Four October Bouquets

Autumn bouquets are special. They give us a chance to enjoy the last bright blooms reminescent of summer. They also include dried remnants of the plants assuring us that the summer, whether we like it or not, is gone.

Weather permitting, some bouquets are made for the outside.

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CLEAN-UP BOUQUET

Dry poppy, acanthus, agapanthus, mallow and astilber were very attractive and just ask to be displayed!

Hydrangeas will go to another bunch for the second garden table.

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Here they are.

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HYDRANGEA BOUQUET

Final inspection:

Closer look:

And to the final destination, the garden table that can be seen from the windows.

Can I be in the picture again? I was not looking at the camera in that first shot!

I think I am very photogenic!

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Two other bouquets go inside. ______________________________________

HARVEST BOUQUET

It’s time to harvest my favorite herb, parsley, from my garden. The parsley will stay for several days on the kitchen counter, and everyone is welcome to munch on its green leaves. Then, it will be spread, dried and placed into a glass jar for storage and used in cooking. Blue and white porcelain is from my Russian Gzhel collection.

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“I AM THE BEST, DON’T STAY CLOSE TO ME” BOUQUET

Some flowers don’t want any competition. They think they are so beautiful, no one else deserves to be in the scene while they are performing. The lonely dahlia flower will decorate the breakfast table. But, before going inside, it posed for an outdoor shot.

And one more

I

didn’t dare move the Autumn Joy sedum from this view. It wanted to be in the picture too! Wait, maybe it wants to tell something? Maybe, it wants to have a bouquet of its own? Did you ever make an Autumn Joy sedum bouquet?

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For other October bouquets go to Noelle at Ramblings From A Desert Garden

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Copyright 2010 TatyanaS

bouquets art

I Won’t Show This To My Houseplants

            

I have a confession to make . During my last travel, to the wonderful land of sunshine, breathtaking views, olives, lemons  and Limoncello, I didn’t miss my own garden!

I know,  it would be more appropriate to say that the thoughts of my own garden never left me. I could say that they followed my walks through the old narrow streets , stirred my mind during ferry rides from Sorrento to Capri and back and… well, you got the idea.  But, I am an honest person, and I am honestly saying: Nope. I didn’t miss my garden, I didn’t worry about it, and the only concern, related to it,  was: do they pick up my tomatoes? As I found out later, the did, but very few. Upon my return, I found many tomatoes rotten or eaten by slugs.  It was late summer, tomatoes came not at the end of July, as usual, but in September. That is why tomatoes were on my mind.

While on the Amalfi coast of Italy, I didn’t have time to think about my garden. All my time was consumed by walking, sightseeing, admiring what I saw and getting excited and inspired. Between the walks (and there were a LOT of them!),  I was sitting in a little outdoor café or on a bench near the town square and watching people.

              

Not thinking much about my own garden, I caught myself thinking about my houseplants pretty often. Always, the thought would come in a form of a question : But why doesn’t MY plant grow like this? Let me show you some pictures with amazing philodendrons, pothos vines, orchids, birds of paradise, etc. which in some parts of the world, of course, grow in the wild, but in my place are used as houseplants.  Most of the pictures were taken in the beautiful hotel Le Sirenuse in Positano (except the next one, from the hotel Santa Caterina in Amalfi). No, we didn’t stay in Le Sirenuse, but we spent some time in its quiet, inviting sitting rooms  hiding from the rain and enjoying afternoon drinks.

           

You might want to click on the pictures to see splendid  furniture and fine architectural details and oh so beautiful Italian tiles!

                        

For a fan of turquoise, green and blue colors, it was THE place to be! I think places like this can serve as a source of inspirational interior design ideas. How do you like this brilliant yellow color? Yellow is not my favorite color, but something tells me I could live with it during the grey days of our rainy season.

                                                 

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I think I got carried away again. Back to house plants. Actually, I guess the answer to my question is pretty clear. To have my plants grow better, I need to remember to feed them, provide them with moss sticks, move them further from the heating vents, and set them outside in a shady spot during summer.

                                                         Since we are already here, in this beautiful hotel, let me show you what treasures they have outside.

              

Lemon trees in terracotta pots, vines that are hugging the walls and columns and, again, this beautiful tile! And what views are there for everyone’s enjoyment! Even the low-hanging clouds couldn’t spoil them. They rather add some drama and mystery.

