Floral Triumphs Summer 2016

Whimsical Tarot

I have found it less challenging and more enjoyable to maintain our patio garden this summer; and in spite of prior experience, ''hope springs ...'' yaddayadda ... I planted a few types of seeds, mainly bought on sale. Most impactful (apart from the French and Runner beans standing at well over 8 foot high and who belong firmly in Titch's domain) was the amaranthus, a.ka. Love Lies Bleeding.

The seeds are tiny, and my record with seeds isn't good, so I threw caution to the wind along with the seeds themselves, and sowed them all.

Of course, they all germinated, so I gave some seedlings away, and since I can't be fiddling with teeny stuff, planted some in kind of clumps - I figured, Nature will thin them for me. It worked:

That said little yellow flower in the middle ? That's Thunbergia (Black-Eyed Susie) of which I also had many sprouts, but when planted out refused stubbornly to really go upwards like the voracious climber it claimed to be on the packet.

The clary sage and the cerinthe did not emerge; the nasturtiums looked fabulous draping from my front planter - for about a day until the blackfly found them. I bugsprayed them but I think that just overwhelmed the plants, who crumpled and withered accusingly.

I missed the opportunity to take a photo of my dahlia in its full glory (the pic was taken a month ago when my Asiatics were also beginning to bloom) - it was maybe £2/US$2.62 to buy the tuber, but man, you get some bang for your buck ! It flowers forever ! Well, OK several weeks, anyway. My mother didn't like them - along with gladioli, she thought they were vulgar, but they're a great splash of longlasting color. Now if they were scented ...

But my favorite this summer happened accidentally: I had a couple of pelargoniums (which us oldies like to still call geraniums) - including a scented-leaf variety -  and a random hardy fuchsia hanging around, so I bunged them all into a pot, and look what happened:

I have very carefully tried to avoid any photos showing the actual patio slabs, because it is in desperate need of weeding, which is Someone Else's job always and forever and ever amen. I'll let you know how that goes ...

WIP Wednesday: Weedfree July

Hudes Tarot

And we enter the home straight that is known as the end of term - 3 weeks to go and the ponies children are beginning to flag: our weeks are filling up with The ''Production''(it's 'Oliver!' please gods have mercy on me), the Leavers' BBQ, the Leavers' Disco, Cub Camp (ALL weekend, this year), various sleepovers .... in addition to the usual sporting load. I am tired, and I only have to watch ! In these enlightened times, whipping is not allowed, so I guess I must find some carrots somewhere.

Oh why what a fortuitous coincidence - if only I believed in them - here are pics of  veggies wot we iz growing right now:

Cut and come again lettuce. Of which we need to eat more, by the looks of things.

Our 1st attempt at peas. Report card says ? Could do better.

Potatoes. Pentland Javelin, to be precise. I read somewhere that we will still be harvesting these at Xmas.

 

From left to right: 1 pumpkin, 1 tumbler tomato, 1 plum tomato, 3 bush tomatoes. I LOVE tomatoes, but even I am quailing at how many this will be .... unfortunately I am not a fan of chutney apart from mango.


So not too bad so far, for our 1st summer in this house; there is also sweetcorn and strawberries, as well as culinary herbs. There is a sad lack of floral brightness - I do miss having petunias. Next year I think things will be more cohesive ....

What have you got in your garden right now ?

Boidies

Prairie Tarot

                                     I'm baaaa - cckk !

Didja miss me ? Didja ? Didja ? 

I wouldn't have survived if Belo and my MIL hadn't hurled themselves into the melee, and two gorgeous SILs had come to clean up the old house after our personal hurricane wafted through .... thank you.

I have more boxes wilting on the patio than in the house now; the kids have about 2 boxes of their stuff to unpack, I have 2 boxes that apparently came from my desk, according to the labels: and they are not small boxes, so I guess it must have Tardis-like qualities. I'm going to give it a month, and if I haven't  needed anything out of them, I shall condemn them sight-unseen, to the tip.

Plus, I got tricked by the recent mild and sunny weather, into thinking that Spring might be almost here, so I dug out the two flower beds in the front garden. Then last night we had a hard and heavy frost. Of course.

Well, yes, I did actually dig one, but only supervised Titch digging out the other one: loads of dead heather, long grass, and thistles. Our result:

No, I didn't think about Before pictures until After. Yeah.

