Dreams and plans in the front yard

Not much is happening in the front yard except letting EVERYTHING run wild until it can be dealt with.

I still like the color I get from these wild geraniums and the money we save each year that they come back again.

 I'm even putting chives in the flower beds for a bit of color, handy garnishes and a bit of seasoning in the kitchen.

 Someday this will be a wide and bright flower bed but until then I can only dream and plan.

Isn't this spirea bush amazing? It's gone a bit crazy over the years sine it was planted back in 1936. I'm so lucky that my neighbors don't mind because there's not a lot that I can afford to have done with it.

Future plans call for having it divided and trimmed into a nice hedge.

Greetings from the Garden

Hi there,
It's been a good day. The weather was warm and sunny with a nice breeze so I rode the wheelchair over to the post office to pick up some stamps before we came home to grill some cheeseburgers for lunch and then grab a nap in the dappled shade. It was so nice to spend the day outside and did us a lot of good.

The veggie garden is coming along nicely but needs some thinning. Yes, I'll have to wait for help with that because I've only got a path that reaches to one side of the box and don't want to get stuck in the dirt trying to go further.

These plants all started with a single shoot out of a houseplant that we've been dividing and moving for a couple of years. So far it looks promising, don't you think so?

Here's the rough start of the sunken garden. So far all that's been put in are the hosta and lilies. There was no cost for any of this because I had them moved from other parts of the yard.

Future plans call for a patio area in the center so that there's a nice place for the tables and chairs on hot days. It's cool and shady here under a canopy of large trees.

In the meantime I sit on the edge of the driveway and work at the large patio table here.

Green House and Wild Flowers

Here's a pretty Columbine that I bought in a garden center last year. I think I'll be enjoying this one for yeas to come.

A lot of my landscaping these days is just taking plants that I've got and moving them around. I love the pop of color that I get from those wild yellow geraniums that were a gift from a neighbor about 10 years ago.

The all green hosta and the orange lilies came with the house and the white edged host came from another neighbor.

Each year I divide and move some of them as well as giving a lot of it away.

Update on the Garden and Patio Area so far. Junk Sculpture,Salvage and Recycling

 Hello there! I'll bet you've been wondering what's going on around here...besides trying to keep the squirrels from eating all of my strawberries.

I retouched the paint on that junk sculpture trellis but decided it was just too boring so I grabbed my paints and kicked the color up a notch.

My favorite change was turning the large flowers into sunflowers. Making the other flowers red and painting some vines on the frame seems to have helped a lot. My next plan is to make the birds a bright blue and maybe even the trim on the birdhouse to bring the color all of the way through.

It's still slow going with the wheelchair and the lack of money but it's turning into a more comfortable and happy space all of the time.

The next phase of the project will be to retouch the paint on the patio furniture.
what colors are still yet to be determined but salvage efforts have turned up some cans of primer and a bit of green paint so far.

Butterflies

Tuesday

Last week these were the size of black ants, they're sure growing fast!

You can see some of the stripes and markings on them already.

Wednesday

Thursday

Attaching to the top and getting ready to start the next phase of the change.

Friday

It's beginning to look like they won't all make it. I started with five but saw 2 of them struggle a bit yesterday. It looks like they either tipped over backwards or got tangled in the silk strands. Sometimes those things happen but I've got to say that I hope I'm wrong. I'll keep watching and let you know.

The Weekend

Now that they've become chrysalides it will be just a few more days before they're ready to go into the habitat.

They went into the habitat on Wednesday and Butterflies were emerging by Friday.

I'm happy to say that all of them survived in spite of early worries about some of them.

They'll be released into the garden sometime in the next few days.

We set all 5 of them free and this one landed on my lilies a while before it left.

Latest Veggie Garden Photos

The few strawberries that I was able to save are doing well. About half of them are flowering and setting fruit. The secret to saving these was to put lots of little metal things around them to protect them from the squirrels who dug up and ate ALL of them in the big, brown tired planter.

I ended up planting peas in that tiered, brown planter because that's all I had left this year. 

As you can see I'm planting other things in place of the strawberries here. There just wasn't any money available to buy more this year.

Fresh Flowers From The Garden

Spring and summer can be overwhelming. It seems that color is exploding everywhere and there's just not enough time to really capture and enjoy all of it so often the best I can hope for is to shoot a lot of photos to draw or paint from in the winter.

I'm never quite sure what sorts of backgrounds to photograph them against. If I could create just the right mood in a picture there's be no reason to bother drawing or painting them. Maybe at this point in my career that's actually a good thing. It keeps my brushes and pencils busy and the paint flowing.

I didn't know what to do with these but they were fun to look at, weren't they?