A Living Wreath

At work I have the option of taking any pot, container, form or whatever and planting it however I wish. A couple of days ago I decided to plant a living wreath. I had planned on doing this for a sunny location but then a customer called and wanted one planted for the shade. Luckily she called just in time because this was my last wreath form.This form came with a liner that I'm not a big fan of. It's made of some type of material cut in a circular form. I prefer the ones that come with pre-molded sphagnum moss which has a nicer effect and are easier to work with.

These are kind of a pain to do but they look so nice when done. In this one I planted pink and coral colored impatiens, variegated plectranthus, ivy, asparagus fern(sorry I don't remember the type) and torenia.

I have done them using different sedums too. Those with sedum work a little better since you don't have to water them as often.

Some garden blooms

Last fall I removed my 5 Itea's from my birdbath garden to a new bed. It was too wet in that bed and they were drowning. This year they are doing much better and are now in bloom.As you can see they are all blooming wonderfully. I like the fuzziness of their blooms. They have a light fragrance as well.The upper two photos are of the invasive shrub Privet. This is the wild variety that has these pretty white blooms. They also have the familiar sweet, sickeningly strong smell. For some odd reason though I like it. I guess it reminds me of what spring smells like.I planted this variegated iris a couple of fall's ago. It finally bloomed.Sorry I don't know the name of it. I like that it turned out this lavender color.

I'm hopeful I'll continue to have more blooms to show as the season progresses.

A New Award

I've been selected to receive The Renee Award. It is given to me by The Dirt Princess. She is next door in the great state of AL. Her blog is always fun and she has great photos. Go by and check out her fun site.

The Renee Award is one of the most meaningful awards in blog world because it honors someone who is incredibly inspirational in her intelligent and witty writing. And by doing so, this award celebrates women's smart, strong and inspirational spirit! It honors women who spread joy and love like an Acorn......a small package growing into a tall and sturdy oak tree which gives more acorns.............. I am so honored to receive this award from my dear bloggy friend Dirt Princess.

According to the rules I am suppose to select 5 bloggers to receive the award. I know there are so many who don't like awards or memes but if you want to play along feel free to grab the award.

They're back!!!

I looked out the kitchen window the other day and saw our redheaded woodpeckers are back. I'm not sure what he thinks is in the feeder but I don't think he'd be interested.There were 3 or 4 chasing each other around. I guess this one needed a water break. The only time I'm not crazy about these guys is when they decide they want to search for bugs on the gutters. Rat-a-tat-tat will drive you crazy! Anyhoo I'm glad they are back. They are fun to watch!

Saturday Scenes

This morning got off to a bang by my husband waking me at 5:00. At least it was his soft voice and not the alarm clock. We were off to Greenville, MS for the North State track meet. He's the girls coach but this was a coed meet.

When we first moved to MS we moved to Greenville. It is in the delta part of the state where lots of farming goes on. Also there are catfish farms.Greenville is a small place but luckily they have this grower nursery that I was able to work at. As we drove by it today I decided to snap a pic.It was a beautiful sunny morning with expected temps in high 80's. This is the quiet before the storm.Looks kind of like an art festival or something with all these canopies. In my days of track this didn't exist. We all hung out in the bleachers. Our girls did pretty well in the running events but it's the field events that kills us. After a very, very long day it was time to go.No, we didn't pass it up. Our gas in our home town is about 1.99 a gallon. What are you paying for gas right now?When you cross the bridge by the swamp you know you are close to home. I love the moss hanging from the trees. Sorry for the blurriness. Taking pictures in moving vehicles is not an easy task.

Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday.

Garden surprises

Today after work I took my usual tour of my flower beds and couldn't help but notice this gazania.I've not ever been a huge fan of this plant but was given the opportunity to take it home free from work a few weeks back. I had no clue what color it was. I expected it to be the normal yellow, orange, white, or pink. But what a pleasant surprise. Actually it is much darker than the picture shows, almost burgundy. I really like it! It is an annual, prefers sun and gets to be about 8 - 10 inches tall.

Another plant getting ready to bloom is the Arkansas blue grass.This is the grass I showed back in the fall that turns a beautiful golden color before the frost takes it down.This is it's star like bloom. It has these little clusters at the top. It's a very soft blue color. I thought it would be more full this year but it stayed about the same size. Still, I like it a lot.

I love coming home from work and finding these little surprises.

Is this for real?

Okay, I just received this in the mail and I'm curious how many of you received it. It's an invitation to join the National Home Gardening Club in Minnetonka, MN. Has anyone heard of this?

