I Know Heaven Has Dragonflies, Butterflies and Flowers!

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk in my garden forever. (Claudia Ghandi)


July 19, 2006, we lost our wonderful daughter- a kind, generous, giving soul, who loved her family and friends with a passion.

We will always love and miss you, sweetheart!

The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God. ~Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994

Mish Mash Monday!

Finally, I have a post to put up! I have almost missed Mish Mash Monday- now made famous by Monica at Garden Faerie's Musing, just getting it in under the wire. :) You would think that I could get more than one a week, but can't seem to manage that along with gardening and of course my favorite pastime which is visiting all of your posts. I do want to make a small complaint though. Just about the time I get all of the new posts from my sidebar read and leave a comment-you post anew and once again, I am behind! (please take this complaint with a grain of salt. I love reading each and every post you write.)



Do you know what this is??


Maybe this will help.

It's a Praying Mantis egg case and these are just a couple of the babies that hatched from it.

The granddaughters found them scrambling out from underneath the arm of a patio chair. There were dozens of them, but most were camera shy and moving way to quickly to get a photo of. We were lucky that one or 2 stopped to take a look around before hurrying off to find protection in a flower filled container.

Even newly hatched, they are perfectly formed and adopting the familiar Mantis stance.

This photo you have to look very closely at to see the wildlife. Enlarging helps some. I was at Rose's last week when I saw this one enjoying her flowers. We were on our way to go plant looking-even I knew we would probably buy some! We did find a sale at a country nursery. All annuals 4' and under were a $1.00. We used some restraint and only bought a few. :) But I did find pink Lythrum and it now has a home near the double pink coneflower I found a couple of weeks ago.

Some of my volunteer sunflowers have started to bloom. I so enjoy their bright faces in the garden. And I am not the only one. Since these have bloomed, I have seen many more yellow finches and several blue jays checking them out. I know they are keeping an eye on them to see when the seeds get ripe enough to eat.

My favorite and the first day lily I planted has started to bloom! It is a Ruby??? Of course I didn't write the name down when I planted it, but I did leave the tag by it. The following year when I went to read the name all that was still legible was the Ruby part.

The blooms on this lily are dinner plate size! This fall, I am going to divide her and maybe even move all of her. The ornamental cherry tree is providing a lot of shade in that part of the garden now.

Several of the rest of the day lilies have started to bloom also. This one is Royal Red.

Peach Delight

Unknown, but I love this lemon yellow with the raised ridge in each petal.

Wineberry Candy.

This is one of the 2 small ones I have. I don't think they are miniatures-just shorter and more petite. This one is Little Business.

Wine Red.

And another unknown one. These with the different color throats amaze me.

I am proud of these! Started from seed I purchased at Dollar General @ 3 for a $1.00. These annual Phlox are Drummondi Mixed. And of course I am very pleased that they are all shades of pink. :)

Now for another mystery or two....

I had been noticing these plants growing along the country roads I take to work. Finally one evening I just had to stop and take pictures. Does anyone have a clue about this one or the next?

These have been blooming for 2 weeks now. The flowers are huge-maybe 6-8" across. They grow to about 4 feet tall and seem to be very sturdy holding up their flowers much better than some hydrangeas I have seen. I hope they can be identified as I was thinking about planting one in my garden.

We had a delightfully slow rain of about 2'" on the 4th and even though it postponed many fireworks displays and spoiled a few picnics, it was much appreciated by me and more importantly- the farmers. Even so, we enjoyed our 4th and did get to watch the parade with our SIL driving a firetruck and a couple of granddaughters riding in it and throwing candy to the children lining the streets. I love these small hometown parades with the local high school bands and cheerleaders; the Shriners' 21 man bicycle; volunteer fireman driving the firetrucks with sirens blaring; locals dressed as clowns; and of course the old restored farm tractors driven by face -wide -grinning young farmers of tomorrow. I hope you got out to see America's freedom in action on the 4th.

Have a great gardening week!

They're Back!!

It's only June-aren't they early this year?! The earliest I could find mention of them on my blog last year was July 7th. That's almost 2 weeks away yet. Not fair!

