Nothing for Today!

After two weeks of rain and clouds, I woke up this morning with a clear sky!

I don’t think there’s any more meaning to that than, well, hopefully the spring monsoons are over.

The birds are weird and picky now.  Some days they only eat out of the feeders with the oranges and DESTROY those oranges. Other days they won’t touch them and I wind up washing most of the jelly out when I clean, but the little feeders with deeper wells are empty and the little round feeder that is smaller is completely cleaned out. ????  Orioles are weird.  I still love them. Woodpeckers are a little more predictable. I’m still in hope I’ll get a pileated this year or next or any.

Garden is the almost done. Now that I planted the built in beautiful stone flower boxes at the entrance of the house, I keep seeing more

places that need annuals. This is where people can wind up in financial ruin… just another flat or two of petunias, begonias and I’ll be done!  I’ve added some winter hardy succulents for ground cover, to fill in some spaces in the front.  Well, by added, I mean they are in their cute little containers sitting in boxes while I decide where to put them all.

The nice thing about the rain, other than almost killing my baby lavender I’m trying to grow and had set outside, everything else is just lush and posh green, the roses are so laden with blooms, as are the peonies. The new hydrangeas I put in that I thought were dead when I got them are now all green and plush and some have even bloomed.  Water and hydrangeas are super important!

I did realize have not one iris  – not sure how this happened.  Will fix that this year, my sister has to dig up all of hers when they add a new garage, so she’s going to bring them all over this fall.

I’ve done more container gardening for my tropical stuff. There is going to be some peak crisis moment this fall where I will be quickly trying to figure out how to winter them over, but I’m sure I’ll get it sorted.

I did have one last moment of insanity on the container plantings. I love mangoes, and I saw a mango tree they say you can container garden!  I had No idea, I thought this was impossible. Well, I have a banana plant that seems to be doing really well.  So why not? Then I sorta forgot about it, which happens a lot when I get great ideas.

Or I thought I had.  Well, amazing, large patio pot arrived, and I puzzled over it… why did I order this big, beautiful outdoor vessel for… crap, a mango tree I didn’t order!  I had no choice then, right? I can’t have an empty patio pot – and it is a large one! – so I ordered the mango. And a plumeria.  They both show up today. And then I’m cutting myself off from all plant shopping, except maybe a handful of  petunia flats and..

The back yard, I planted my first vegetable garden in years. The birds are in love with it. I put some feeders next to it with minimal bird food, but they just sit there all day, nosing about for worms and bugs. Next year I’m planting a bigger garden for them.  I’m using that area in the picture on the far side of the pool.  The rains came so fast this year, I had not gotten the little patch of grass on the pool side of the fence cut (this is an old picture, the pool is fenced off from the puppers now, too many Louis bumped into one of the little girls and they went in the pool and sunk to the bottom so we had to jump in and fish them out really fast incidents. Not so bad when it is the shallow end – hard work when it is the deep end.)  Finally got the grass whacked in that veggie garden area, and that made the birds happy, they now have all kinds of dried grass for nest building and more hiding areas for bugs.

My summer uniform is now set as well. I found this lady on Etsy selling these beach cover-ups. They are nice and long and flowy and comfy, but they have cuts on the side, so I can just pull the front sides together tie them and keep it out of my way when I’m doing other stuff.  Today begins swimsuit days, and if the world is right, every day from now until September is a swimsuit day. I have a large and getting larger collection of suits to cycle through.  I get up, put one on, throw on linen pants over them if I need to go out or just throw one of these beach cover-ups on. I keep thinking I’ve avoided the Mrs. Roper look, but I’m not certain if that’s really true.  Eh, not sure I care.

I did play around with lilac perfumes, just to throw in a random perfume thought.  I’ve always been content with Frederic Malle En Passant for my lilac. It’s not realistic lilac, but it is everything I want it to be.  But

I snagged a couple of cheap more realistic lilacs – the Pacifica French Lilac and the Highland Lilac of Rochester, and, wow, okay, they are very lilac, and I’m really really loving them.  Maybe because I also do not have a lilac bush, which I’ll fix next year too.  This probably completes my Mrs. Roper transformation.

Winners of the Masque Milano gorgeous little Lost Alice – Taxi and SamanthaL  Just click the Drop Us a Note at the top, send me an email

with your address, remind me what you won. I will give you a quick reply “Got it!” email so you know it didn’t wind up in my spam filter and get the sample out to you. Congrats, I hope you love it!

Is the sun finally out where you are?  Do you have a solid, What happens at the Gardening Store Staaaays at the Gardening Store Policy?