The purple shamrock my co-worker gave me is finally in bloom! ift.tt/1NZzl1v https://t.co/wC5Whp0HfZ
Twitter Update: The purple shamrock my co-worker gave me is finall…
Category Archives: house
There’s That Silver Lining Everyone Talks About
As usual, I overslept.
My son knocked on the bathroom door while I was having my morning constitutional. Of course, I let him come in, because he’s four, and because I knew he didn’t actually have to use the bathroom himself, because he wore a pull-up last night.
Having an audience didn’t exactly make my morning routine any speedier, especially since I’ve been charged by his dentist with making sure he brushes his teeth properly both morning and night. That adds another few minutes. Add onto that the discovery that he’d leaked out of his pull-up and onto his bedsheets, and we were getting down to the wire.
Not that I had any chance in hell of getting to work on time at that point, of course.
Breakfast — his, not mine — was rushed, although he did an excellent job of eating while watching YouTube on his iPhone. Sometimes he gets super involved in the videos and forgets to eat. (It’s one of our old phones, with a broken sleep button, and we let him use it for apps.)
Headed back upstairs, only to realize that his mattress pad had still been damp with pee when I put the new sheets on.
I don’t have time for this.
Threw an old burp cloth over the spot that had crept through the clean fitted, read him a very short book, sang him a very short song, and kissed him goodbye. Bounded down the stairs, threw on my shoes and my jacket, snatched up my purse and keys, stepped into the garage, hit the garage door opener, climbed in the new car, stuck the switchblade key in the ignition, let’s get going. Threw it in reverse. On my way.
CRUUUUNCH.
What the HELL was that? What did I just hit in my own fucking driveway?
Answer: the garage door that had only gone up two-thirds of the way.
Well, shit. There goes today.
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: October 2015
We’re closing out the third summer we’ve been in this house of ours in Zone 6a/6b, with all the established flowerbeds that seemed so beautiful yet daunting. I’m learning how true it is that a garden is a living, changing thing — some plants thrive, others get buried in mulch by well-meaning landscapers, still others succumb to a bad winter (or two).
Some of the color from previous autumns has failed to return this year — mums, Joe Pye weed, and late-blooming roses are all failing to come through for one reason or another (but mostly due to being the deer snack bar). So, I’m latching onto the few bits of color I can find, and making plans for the spring.
This mophead hydrangea, to my knowledge, is not a repeat bloomer, so I’m not sure what it thinks it’s doing, trying to bloom so close to the first frost. Guessing this confusion will mean no blooms come next summer…
I’m not sure what this slightly smelly groundcover is, but it’s turning a lovely shade of purple. I’ve given up trying to eradicate it and am instead letting it do its thing — but keeping it from crowding out other plants in the same bed.
This groundcover is in what I’m calling my Future Cottage Garden, where I’ll be planting pollinator-friendly flowers over the coming years. So, it will eventually be removed when I plant (or transplant) more things here, and establish some pathways through the bed. This weekend, I relocated a pink-flowering volunteer viburnum into this bed, and dug up a peony from another bed to transplant here. I sure hope at least a few divisions of that peony survive; I didn’t mean to break it up into 12 separate plants!
But I digress. Bloom Day.
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: September 2015
In my Zone 6a/6b garden in Northwest Ohio, not nearly as much is happening as usually does in September. The early summer rains and the late summer drought (or maybe it just seemed like a drought by comparison) really confused a lot of the plants. And some of them, like the Joe Pye Weed and a few others, were possibly victims of the deer buffet.
I’ve also been slack with weeding — I’m still relatively new with this gardening thing, as I kind of jumped in with both feet three summers ago when we bought this house with all its established beds and borders. I find that I’ve gotten better at weeding and deadheading each year, but every year there comes a point when I just throw up my hands and say, fine. You win, weeds. Every year it’s a different dominant weed; this year, it was bermudagrass (if I identified it correctly).
But this is bloom day! What am I thinking? Less kvetching and more pictures!
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: August 2015
Here in Zone 6a/6b, summer started off rainy and mild, but finally settled down to a normal, warmish, less-waterlogged typical summer.
I haven’t been out to weed or maintain my flowers for a few weeks — rain, houseguests, Life just getting in the way, as Life does (especially when one has a four-year-old son). Yesterday evening, after dinner, my son and I took the tour around my various beds and borders to document what’s in bloom this August. Here’s what we turned up.
As always, the hydrangea paniculata takes first prize amongst all my flowering perennials for Most Awesome Flowers With Least Amount Of Maintenance.