I am thinking of trying to find some fine mesh bags to tie over my rose buds in an effort to save some of them this year, but have way too many cone flowers for that. So...I will try to pick them off and drop them in a bucket of soapy water when I see them destroying any blooms. Uhg! The scourge of summer!

On a happier note, I was finally able to get a photo of a dragonfly. Admittedly it is not of the quality I have seen on other blogs, but the dragonfly photo has become my humming bird quest. Surely with all I have seen flying around so far this year I will be able to get a better one. For now, though, it makes me smile.

The Asiatic lilies are in full bloom and I have several colors. All of these are unknown varieties and some of them are DIPTs. (Did I Plant These)

I have them in small groupings in most of the beds. They add a bright spot of color to the green and their height takes your eye up and away from the weeds. :)

This is probably my favorite. I love the freckles!

Heavenly Blue has bloomed! I grew this one from seed and planted it at the bottom of the taller part of the deck. I used to have a climbing rose here-in fact have tried 2 years in a row to get one to grow, so there are still wires for it to grow up and along the railing. It has made it to the top and is starting to run along the rail, but this first bloom in near the bottom. I am hoping for great things from this morning glory again this year. I checked back and found I didn't get a bloom last year til the middle of Aug. Of course that one was bound and determined to do nothing but vine for a couple of months while I waited in great anticipation for my first 'moon flower' bloom.

The butterfly weed has come back this year and is blooming joyously. I am so pleased as I have had trouble getting these to grow in my gardens. I was a little doubtful it would survive the winter, but 3 have and I am hoping they are happy enough to stay around for a few years. Last year with only a few blooms it served as a tidbit for several caterpillars. This year I am sure they will enjoy a buffet!

The day lilies have just started to bloom. Stella, a week or so ago and now this unknown. This was the first one I planted a few years back. I love the way the petals are different colors.




And of course, I couldn't do a post with out showing you the latest Martha Stewart Heritage Rose just after a rain.

Summer has come to Central Illinois! Along with all the rain and humidity we are having high 80's and into the 90's temps. The combination makes for some very uncomfortable conditions, and we are under a Heat Advisory until Wednesday eve. Needless to say, I am not out in the garden much-even in the evenings- when the weather is like this. I don't do heat and humidity well. :) But if you are having such weather, be sure to take it easy, drink lots of fluids and keep and eye on the elderly.

Happy gardening! (or air conditioning!)

Pretty-Ugly-Pretty!

Pretty....

The first photo is a super macro(what else is new?) of a very common flower. But I think it looks so different when viewed this close. Any ideas?? It is yarrow- Apple Blossom, a pass along from Rose. When she told me it would spread easily, I had no idea just how easily and fast that meant! :) I love it though and am happy it is happy in my garden.

The 2nd photo is my new coneflower-Sunset. Isn't it gorgeous?! Sadly, it has not found a home yet and is still in it's pot. :( Surely one day soon I will decide on the perfect spot for it.

The last photo is Martha Stewart's Heritage Rose. I know I have shown this before, but it's beauty grabs me from every corner of the garden. I look up and there is that brilliant red calling to me to come take it's picture.

No, we are not to the Ugly yet, but we are getting close. If you have been reading my posts of late, you know how much I have been complaining about weeds. The fact is the weeds were taking over because we have not mulched in a few years. No amount of pulling is keeping up with their rate of growth. I talked my hubby into borrowing a grain truck and on Sat. we went to the recycling place in Urbana and got MULCH!

Hooray! The bed lifts and we don't have to shovel it off.

Wow! That looks like a lot of mulch. Actually it is 8 cu. yds. So I am thinking we will have more than enough to do what we want.

UGLY....

Warning! These next photos may make you physically ill!

This is my most neglected bed. It is out by the driveway to the garage and even though we have a little patio out there, we rarely use it now. I suppose one reason is because it is so weedy.

Another view. Oh, it's disgusting!!

Using a roll of end newsprint paper, I covered the bed after cutting down the weeds. The spots you see on the paper are sprinkles of rain that never amounted to much.

Using the roll of paper worked very well. I started at one end and rolled it out. Much easier than unfolding dozens of newspapers. :)



Pretty....

