The Winter has come...

And our plants that once were like this... 

 Now look like this....

There are many examples of this in our garden, as I'm sure any gardener will tell you, it is part of the process.
We have lived here for three years now and have the knowledge of what our plants are going to do, but it still is a bit sad to see.

It also gives us the chance to try new things in the garden, like placing a few more plantings in our walls. This year as the strawberries needed their clean up, we took a few of the runners and put them in a few holes we discovered in our wall.  It is highly likely that they will not all make it , however it is better than just throwing away all those babies.

Luckily there are some plants that the hard frosts don't seem to bother at all... but most of the succulents and annuals are taking their leave for the Winter.

Cutting most of these plants to the ground will allow them to return in the Spring, even the plants that most of the time people pull out. This is when Wayne and I get our seeds for the next season.
 

 It is also a great time to check for the bad critters that can harm the return of all the plants... cut and disguard any of the parts that are infested, this will help keep them at bay.

 Oh yes ,  there are some really really cool mushrooms that grow this time of year here too...

Hope you are enjoying the season and all the wonders it holds....
ENJOY
JL

The unoffical last day of summer...

It rained today ... five minute sperts at a time throughout the day... sometimes the rain was hard with drops large , others were softer spoken with the light scent ...Beautiful.. 

I stayed inside and watched three movies in a row, took a nap and it was dinner time...man that was rough...

I ventured outside a little while before dark and saw this...

One year it took for these babies to bloom, look at them now...

the little boy was a gift from my mom.

The dog of our yard, an ivy topiairy, the grass, mint and strawberry beds in the background, the succulent all a blush, love walking up to see what else has bloomed..

 Salvia and Zenia surround Momma Dragon ...I hope they re-seed for next year...

 Tried to get the thrasher, but when I  moved so did she... still got this though... our back yard patio veiw...

 Walking down to Iris Alley and the sweet surprise of the Myrtle in bloom...

 Caught a bumble on a dalhia

and ...

Then I remebered the pineapple ....

ENJOY
JL

Chime Time....

One of the fun things my husband and I do together in our spare time is make wind chimes out of the ordinary things that we find at yard sales.

After a day at the swap meet and yard sales in the city, we place our finds on our two picnic tables and try to decide which of our finds will go well together and start the process of assembling them together.Wayne is the master mind of drilling and making the fixtures, while I put them together...

We have made them now for about a year and they are flying off the shelves as they say...
This year we added a new feature to our chimes... PLANTS !

It really started out as a need for a paddle and after that it blossomed into a really fun idea...

Some times a theme is easier to do, as in the  case of this pretty little one...

 

Some times they go together in twenty minutes... like this one ...

and some times they sell before we can even put them together ...like this one... ( the elephant has an added feature, a battery operated flickering candle...SO CUTE !!

 Most of the plants we are using are flowering succulents like this one that bloomed after we made the chime...

 The Christmas cookie cutters  chime is one that is close to my heart, bringing back memories of making sugar cookie with my family ... and it chimes so nicely !!

This garden themed chime is another one that sold before we finished it...

 and another baking themed chime... Momma loves this one...

  So if you too would like to have one of our chimes, let me know... anywhere in the USA they can be shipped to you for a nominal fee and we would love to sell you one !!

 ENJOY
JL

Strawberries anyone?

As most of you know by now, we have a lot of plants in our yard. Most of our plants are bulbs, being they are so reliable for color in all of the growing seasons. There are, however, some we take extra steps to ensure they thrive and our strawberries are one of them.

When we moved up here we brought all of our plants with us.. some of which were five of the most pathetic strawberries you have ever seen. Where we moved from stopped us from watering our gardens after four years,( a major reason we decided to move), which made most of the plants weaker than normal.

The strawberries were in three boxes Wayne and I made from scraps of wood we had. We left them in those boxes for a month before I found a place for them in the yard. This is what they looked like when we planted them....

Then a few months later we had our first snow... We thought for sure they were goners...

But they not only survived, they flourished, giving us the most fruit we had ever had from them...

Those five little plants turned into twenty and over filled the garden made for them. Then came the snails,slugs and pill bugs, eating our berries before they were ready.

So I once again turned to the lessons learned for my Grandma, remembering that strawberries usually need to be on a mound so the berries don't touch the ground. We instead put straw under them, deterring the critters for a few weeks. Finding though that it only gave them a place to hide... we tried another method... coffee grounds. What a difference that made ! Not only are the berries bug free, but they now are the largest berries we have had from these plants.

This is our bed of strawberries today...

and here are two of the melt in your mouth berries they gave us for our breakfast...

YUMMY !!!

We are so honored to have this beautiful award given to us from Deidra @ http://astorybookworld.blogspot.com/ If you haven't been by her blog yet, we highly recommend that you give her a visit. She is AMAZING !!! Thank you so much Deidra, we love awards !!

Hope you enjoyed the tale of our strawberries...

JL&B

Happy Fourth Everyone

The blooms have been off the hook here. Spring has lost herself to Summer and the hotter temps have brought out the best in the Summer flowers. So for those of you thirsty for the colors of the summer garden, we hope you enjoy the following...

ENJOY
JL&B