Spring Flowers

Here are some of the flowers we had in our garden this spring. Here's another reason we were so busy.


Narcissus. As you can see, we have a lot of them. They just keep multiplying like crazy! I don't mind. When these come up, I know it's spring.

Narcissus

 Violas. Violas are planted in the Winter time, here. I thought people were nuts when I saw these in the Winter season. They take the frost and look dead. By noon, you'd never know they looked so bad. These even survived an ice storm! They are very forgiving of cold weather. As you see by the date tag, they were still going strong in mid-April. They don't usually last that long.

Violas

 Japanese Snowball Bush. This is a plant that I really love. It is beautiful in the Spring. Summer, Fall and Winter...so, so. It just looks like a regular bush. However, the leaves are serrated, deeply creviced and leathery. I can appreciate the leaves without the snowballs.

Japanese Snowball Bush

 Heirloom Rose. I forget the name of this one. I moved all of my roses out of a corner of the front yard that was being overtaken by poison ivy. This year was really a good year for this one. It must've needed a change of venue, more sun and new soil.

Heirloom Rose

 Mimosa. Here is my Mimosa tree in full bloom. Lovely, isn't it?

Mimosa with Daylilies

 Here's a close-up of the Mimosa flowers and leaves. It looks really delicate, but it takes a beating with our weather. The tree is getting a really nice canopy and is casting shade in the yard.

Mimosa Flowers

Here is a peach daylily that I purchased from one of those sales that pop-up in a field from time to time. I think I paid $3 for the pot a bunch of years ago. I've since divided it. I'll need to divide again. The other leaves surrounding it are from miniature yellow daylilies. Those will get divided this coming Spring, too.

Peach Daylily

 My garden by the back deck and parking lot. Foreground is a hybrid yarrow. It did really well this year, as you see. I have more patches around the yard. Lantana is the little pink flowers behind that. The lantana has since overtaken this whole area and the Yarrow died back a bit. Both of these flowers are really good for our climate. They take the heat and not much water. Butterflies, hummingbirds and hummingbird moths are really loving this right now. An Italian cypress is the bush behind. It is about 20 feet tall and 4 foot in diameter. Another climate forgiving plant for us.

Lantana and Yarrow

 Confederate Jasmine. This is a sickeningly sweet smelling vine. If the air is still and humid, you get a really big whiff of the fragrance as you pass by or sit nearby. It has a really pretty star-shaped flower and is very hardy. I have to cut it back every year otherwise it will grow into the willow tree to the left. It is doing just that, right now.

Confederate Jasmine

 One of my Frankenstein plants. This is a Rose Mallow, which is a member of the hibiscus family. It is also known as a Cottonbush because of the seedpods it makes after the flowers die and fall off. This will bloom clear into December, sometimes. The flowers last only one day. This plant started from seed and I put it where another Cottonbush died off. This year I noticed that it has red and pink flowers coming from the same plant, which is why I call it my Frankenstein plant. I love seeing plants sport like this. Two other Cottonbushes I have, which came from seed, have pink flowers only. Those are gorgeous, too.

Rose Mallow Sport

Now you have seen a bit of the flowers that I love to collect and grow.

Take care.

Lazy Me!!!

Yes. I've been a lazy poster. It's not because I haven't been busy. It's because I've been lazy.

I promised pics of a craft I was working on. I'm still working on it. Lazy me!

I've been meaning to post on the goings-on about our small acreage. Lazy me!

I've been meaning to tell all of you what I've been cooking for the holidays. Lazy me!

Well...I have to get back into the swing of things. I enjoy reading everyone else's blog and seeing what they've been up to in small farmville. Just maybe someone wants to keep up with us?

For some reason, I cannot download pics today. Every once in a while this happens. Sorry.

I can now upload photos. Much thanks to the computer guru at work! Go Bob!

So...in November, for Thanksgiving, we had some company come up from Florida. It was hubby's brother and his daughter and family. It was great to spend some time with them. I especially enjoyed it since I really didn't know them that well. One thing my niece and I had in common was SHOPPING! If you don't know someone that well, go shopping. It's a great conversation starter and an all-around fun olympic sport. ; ) We spent a day bargain shopping! No guys, just us girls. I treated them to some homemade pizza when we returned. I made dough in the morning and we had two very large pizzas in the evening. YUM!

For Thanksgiving dinner we had loads of food. My brother-in-law wanted to treat us to a dinner. So he had his daughter cook. What he didn't know was that when the rest of the family came over, there was more food coming in. I did my usual desserts and breads. Everyone else brought sides. It was great!

Pumpkin Pie, Cornbread, Rolls

Biscuits, Cookies, Banana Cream Pie, Lemon Cranberry Bundt Cake, Honey Butter

 Then in December, I still had flowers blooming in my garden. My lantana was busting out with flowers because it was still warm. The butterflies were everywhere! There were some yellow flowers growing up into my weeping holly bush. They were really outstanding with the red berries from the holly bush. Crimson and yellow together were really pretty for fall.

