Lemon Lilies

Many years ago my mother gave me some lemon lilies from her garden.  The bright yellow delighted us both and over the next few years I moved them and they spread, here there and everywhere in my garden.  Here are a few photos. 

  I started with a dozen plants and as you can see they've really liked it here and spread quite a bit. These are in the front garden.

These are along the side ramp.

 

These are along the front ramp.

And these are along the house.

This last area is out in the Butterfly garden

A tale of two Strawberries

I wrote some of you of one of my little adventures driving around town in my power wheelchair so forgive me if I'm repeating myself but my favorite trip of the summer was to a local greenhouse where I purchased the last two strawberry plants for just two dollars and fifty cents each.

I'm sure people wonder why in the world I was so excited about that except that they each had many daughter plants hanging from them so I rushed to get them re-potted where the daughter plants could grow into strong plants of their own.

In just the few weeks since then I have nearly a dozen new plants.
No berries, the birds and wildlife around here got to those but I'll find ways to prevent that by next year.

While I wait for my next planter to be built I just keep putting other planters up to the first one for the daughter plants to spread to.

Mothers and Daughters are doing well and I'm really enjoying nurturing their progress. 

Of course this lead to the photos and the photos lead to the art.

Again with watercolors, and finished with ink.

 This was the card.

And this was the envelope. This was just a quick scribble with markers. Yes, I was in a hurry to get to the mailbox.

The Veggie Garden as Art

On this day the first order of business is seeing what there was for lunch.There were pea pods and lettuce for salad. Black raspberries for dessert, some eaten fresh and later in the day some cooked a bit with strawberries and served over ice cream. The green and yellow beans were cooked up with some carrots for supper.

I admire those people who can make entire meals from their gardens but a few containers in the city aren't likely to get me there anytime soon.

Still, I do what I can and feel better for the effort.

After lunch I looked over the photos and was struck by the beauty of the contrasting shapes and colors.

I began to see some artistic possibilities and reached for my watercolors.

I did these raspberries on the corner of an envelope as I was answering mail to a friend who is interested in my garden.

I decided to include the photo to make my first card fast and easy.

  Here you see the photo and watercolor combined. After I got to this point I grabbed a black pen to do some outlining and define the idea a bit more.

I liked it better after that. What do you think? Did I take it too far?

Eating My Garden

I hope you're not expecting much because I've got to say that this years garden has been a real disappointment.

I have a number of reasons for the failures but will focus instead on the things that we did get.

Checking out the salad bar one day there were 2 different lettuces, parsley, pea pods and one pathetic little radish. Hardly enough to really interest the rabbits but we enjoyed it.

We often go out to the garden for morning coffee and can't resist picking a bit of lunch on the way back to the house.

Some of the green beans and yellow wax beans are finally getting big enough to pick and I can't mention those without showing you how amazing the plants are. I just love the delicate flowers on these, don't you.

It just goes to show that even a less than successful garden can still surprise and delight.