Gardening, Baseball, and Laundry Day

I was actually able to get a lot accomplished today! The weather was so nice that I decided to get the back flower gardens clipped, stripped, plucked, and pinched in time for one more growing season...gotta love East Texas. My zinnias that lasted all summer have reseeded and are about to give me another lovely crop that I hope to last well into October. The beds along my front border had grown so much that the lantana, which looked like shrubs instead of slight bushes, was choking out my Knock-Outs, so I attacked the lantana in hopes of having some lovely fall roses in a couple of months. We'll see how that goes.
The boys spent the late afternoon outside playing a very comical game of baseball. I'm not sure what the object of the game was, but I do not that the rules were not anything remotely resembling the ordinary ones. At one point they were doubled over laughing so hard that I thought one of them was choking while the other looked on in mock amusement at the supposed choker. I scolded Jack that it wasn't funny to laugh at his brother while he choked, and then I realized that they were both snorting. Goofy kids.
Tomorrow is laundry day, Sam's piano teacher is coming over for "Real Lesson #1", and I think I'm going to begin wallpapering Sophy's bathroom vanity area. Eek!

How does my garden grow?

This is a very strange angle for some reason, but it's a teensy corner of one bed and path. It was taken about 2 weeks ago, so there are tons of things that have sprouted, grown, and bloomed since then. You pretty much can't even see the ground anymore in this bed. Right now, my bloomers are my gladiolas, freesias, lantana, day lilies, and zinnias. The sunflowers are about as tall as I am, but they haven't bloomed yet.
This is a PARTIAL photo of Jack's 40-pound cabbage that was a planting assignment from his science class. The plants were donated by http://www.bonnieplants.com/. Bonnie’s 3rd Grade Cabbage Program distributes free cabbage plants to third-grade classrooms whose teachers sign up to participate. This year 1,200,000 third-graders will be planting and taking care of their own cabbage plants. You can learn more about the program, which also awards a $1,000 scholarship to one student in each state, by visiting the Third Grade Cabbage Program page of this web site (so says the website). I'd say it lives up to it's name. Again, this photo was taken about a month ago. The cabbage is HUGE now, and we basically put it in the dirt and that was it. I don't think we'll be entering the scholarship contest, still...we've had fun watching it grow and looking at the cabbages that were submitted on line. If the teensy cabbage we started with is any indicator of the type of produce Bonnie sales, then I highly recommend their product. As you can see, it's quite a substantial vegetable.

The dollhouse we built a few months back sits beside the giant gardenia bush that is now covered in sweet smelling blooms. That one bush makes our entire yard smell divine. Since this photo was taken, the zinnias and marigolds that I planted from seed have grown to about waist heighth and bloomed along the sides of the house.

The garden is on fire!

Well, not on fire at the moment...it's POURING down rain right now along with thunder and an insane amount of lightening! I'm preparing a slideshow of before, during and after of my gardens. This is my birdbath as of yesterday afternoon. All of the blooms you see here came from seeds. I'm most proud of the marigolds which I have NEVER even dreamed of growing from seed before this year. In my largest garden, the zinnias and lantana are crazy, crazy. I think this weekend I'm going to put out a few more roses and maybe a hydrangea or two in my kitchen window bed. Billy Graham is growing so nicely that I might have to get him a friend to grow with. For those of you who remember my jasmine, Aretha, she made the move with us in November, and she is also growing nicely...although not anywhere a vicinity next to Billy. That would just be weird, right?

Day #4 of 30 Days in Photos

We worked outside all afternoon while PDaddy had wedding interviews. Sam and Soph started their lastest project. They planted sunflowers, zinnias, and four o'clocks. We're going to count the days to see how long it takes to see blooms! ((Ironic side note: We left school early Friday morning thanks to a snow cancellation. Jack will return to school tomorrow with a sunburn he received while shirtless outside all day today. Only in East Texas.)