                

Houses clinging on the side of the cliff, boats down there, rain water on the tile floor… Ahhh…

             I think I will return to these pictures again and again. Did I tell you I have 1200 of them?

            

Thanks for hanging around! Now, I need to go and take care of my houseplants… It’s time to bring my Chlorophytum  inside. It spent the summer  outside like its relatives in the pictures below. Although, it didn’t have such a picturesque location as those. BTW, is it an Aloe in the right  picture?

         

And is it a Schefflera on the left?

Why did I name this post ‘I Won’t Show This To My Houseplants ‘? I am afraid they can pack their suitcases and go to the Amalfi coast, the wonderful land of sunshine, breathtaking views, olives, lemons  and Limoncello, where they can grow big and beautiful.

Arrivederci, my friends, arrivederci!

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Copyright 2010 TatyanaS
positano prints

‘Accidental’ Flowerbed

Accidents happen, even in gardening. Once, I miscalculated the amount of soil amendment for our garden and got too much of it . After its biggest portion was spread on the lawn, under the hedges and on the flowerbeds, the remaining part was moved from the driveway to the ugly part of the lawn behind the house.

B e f o r e

I planned to move the mix somewhere fast so that we wouldn’t kill the grass we dumped it on. Well, that was the plan. In reality, the pile stayed there for several months. It became clear that the grass under it was gone. After lengthy consideration, I took a shovel, outlined the edges of the pile, and got myself a new flowerbed.

I’ve been told that the nutritious value of the mix probably got low by then. So, I didn’t have big hopes and considered it as a temporary home for newly bought plants and divisions of existing plants.

To make a long and boring story short, this is what I had at the beginning of this summer:

A f t e r

I move everything here that I don’t know where else to plant. It’s kind of a nursery. Some plants are here temporarily, until I find a permanent place for them. (Although, who doesn’t know that there is nothing more permanent than temporary?)

Grasses, hostas and heucheras love it here. They have part shade and consistently moist soil.

Smaller pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them

Ligularia was the real winner. Two of them were sitting in pots for three or four years (I know, I know, it was cruel to hold them there!). Several weeks after I moved one of them to the pile, new bed, it became clear that the ligularias should be free!

Yellow blooms are lovely, although not my favorite color. What I love the most about ligularia are its leaves that are glossy when young.

Next to the ligularia picture is the picture of Bowles’ Golden grass in bloom. Variegated Japanese sedge grass is also doing great here.

Alliums, poppies, rose, tradescantia and heuchera blooms add colorful happy spots to this place.

Rain Gardener Gardening By Trial And Error and Grace (Gardening With Grace) commented on these heucheras in my August post Containers In My Garden. Thank you, ladies, for noticing! In this bed, I have H.Caramel, H.Beaujolais, H. Velvet Night and one more type, green-leaved, which I can’t recall the name of.

On the pictures above, did you see a huge foxglove growing right in the middle of the Hakonechloa grass? It’s a volunteer foxglove. I probably needed to remove it when it just appeared, but the plant looked so healthy and big, I am curious what flowers will it produce next year. I hope the hakonechloa will survive. There are several of them on this bed, and they thrive in the part shade.

Plants which didn’t grow well in other parts of the garden seem to be recovering here. For example, knock-out rose and East Indian Holly fern that, before I moved them here, were suffering in dry soil. The only plant which didn’t survive here was Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium). It was probably my fault – it wasn’t the right spot for sun-loving grass. Too much moisture during last winter didn’t help either.

There is only one bad thing about this bed. Do you see a row of fir trees behind it? The trees didn’t miss a trick and sent their roots into the pile for nutrients and water. I cut these new roots from time to time when I dig holes for plants, but it’s clear who will be the winner. I just hope that the firs won’t suffocate my plants.

Even now, in October, the Accidental bed looks good. In the future, I plan to add a focal point to it, maybe, a little tree.

Plants are not shown in the pictures: Brunnera, Euonymus Canadale Gold, Euphorbia, Cape Fuchsia and some groundcovers.

I bet some accidents happened in your garden too!

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Copyright 2010 TatyanaS

My Pictures of the Day. Reflections

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What’s your favorite?

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Copyright 2010 TatyanaS