Lantana

Unknown Pretty Flower

 Then, we were invited to go to my Florida brother-in-law's place for Christmas. It is a pretty short trip and we had great weather. Sunshine all of the way down. : )  We spent a day at BIL's house then went to his daughter's house in Palm Harbor, clear on the other side of Florida. It only took about 1-1/2 hours to drive. It was a really nice drive. We had great weather the whole time we were there and stayed in Palm Harbor until the day after Christmas. Then it was home again.

In January, we started planning for our spring garden. This meant getting seeds germinated and a strawberry patch ready. Last week, I finally transplanted the last of the strawberry plants that I was going to plant. In the large patch, we have 1110 plants transplanted. In the nursery patch, we have 135 plants planted. Were we busy? You bet! We're experimenting with a watering system this year since we have such a large patch. Wish us luck with that! But we still have somewhere between 200 and 400 plants left to get out of our other garden before we can plant tomatoes, beans, peppers and such. All of those left over strawberry plants will be lifted and I'll take them to work for the guys there.

Hopefully, I'll be able to insert photos again by the next post.

I wish you all well.

Michelle

Our Gardens

Here are a few pics of things going on in our gardens right now.

Driveway Garden

This garden is by our driveway. There are dwarf daylilies in the front. Standard orange ones further down. To the left, near the truck's bumper, is a perennial sage. The fragrance of the leaves is really great. The purplish flowers don't have much of a smell. I think I have had this one for about 5 years in this spot. I trim it down every year to new growth and it gets better and better. Between the hoses, you can barely see the yarrow. Behind the standard orange daylilies is a Weeping Holly.

Back Fence Garden

From the driveway garden, if you follow around a little, this is the birdbath garden between willows. Yarrow is in front of the birdbath. The white flowered vine is Confederate Jasmine. It has a really pungent fragrance. The grassy stuff in front is something that grows wild here. It stays in a clump and seeds very well from the spent flowers. I don't know what it's called. It is also sold in the garden centers for quite a few dollars. Hmmm. I got lots of these free flowers. I give credit to the birds for helping spread the flowers, too!

Back 40 Garden

Way in the back of our property, we have a very large garden. Peppers to the left. Tomatos in the center. Cucumbers to the right. There are beans, squash, radishes, lettuce, onions and potatos in here as well. We're anxiously waiting to see what we get from here. Gardening in SC sure is a challenge! We have 3 seasons for gardening. We've only had 15 years of trying to figure it out. It's crazy!

Take care, for now.

How Was Your Weekend?

Mine was pretty nice, thank you.

Here is a brief rundown of simple life in the country.

I was daydreaming at work last Friday and wondered what else I could make that I use a lot of. Well, here it is...da da da dahhhhh! Sour cream. How easy was that to make?

Get a very clean glass jar with a lid. Put one cup of heavy cream in it. Get a culture...use a 1/4 cup of a good sour cream you get in the grocery store. Make sure you get one that contains only cultured milk (hint: mine is named after a flower. Most others contain fillers.). Mix the two together, put on the lid and leave on the kitchen counter for at least 24 hours. It doesn't ferment, so there is no burping the container.

The taste was incredibly fresh and different than store-bought stuff. OK...I HAD to try it. I mixed a little with a teaspoon of sugar and topped my apple pie for breakfast. Yummy!!!

What is better than hanging sheets on the clothesline? Answer: being able to hang the sheets! I've not been able to do much for the past few months. It sure is great to be able to do stuff again! Even something as simple as hanging sheets on the line. This is the first of many hangings this year.

The Lantana is in bloom. I love this flower. It grows great in the heat and is pretty drought tolerant. We haven't had rain to speak of for a while and this looks great. The leaves have a stinky odor if you rub against it. The butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and hummingbird moths love it. It's really cool to see a whole family of hummingbird moths in this shrub all at once.

I've got a tomater! It's not a good picture, but it's dead center. Hubby and I have our own gardens. He gardens at yard level. I garden in boxes. For me, it's easier to pull weeds while sitting on the edge of the box. A lot of weeds are kept out by doing it this way, too.

Aren't these strawberry plants beauties? Well, they are Ozark Beauty strawberries. They are everbearers, but they are seasonal where we live. They are a cinch to grow. Look at all the new runners I'll be able to plant soon!

Our fire pit. Trixie's ready for evening fires. I spent all morning on Saturday pulling weeds from between the blocks. I also pulled the weeds from the sidewalk. This was my first major foray into yard work for a while. This is the second year for this area of our yard. Hubby leveled the land and prepared it for the block. I set the block. Believe it or not, I love laying block. I have to redo our pavilion patio because we relocated this block from there.

So...how was YOUR weekend?