Along with the invitation they sent me a package of slow release fertilizer and some cosmos seeds. It looks like it costs $12.00 a year and for that I get to try gardening products, answer a brief questionnaire and then supposedly keep the tried product.

Also the invitation states they have giveaways, members only magazine, seed swaps and free use of their website. As I typed that out that sounds almost like what we gardening blogs have.

So I'm just curious if anyone has heard of this, belongs to this club, or what.

Saturday Scenes

This morning started at 5:45 a.m. when I got up to check the weather. I decided I wanted to run a race this a.m. and the forecast called for rain. It was a pleasant 62 degrees and cloudy but no rain. Yippee!!!

What's that you ask? How did I do?Not too bad for an old woman! And let me tell you this was a tough, tough course. I don't train on hills and guess what? Hill after hill after hill. Somehow between talking to God and to myself I made it thru. Not to brag but I was the sixth female to cross the line and yes there were more than 6 runners!

When I got home I needed to head immediately to the garden for chores.Remember these little pots? As you can see I planted rose colored million bells in the yellow, strawberries in the orange and an orange million bell in the green.The gaura is starting to open it's pretty pink flowers. I can see why they call this "whirling butterflies".I had to show this azalea again. It's just one big, puffy rose colored shrub that so far the heavy rains haven't destroyed. I have a grouping of three in the front of the house and I love them.These little cheddar pinks were planted late fall last year and are doing well this spring. I like the sweet smell they have.Then I wanted to show my snapdragons. They are just now starting to bloom. The color is a little more darker than the picture.

Well that's it for this Saturday. Hope everyone is having a great one!

Happy Easter!!!

I hope everyone is having/had a great Easter! This was always a special holiday for us when I was growing up. We always went to church then we had a big dinner with family. Hunting Easter eggs was fun too but I think dying them was more fun. We always drove mom crazy when it came to dying them. We were always asking her, " are the eggs ready yet"? We hated waiting on that boiling part! We probably ended up with more dye on us than on the eggs.

Today for hubbie and I, we went to the early service at church which was fantastic! Now we are getting ready to head over to hubbie's brother's home for a get together. So far it is beautiful here but we are expecting storms tonight. Since Easter reminds me of flowers or that could be the other way around, I wanted to show a couple of beauties.....This is a new salvia I am planting in the next day or two. It's called Oceana blue. Sorry I don't know the species. We are selling them at work as annuals but the grower told me he thought it might be a perennial. I surely hope so.Here's a close up. It is a true blue color. It's so stunning I just had to have a couple.This caught my eye this morning before going to church. I just planted these Iris' two/three ago and it's blooming. I couldn't believe it. I planted these in my "wet" garden by the birdbath. Here's the close up. A friend/co-worker gave me a few of these from his garden. Aren't friends great?Lastly, this is a picture of my azalea in bloom. I have 4 of these that are just now opening up. I don't know which cultivar this is but it is always the last to bloom.

Happy Easter everyone!

Saturday Scenes

Yesterday morning started out great. When we got out in the yard it was already 65 degrees. After putting down some pinestraw mulch I grabbed the camera to see what I could find.Ms. Butterfly was enjoying her visit to the pincushion flower. Poor baby had lost part of her wing but she still flied around okay.Mrs. Bluebird had begun to build her nest but evidently she was taking too long according to Mr. Bluebird. He dived at her and off she went. Unfortunately I didn't see either bird back at the box the rest of the afternoon.I did notice this beauty. This is a perennial cornflower(Centaurea montana). It's has such a unique bloom. As I was focusing on it I noticed this little visitor.Hello little froggie!!!He got a little camera shy.The foxglove has been showing off. Can't blame her for that. Then I found little tiny little flower along the fence line. I think it may be common flax but I'm not sure. It is actually more purple than in the picture. Sorry for the blurriness, macro didn't want to cooperate for some odd reason.Here's an updated pic on my walking path I made. I have added a few things and more will be added later.After our day in the garden we decided to drive down by the lake. There were so many people fishing and lots of boats out and about. I would love to spend a lazy day on the lake like this.Now when you are out and about driving around on country roads, you better make sure you act right cause if you don't, these guys are glad to straighten you up. Actually they were checking for driver licenses and insurance proof. This is very much a common thing around here. Then after our wonderful day we went out for catfish. As we were going down the road we came across these little guys. They couldn't make up their minds which way to go. As you can see they got right in front of us and decided to just stop. See the oncoming traffic? Everyone in that group had to stop to wait on these guys too. Finally, the ducks got smart and flew out of the situation. Thank goodness everyone was nice and waited on them.

That concludes this Saturday's scenes. It was a great, great day!!!