Now, doesn't that look much better? I am going to get some landscaping stones or bricks to edge it with to help hold in the mulch. And since this picture was taken, I have added a couple of containers of pink impatiens.

We also did the front beds. While they weren't weedy like the other bed, they were starting to show landscape fabric in places. And I didn't put the paper down in these beds. Even though I have blooming containers on the front steps and one on the table and another in the old birdbath, I think a couple more containers set in the mulch would look nice. This area looks pretty in the spring with tulips and daffodils in bloom, but I have little planted for summer interest.

Well, there you have it. The Pretty-Ugly-Pretty of at least part of my garden beds. Now all I have to do is the rest of the gardens. But those beds have lots of plants in them and are going to take a lot of 'hand' mulching. At least with the mulch being here, I can work on it a little at a time. Oh, and thank you hubby for all the effort and help! You are such a sweetheart to put up with my wants for the garden.

Hope your gardens are doing well and I know you don't let yours get as weedy as mine!

Happy gardening. :)

Strawberries and a Safety Fair-Weekend with the Girls!

I have been wanting do do this post for a couple of days now and finally tonight because of a bad cold and pure tiredness, I took the time to do it. Coming home from work, I had planned on watering, staring to lay down newspapers in the garden in anticipation of putting down mulch this weekend and was going to try to get caught up on laundry. Plans can change in the opening of a door. Once inside the house, I simply had to sit down and rest for a while. Blogger cooperated beautifully and loaded the photos in record time, and if you will forgive a quickly written narrative, we have a lift off-err, a post!



The red bearded tongue is blooming and spreading. It always makes me smile to see it's tiny flowers brightening up a shaded spot. This year there are 4 patches of it. Enough to share with Rose!

We had the granddaughetrs this weekend, 5 of them anyway. I have been promising them we would go strawberry picking and this was a perfect Saturday to do it. Sunny and warm, but not too hot and a little breeze to keep the bugs away. None of the girls have ever done this before and were very excited at the prospect of picking one of their favorite fruits. Each was given their own bucket and the nice owner let us have a whole area to ourselves.

The berries were small, but the patch is very neat and had great straw covered paths to sit on so you could really get into the plants.

This one chose to kneel-that would kill my knees!

The 2 youngest ones really got into picking (and eating!).

And don't they look proud of their pickings!? I picked too, but Papa decided to sit on the sidelines and cheer them on. In about an hour we had 12 pounds. Not bad for beginners.

The strawberries were used in a fresh strawberry pie, strawberry shortcake, eating berries and freezer jam. This one loves to help in the kitchen. We made the jam on Sunday afternoon-2 batches. The girls each took some home with them, but I got to keep a couple of containers.

After berry picking we went to a Safety fair put on by a local clinic. It was held at the county fairgrounds and I was very impressed with all the displays and info. Of course you can't have a fair with out face painting. The girls each chose a different design.

Here they are learning how to wash their hand correctly. The instructor put a solution on their hands and took them into a dark room where he used a black lite to show the bacteria on their hands before washing. He told them to count to 20 3 times or sing Happy Birthday 3 times before rinsing. Back into the dark room to see how well they washed. Actually they did very well with only one little area on the oldest showing any bacteria left.

Another stop was making your own first aid kit. The girls colored bags and went down a line where they got band aids, wipes, gauze, tape, etc. I assure you my granddaughters need these kits! :)

There were firetrucks, ambulances, a life flight helicopter, police cars and and even the bomb squad on the grounds for the kids to see. There were booths on poison control, babysitting, animal safety and many more that we didn't get to. But we did make it to the free hot dogs and chips stand!

Of course we did do this slide several times. And it was enjoyed by all! Papa and I were very impressed with this fair and plan on taking the girls again next year. A great deal of time and effort went into to making this a fun learning experience for kids of all ages. A big thank you to those who made it possible and gave of their time.

A couple of roses are in bloom. This one is a Martha Stewart Heritage rose. I have had her for several years now and she always does well. And I am remembering to fertilize them this year.

A no-name miniature peach colored rose that has been with us for a loooong time.

