an exaggeration, it sometimes lasts for 25).

I am planting a lot of perennials that I had grown from seed earlier this year, and I am actually planning to set some seeds for fall crops like broccoli,

brussels sprouts
 and bok choi. I love to grow the rainbow swiss chard and Nero De Toscana Kale for the fall too.

For flowers to add color and fragrance, I am planning to start stocks, snapdragons, nasturtiums and maybe some ornamental cabbage. My plan is to plant all of these in the hibiscus/daylily bed

so that there will be color and life bordering my entryway. I am not organized enough to plan out a formal fall garden, I really just don't want to go through winter with everything leading up to my doors dormant and empty looking.

I will let you know how it goes, rest assured it won't be like this....

As beautiful as it is, that is much too organized for me.

Soothing Saturday Rains

Don't ya just love it when you wake up in the morning and it is raining. The sounds of the rain hitting the roof are like no other. My garden is soaking up the desperately needed moisture and everything is looking so green.
I had a long list of things I had planned to do today, but since it is raining, I think I will take advantage of not being motivated to work outside and try to organize my studio a little. I currently have things spread out between 3 rooms and a couple of cabinets and I am at the point of really needing to consolidate them. When I finish organizing, I will photograph some of the pieces I have been working on and post them.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.


Life is like a rainbow, you need both the sun and the rain to make it's colors appear.

Lantana, Love it or Not?

Do you grow Lantana? In some places it can easily become an invasive obnoxious weed and in other places it is an almost ever blooming, can take any kind of situation in stride, hardy, happy perennial.
There are many varieties of lantana and I am telling you, butterflies and skipper moths absolutely love it. They are drawn to the flowers like I am to the beach on a warm sunny morning. The stems are kind of hairy ( sometimes they will make you itch) and it has an odd smell. The first time I saw the plants, I thought it smelled much like deep woods off, but now the scent is a little less pronounced.
I have it planted in several places. I love flowers and I can't get enough and one that is constantly in bloom is all the better.


The foundation border in the back of my house never seems to welcome anything I plant. I can and have planted many different things there, but nothing seems to thrive. I think I will mix in some different colors of lantana and other things and let it become a flower bed for "survivors" only. Who knows maybe it will live up to it's reputation of being hard to kill.

Day Lilies are blooming!

It is that time of year again! I love it too. The daylily plants surprise me everyday with a new flower. I just can't get enough, even though I am really running out of space. There is always 1 more that just needs a home. Besides, if I plant more flowers, I have less grass to cut right? Actually, I don't mind cutting grass with a pushmower, but years spent landscaping have led to an outright hatred of weedeaters.

I just love going outside in the mornings and seeing new blooms.
I can't wait to see what will be blooming tomorrow. I didn't work outside today, I went shopping instead. It has been so hot out that I just didn't want to endure the heat and biting bugs today. I still have some hybrid cross seedlings to pot up, but instead of potting them, I might just plant some around the birdbath.


It will be interesting to see the flowers on the seedlings for the first time. You never know what you will get when you cross pollinate them.
My bottlebrush tree took a beating during the winter when it snowed and I had to cut it in half yesterday.






I wanted to cry, it was huge and beautiful, I just keep telling myself, it will grow back. I am planning to mix up some homemade fertilizer and feed everything. I think I will start with the bottle brush and then move on to the daylily plants.


Hope your day is full of flowers!

Stop and consider God's wonders. Job37:14

Oh Man, You caught me....

I have been Tagged! I guess I am it... I have been tagged by Folkartbycampbelljane. I have mentioned her work before and she is one of my favorite artists of all time. Anyway since she tagged me, I am supposed to tell you 6 things that make me happy and then I am to tag 6 others to do the same.

Here Goes, 6 things that make me happy are:
1)Spending time with my family and friends,
2) Hearing children laugh, there's just something about that sound.
3)Seeing my son and husband smile.
4)Traveling to places with strange names (i.e Whynot, NC, Hungry Mother State Park in Virginia, or the best yet, Kingdom Come State park in Kentucky.) I really have been to KINGDOM COME! hahaha "I love far away places with strange sounding names." Ok, really just traveling anywhere.
5) Flowers, lots and lots of flowers in bloom. Especially planting seeds for flowers.
6)Pretty Pictures. Whether painted or photographed, there is something about a picture I just love. They have the gift of teleportation and I guess that fascinates me.

These are just a few of the things that make me happy, there are plenty more and this list isn't really in any particular order either. So now you'd better look out, you just might be it next.

Praying for Rain

I think in reality the weathermen mean well. They really do, but somehow they aren't making good on their promises. The past 2 weeks we have been promised rain and thunderstorms daily and yet we have not seed a drop of the wet stuff until tonight. It actually rained for about 30 minutes. No thunder or lightning just desperately needed rain.

I have to say I have taken advantage of the days without rain and planted new flower beds in the front yard. I have put in beds of iris, daylilies, brugmansia, hibiscus, hostas and a few new guinea impatiens just for color spots.
Today, I saw my first daylily bloom of the season and I was gone most of the day so I didn't get to photograph it. I sure hope another bud will be open tomorrow.

I have ignored the guilt of not having my "chores" done so that I could plant, but I am at the point that things really shouldn't be put off any longer. When you start dreaming about the housework you need to do it is time to let the garden wait and get caught up inside. I can always find an excuse to get my hands dirty though and so I will use it as a reward for getting my chores done first tomorrow.
I have heard that God created rainy days so that gardeners can get their housework done, well, maybe I should pray for rain.



Blooming this week are:Deep purple Iris, Chocolate Vine ( Akebia Quinata), Snowball Viburnum, and Clematis Nellie Moser, Bottlebrush and coreopsis grandiflora.

Isiah 35:1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.