The Garden of Pinkie

((What am I doing blathering on and on when there is American Idol Tivo'ing? Typing fast....))
It's a bit early yet, but maybe you get the idea. Any significant patch of dirt that you see is loaded with zinnia seeds. I also have some Honey Bear sunflowers planted around my fence edges in certain places. They need to hurry up and grow, so I can see them and kiss their faces. Sigh...I have kicked around making this garden a tad larger, but our North yard is next on the outdoor project list (I may get the gazebo I've always wanted!) Alas, the larger garden may have to wait a season. Or three.

Mr. Pinkie calls it annoying, but I name all of my plants. Well, the ones that choose to live. The giant Knockout rose that you see there is Rosie NotDonell. She blooms all year long, and she responds very well to a severe pruning whenever I dish one out. I love her for that. The dirt around it is covered in zinnia seeds right now. Last year, my zinnias were about 4 feet tall and gorgeous. Thank you Miracle Grow! (The kind in the bottle that looks like 7UP that you attach to your water hose, in case you wanted to know.)

This is the back side of the garden. There are cannas coming up in the center there with some Creeping Something or Other underneath it that has the most beautiful, tiny blue flowers in early February. I also have more zinnias and cosmos planted in the spare dirt in this area. Along the back fence, I have my Honey Bears planted. Kiss, kiss.

Look at this face. This Rosita Fresita. Which is, I believe, Spanish for Strawberry Shortcake. Sophy named her, and I'm not kidding about that.

Can you believe these Purple Wave petunias lived through the winter and came back this thick? I'm just saying...buy some Miracle Grow.

All of the monkey grass you see here came from this yard. I just keep dividing and dividing and dividing and dividing....Anyone need some monkey grass? Look way in the back and you can see the Mexican Feather grass that is growing everywhere. I guess it must seed profusely...

This has nothing to do with the garden, but I thought it was a pretty pic of the front porch area.

Still bloomin'.....

Just when we thought we would never see rain again, BAM! Rain. A few days later, a little more rain. Now, we're back in bloom and going green again. So, Fall may be a little late now, I'm thinking. I thought this was a loverly fence view of the garden. Something out there smells really good right about now, but I can't identify what it is.

The open areas in this pic will one day be a small garden surrounding the path that wraps behind the creek. I'm really dying to get something going on the north side of our house, but GardenDaddy isn't as keen on starting things as I am. Mostly I have to resort to bribery, general threats, and promises I don't intend to keep. Maybe I'll come up with something soon.







In other news, Sam sneezed at school today. This was, obviously, a life altering sneeze as he felt it necessary to describe every detail of the sneeze to me in a play-by-play sneezing. It's hard to believe the red monster will be 6 in a bit more than a month. Sigh.
Sophy has decided she wants to be a kitty for H'ween. I'm not surprised, since she pretends to be a cat about 75% of the time. She will even eat her supper with her plate on the kitchen floor if I'm not careful. I'm thinking I can come up with a pretty cute kitty costume with a headband/kitty ears, cat print skirt, black leotard/tights/mary janes, etc...and of course, a tail.
My mom (who is like a child whisperer...whatever that is...I just made it up) has always said that 8 year olds grow and change an enormous amount. I must agree with her. Jack is changing so much in his actions, mannerisms, likes/dislikes...sniff, sniff. I'm getting so old. Argh.

The little garden that could.

Bless my poor garden's heart. It just wants to live in spite of the neglect from it's mommy and the torture of it's mother--nature. Several weekends ago, we had a particularly mild afternoon. Sophy and I put on our gardening clogs and set to work with clippers, shovels, and rakes. Three GIANT lawn wagon loads later, we had made a dent in the over growth. Usually by now I have pumpkins attempting to grow or another round of zinnias but nothing new has been added thus far. Mr. GP cringes everytime I mention my latest idea which involves enlarging the garden area. ((insert evil laugh here))

Here you see my attempt at an interesting camera view of our creek. HAHA, my camera got slightly wet. Wonder what that does for the warranty?


Tomorrow is almost Friday. Remember that.