And this is a new one this year. 'First Promise' looks very promising. Of course being pink gives her an edge with me. :)

I promise I am going out to water now. The promised rain of over an inch is staying well to the south of us and I know my plants are thirsty after several days of warm even hot weather. In fact, it was warm enough on Sunday that I finally turned the AC on!

Hope you are enjoying your gardens. I certainly have been enjoying seeing them on your posts. I have been reading a lot of them, but have not had much time to comment. Up at 4:00 AM, to work at 7:00 and bed before 9:00 PM doesn't seem to leave me much time to do do all I want. Forgive me!!

Happy Gardening!

Bye-Bye Chicago!

Spring Fling 2009 is history, sadly. But oh, what a wonderful fun filled few days it was! Meeting the people behind the blogs was the very best part for me. And then it was a tie for second favorite-the beautiful gardens and the fabulous food. :)

Rose and I drove up, with her doing an awesome job of managing the traffic in Chicago. I was the navigator and for the most part, I didn't get us lost. We found our hotel and had the car parked, enjoying the curbside valet service and bell persons to help us with our luggage. We are both not morning people and opted for the later activities of the three days. This post will be a very abbreviated synopsis of our itinerary. In later posts, I hope to share more photos and tell a little more of the great bloggers we met. Plus, I intend to go into more detail about all the places and gardens we saw.

Friday, we (Rose and I and a few others) went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens on the later train. To do these gardens justice, you would have to spend days there.

Tree Peony, or the triplets!

Hill sides of poppies, or Heaven!

Waiting at the Glencoe station to go back to the city. It was raining.

Sunny in the city. The Lurie Gardens.

Friday night reception. Rose and I did a lot of talking.

Saturday lunch at Andersonville. FABULOUS!!!

A most unusual iris at Carolyn Gail's gorgeous garden

Frances taking a picture of a butterfly on my bag with butterflies

on her hand and flying toward her!

Again, we are eating! Saturday evening at the best Chicago style pizzeria.

Sunday morning at the 'bean' in Millennium Park

We were such tourists!

Bye-Bye Chicago. Buffalo here we come!

Hi dear blogging friends! It has been over a week since I last posted-where does the time go?? For me it has been work, gardening and granddaughters. and of course getting ready for Spring Fling. :)

Our weather has cleared and we have had glorious warm sunny days that are finally drying out the ground enough to get a few plants in. I have managed to get some new plants-annuals and perennials planted, and have done a few containers. That's the good news. The bad is I still have several more to plant and of course lots of weeds to pull. I also need to put down a lot of mulch!

The Painted Daises are blooming. I love their hot pink color against the deep green of the ground cover vinca. Unfortunately, blogger or my Internet connection is not letting me add any more photos at this time so you will have to take my word for it.

My clematis unknownist is blooming! This year it has more than one bloom. I have babied this plant for 3 years now and it looks as though this may be the year it finally comes into it's own.

What would a post by me be without a super macro shot??

As I said above, I have been having a lot of trouble with either blogger or my Internet. I can't visit from my side bar and even when I go to one of your posts, I often can't leave a comment. But I am reading most of your posts and enjoying seeing your late spring gardens.

I first noticed this on Perennial Garden Lover's sight. So Racquel, if you are reading this....I have been reading your delightful posts. It may have something to do with my security settings-I am going to have my son-in-law check it out soon.

I have had bird photo envy for a long time. Actually ever since I started reading blogs. When I was deciding about a new camera, I had to chose between super macro and super zoom due to the budget. :) Really I have not been sorry that I went with the macro, but every once in a while... So you have to click to enlarge this and the next picture to really see them. The cat and I were walking the gardens the other evening when I heard lots of scolding. Looking up I saw this female cardinal first and then---

very close by the male cardinal. I have a feeling there is a nest in this tree and we were getting too close. Especially the cat. After a couple of quick pictures we left the area and let them get back to the business of nesting. ( The cat had to be physically persuaded to leave!)

Spring Fling is next weekend and I am sooo looking forward to meeting all the bloggers and seeing the gardens Chicago has to offer. It sounds as if we will be very busy. After we get home and I get all my photos downloaded, I want to get back to the business of blogging on a regular basis. Surely by then, life will be less complicated(famous last words). Until then...

Have a Wonderful Memorial Day and enjoy your gardens!