30 Friday Jul 2021
Posted in life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
anthurium, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, gift, memories, moments, nature, plants, plastic, purple, widow
I’ve been so focussed on the garden I forgot to share the excitement in the dining room…
this anthurium, which I received as a birthday gift five years ago, flowered once last year after not blooming for four years…
on July 7th I spotted this new bloom;-)…
now it is open and beautiful… although it looks like plastic, lol… once open it lasts for ages…
nature truly is amazing…
29 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cushions, dahlias, flowers, garden, moments, nature, odour, plants, purple, sanctuary, The Dahlia Expert, water, weather, widow
I was up at 6:30 am watching the Olympics;-)…
I had made my mind up to water the garden first thing because it has been getting hot so early in the day…
I think the temperature only reached 28 Celsius which feels cool after the hot days we’ve been dealing with…
it turned out to be a beautiful day, other than the odour of smoke in the air… luckily, you could smell the smoke, but the sky was clear…
after watering, I put out all the cushions and wandered around checking out flowers…
the planter with the milkweed and morning glories in it was looking spectacular as the morning glories have overtaken the container… not sure that the monarchs can find the milkweed anymore…
the dahlias are doing well and one of the buds on the Robann Regal plant has started to open…
excited to see it fully open…
I also realized that there are more buds starting on the Mick’s Peppermint… that plant is huge and didn’t look like it was going to have more than a few flowers… interesting that the second flower was about half the size of the first one, although it is hard to see that in my photo… and the colours are different on every flower;-)…
sat and enjoyed the view…
I love my garden sanctuary…
28 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, cucumber, flowers, food, garden, growing, happy, moments, nature, plants, prickly, sweep, weather, widow
this is the first time I have planted/grown cucumbers and I’ve been surprised at how prickly they are…
the cucumber plants had a ton of flowers on them, but no actual cucumbers…
I read online that I should take a broom and sweep over them… this is supposed to help with pollination…
I decided to give it a try the other day… found one of my beloved’s brushes and brushed over as many of the flowers as I could… that was on Saturday…
today, this is what I spotted… plus two others…
not sure if it was the brushing or whether I just had to wait a bit longer, lol…
but I am absolutely thrilled…
23 Friday Jul 2021
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, dahlia, flowers, food, garden, moments, nature, plants, pond, rain, spitting, The Dahlia Expert, tomatoes, water lily, weather, widow
a few days ago, I spent the day in the house, other than a few short walks around the garden when it wasn’t raining…
I was happy to find one of the tomatoes starting to turn colour… there are a lot, so it is going to be fun to snack on them as they ripen…
the water lily opened again, even in the rain… I took this picture from upstairs…
and I brought in the Mick’s pepper dahlia bloom to enjoy inside…
seemed odd to not be outside much… but, every time I stepped out the door it was spitting…
21 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
aquarium, babies, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, happy, lilies, moments, nature, overwinter, pictures, plants, pond, shubunkins, watching, water, widow
was very surprised to see a water lily flower in the pond a few days ago…
I’d been watching for buds, but hadn’t spotted any… these two lilies had overwintered in the aquarium so I wasn’t sure how they would do, which made it even more thrilling…
I took many, many pictures trying to get just the right one… it is difficult to take one that shows the yellow in the centre of the flower correctly…
eventually, I put down a cushion and laid on it taking pictures and then watching the fish…
the waterfall has been off for a few days and they seem to come out from under the bridge more often…
I must have laid there for half an hour watching to see if I could spot the babies…
so far, I’ve seen two shubunkins (the multi-coloured ones) and at least two goldfish… the goldfish (yellow) are hard to spot as they look black… I tried to get pictures but they hide really well and are also very quick…
but what a fun time watching…
17 Saturday Jul 2021
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
bated, big girl pants, blessed, breath, butterflies, eggs, flowers, garden, memories, moments, monarchs, nature, plants, purple, weather, widow
I’ve been watching the monarchs fly around the garden for the last while…
I sit with bated breath, hoping they will find the rather puny milkweed supply… and occasionally they do find it…
I’ve moved the planter, with the milkweed, and a very fast growing morning glory in it, so I can watch from my favourite spot by the pond…
now there are a few eggs on it to watch;-)…
they have even found the butterfly bush…
I have had so many opportunities to remember how blessed I am as I sit and enjoy the nature around me…
13 Tuesday Jul 2021
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized
12 Monday Jul 2021
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, dahlias, flowers, garden, moments, morning glories, nature, plants, purple, tall, widow
my plan was to put morning glories all around the garden and that has worked out nicely…
there are some in the planters right when you walk into the garden, there are some in various pots, there are some in the garden by the pond, although they haven grown up the obelisk just yet, lol…
there are even some in a pot by the pond that I didn’t even plant…
there are also a few in the grass but so far I haven’t seen any flowers…
I am most hoping for more in the large pot on the deck with the tall obelisk in it… I thought they would grow up it and make a beautiful showy display…
but I planted a dahlia in that planter as well and currently it is hiding most of them;-(… although that is the first of the dahlias to have buds form;-)…
10 Saturday Jul 2021
Posted in food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
quite a while ago I started grape tomatoes from a few wrinkled sad looking ones from the grocery store that hadn’t gotten eaten…
they were slow to grow, but I was hopeful…
I also started a couple of seeds from a full sized tomato I had…
unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention to which was which, lol…
I planted them in my new garden planter boxes and they have slowly been getting bigger… some have had blossoms…
recently, I saw the first little tomato starting…
looking forward to a lovely snack…
06 Tuesday Jul 2021
Posted in business, family, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, carton, egg, family, flowers, garden, gift, moments, nature, plants, widow
for my birthday I received an egg carton with four little eggs of wildflower seeds to plant…
I started two in a pot I had and they are starting to bloom;-)…
no idea what any of them are, but these are lovely little cuties… I’ve also got some sweet little bachelor buttons…
wonder what else will flower;-)…
herbiggirlpants 