I am going with white/silver/blues in the left-hand bed, and reds/oranges/yellows in the right-hand bed. I pruned the three neglected roses, and will see what they deliver over the summer as to whether they are permitted to remain.

And in addition, I have knitted nothing, nothing, I tell you, since the move - can you believe it ?? A mere lonely singular row in the Spring Fling MKAL, for which the latest clue has just been sent. I toyed with a bit of crochet - one that has a rather important deadline - but it's not doing as I want, so I am sulking.

Anyway, this house faces east/west, and the sun has reached the front, so I am off to the trenches with my trusty steed rusty tools .....

FO Friday 51: The Wheel Turns

THE END OF SUMMER

The summer days are fading, as they must
From endless hours to short and fleeting light
The bird's once bright, immortal tune, now cries
A melancholy aura to the dusk
The children fiercely climb, and dream, and race
Before their wild and unchained days depart
And yet beneath the zeal lies a half heart
For there isn't time, there's only enough space
The sun seems low, a hazy orange sphere
Now reminiscing sweetly of the days
When endlessly before you summer lay
And as in the deep, crimson dusk you stir
Your soul joins with the birds in wistful brood
Crying for lost summer days, for childhood

[author's name removed by her own request, received via email 26 Sept. 2011]


The wheel of the seasons definitely feels like it's turned this week: what with the gales, rain, clouds, gray skies and chilly evenings, it seems like a switch was flicked: beginning of term = autumn. And looking at our patio reinforces that:


May 2011


end July 2011


beginning Sept. 2011

It's clearly time to pull the summer bedding and get ready for planting spring bulbs, and winter/spring bedding.

Another FO today is a batch of Aztec Queen Soap: loaded with cocoa butter, a creamy mix of vanilla and chocolate makes this a smooth and special soap ....



Head over to Tami's Amis to see who else is talking about Autumn ....

WIP Wednesday 51: Bobbing Along

Even though I haven't won anything on anyone's giveaways - there's been quite a few recently, so I thought (hoped) a little something might come my way - I've kept going. Pretty much exclusively on Tracy's Shawl - it's so rewarding to see the progress, and as the number of stitches keep reducing, of course it's getting quicker to knit; I only have the last chart, and half of the penultimate chart to go, and then it's complete.


So that means I've done nothing but glance occasionally at the Candleflame Shawl - I don't feel guilt, as I have a long time until the deadline even begins to loom (Spring 2012).



And I had a lucky find ... I pick up old patterns regularly, from the charity shops. The biggest challenge with them is substituting the yarn (always discontinued). Not so much the gauge/tension, but the yardage - I have an unreasoning terror of not having enough yarn to complete a project, and realizing only when I need that one final skein ...and then discovering that it is totally out of stock everywhere.

I also have a dreadful memory. So in a little notebook (thanks, Mooncalf) that goes everywhere with me, I have a list of 4 or 5 projects, the kind of yarn I need for them, and how much of it I might need. Just in case.

They get ticked off and replaced with new ones as I work my way through them. I found a pattern that used Wendy Monaco, and lo and behold, while searching for dog treats in QD, I found Robin Picasso Chunky, 100g/150m, which is also for 6 1/2mm needles (a rough guide is the recommended needle size being the same). The pattern says 12 st x 17 rows, the yarn says 14 st x 20 rows.


At this time of day (or any other, actually) it is impossible for me to make the gargantuan mental effort necessary to do the maths for this comparison/conversion. So I bought 5 - or was it 6 - balls, and we'll see how it goes. A swatch, sez you ? Nary a chance of it, sez I. Where would be the mystery and excitement of the unknown in that ? Of course, if anyone feels like educating me with the likely mathematical results, go right ahead.

And the last thing I want to talk about today is the difference a small amount of time makes. here is a trough in mid-May:


And here it is now, end-July:


I am trying to summon up enough fortitude to go out there with the secateurs and cut back all the petunias. I have read that, if fed, they will retaliate with a fresh flush of flowers that will go through til the end of summer ....

Pop on over to Tami's Amis for a round-up of lovely WIPs.

WIP Wednesday 43: June is Bustin' Out All Over

Even though we are in the driest part of Britain, according to the weather people, in April we had only 10% of the rain we usually have here, and now the word 'drought' is being bandied about - especially by the farmers who are preemptively seizing on the arid conditions as an excuse for higher prices.

So I was very glad to welcome a day and a half of much-needed intermittent heavy showers, not only to succour the farmers and the parks, but to somewhat dampen my rather clay-ey soil. it meant that today I could plant out a couple of bits and bobs I'd picked up over the last month or so.

I am trying my luck again with a Papillon lavender, having lost mine over the winter; a pretty little scabious, a purple-leaved spiderwort (tradescantia) and a beautiful golden one:

I am experimenting with with Hebe 'Heartbreaker' because of the flushed new tips:

Just about ready for early harvesting are Mini Diva's strawberries:

And just going over are my patio rose 'Sweet Magic' together with the chives ...

But there are other roses on the verge of busting out like the post title (super-kudos if you can name without Googling, where it was taken from):

Don't forget the hostess with the mostest WIPs ....Tami over at Tami's Amis.

Green Doesn't Grow the Patio-Oh

And it's a hat trick ! Here we are on WIP Wednesday 38 - and you can find loads of mainly yarny goodness on this theme over at Tami's Amis.

My post is not so much on the yarny but a yardy theme instead: we used the fabulous unseasonal hot sunny weather over the weekend to wake the garden up from it's winter sleep and spring mess. Like a grizzly bear, it was somewhat grumpy and unyielding, but we had our way with it in the end. All we have to do now is hope there are no late frosts ......








































































And this is the progress on the Waves of Leaves shawl: I finished the last repeat as per the pattern, but decided the shawl wasn't big enough - the pattern is written for 4ply/fingering. So I'm on row 12 of the next 24 row repeat ..... That odd black spot is Inky sticking his nose in to see what's going on.

End of the Season

A fantabulous weekend was had by all, in spite of DH having read my last blog post; I told him he was free to start his own and say whatever he wanted about me ... within reason. It'll never happen.

Destructo Boy and three friends went to the matinee at the cinema to see Space Chimps 2; DH's bet was that there'd be a minimum of one poop joke: there were none. What a wasted opportunity. The tickets cost DH £5 all together; the popcorn and fizzy pop, over £16 ... but how can you not buy it for a bunch of 5 year olds ?

Nanny arrived, and took the kids to their favorite place, Christchurch Park, for the afternoon while DH and I ran up to B&Q for some winter bedding: a tray of 18 primulas, 6 cyclamen, 6 heathers, and an ornamental sedge (so potbound I could divide it into 3 plants), all for a mere £9: everything was in the reduced section, and at B&Q it usually means that either someone only forgot to water the plant, or it has finished flowering ....

Sunday, after Destructo Boy had ripped and torn his way through his stash of gifts, which included his tickets to see ITFC play, a pogo stick, a Kung Zhu Battle Hamster, a metal detector (a huge hit) and the Ferrari steering wheel for the PS2, we went to check out a potential place/group for Destructo Boy to go play football. We have 3 other possible groups, all kindly suggested by John Potter of Ransomes Sports Club, which we'll check out by phone this week.

I have planted the winter bedding, the summer bedding is all in the recycling bin, so now the patio is looking kinda empty and sparse ... a small trough of cut-and-come-again lettuces, a chilli plant, and the lemon verbena is all that remains of the summer ....







































The sun is out, but there is a chilly breeze ....

And the Livin' is Easy

Things in the tarot world having regained equilibrium for the present, today I have been enjoying my garden - the runner beans have got actual beans on them (all of 2 cm long) and however much of the lettuce we eat, we don't seem to be making a dent.

I was glad I'd taken photos, so I have something to compare - the first one was taken only on the 22nd of June, the second photo today about 5 minutes ago: it's not even a month, and everything has burgeoned ....


































And a photo of the Rose Leaf Trellis scarf which I modified from Janet Barton's Rose Leaf Trellis Shawl (available as a free download from Ravelry) - a beautifully simple and easy pattern - in Laines du Nord Kiddy Print that I completed last weekend; it was quite scratchy to knit with, being 70% mohair, but has yielded nicely to fabric conditioner and blocking. I've discovered that dark yarn photographs best against a light background, but I need to find a darker background to show lighter yarns to their best effect ...
this one is kind of a raspberry ripple effect, but it looks really tatty in the photos for some reason.