Zinnias and Roses

Hello to everyone! I have been so busy! Update on my knee: conservative treatment only. This is good. Went to physical therapist....will only do exercises to strengthen it, and open up my knee joint....sounds like fun, eh??? Just 2 weeks. I can walk, so I am happy.

Looking forward to some fall fun. A corn maze in November, with hayrides, and get this.....a hayride with paintball guns to shoot zombies (for the younger adults in the family), a train ride for the kiddos. It will be nice in the cooler weather to come.

Creatively my DIL and I have been embroidering. It is done late at night in the few moments between getting kids to sleep, and us nearly falling out ourselves....still we like to squeeze the time in there. We are both working on surprise gifts for friends.....I will get pictures when we are done, for sure!

Life is good.....even with temperatures that reach into the 90's some days!  We have been getting some rain every day it has been nice not to have to water.  Here are a few pics of the tire garden (the tires with flowers).  Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Xoxo- Julie

A little cardinal, a little vase, a little princess, and a few little zinnias!

Everything is self explanatory, but the little Holly Hobbie vase I found at Goodwill says, " Thoughtfulness starts in a warm loving heart"! It is the perfect size for my cut mini roses.....i could not leave it there!!!  $1.00 in perfect condition!

Post done on my cell phone so pictures are random!

See where you stand politically!

This is just fun...a quiz to see where you stand on the political spectrum...if you want to take it. I came out just about where I thought I would.
POLITICAL QUIZ
BTW...these are some new zinnias...multicolored...just love them!!! Good fall colors!

New plants and some organized effort.

Today I cleaned out two tires of some old marigolds and zinnias that had finally tired out. I also cleaned out all my okra plants (from 3 of my 5 gallon buckets), as they are fizzling out too (they only do well in hot weather).

In one tire I planted a taller beautiful pink zinnia, and in front some smaller different shades of orange zinnias. I LOVE zinnias...they are about the sweetest thing in the universe!

I also found a 9 pack of started kale, so I gave three plants to my friend, Karen, 3 plants to my Mom, and I am hardening off my 3 before planting them into a couple of tires. It is called Winterbol Kale.

I planted three heirloom tomatoes: Cherokee Purple, Black Krim and Black Prince, which were available at my Home Depot. Isn't this just grand?

Has anyone ever grown a red kale, called Red bor? It looks green and with purple hues. Interesting!

I am having a GREAT BIG urge to go buy about three more tomato plants, which would give me a total of 8. I want some cherry or olive sized tomatoes...all hanging in clusters! How fun would that be??? I can taste them now.

Oh, BTW...I have taken three cuttings from my Mr. Stripey tomato plants and have them in water in my kitchen window to see if they will root. A fellow gardener swears this will work. Can't wait to see! If it does, I will have 11 tomato plants in all! Woo-hoo!!!

Two bads and two goods.

BAD #1
I was walking around the neighborhood yesterday, and thought I would just take a pic of some of the ruin left behind by a foreclosure. It makes me wonder where are the code enforcement people??? Yes, bank,,,you have to keep the lawn mowed, but what about a little edging here and there too???Sometimes I want to strangle the code enforcement people...hello...where are you????? Aren't property values plummeting well enough without adding this to the mix?


BAD #2
What are these white fluffy-looking bug/things on the undersides of my eggplant leaves??? I think I will call them Gross Wooley Monsters, becasue they made me want to vomit when I saw them. YUCK. I sprayed them with my Eco Sense by Ortho and hopefully they are goners!

GOOD #1
I still have some beautiful flowers in my tire gardens. Here are some still- blooming Purple Salvia and orange Zinnias. I love looking out my kitchen window all day to such gorgeousness!!!


GOOD #2
I picked up a pack of 6 little Ichiban eggplant starts to plant in spare spots in my buckets. Once I read in my Florida Gardening book that you can keep an eggplant plant alive for 3 years, I was hooked. Someone told me that the long thin Ichibans are not as bitter as the big ones like in the store...and I have certainly found that to be true...so for 1.67 at Home Depot, I am starting me a few more. YEAH!

Happy Tuesday to you all!

Donovan's last zinnias and Stolen cuttings!

These are the last two zinnias that I believe can possibly come from Donovan's pot! These are on the tallest stem (about 4.5 ft. high)!!! The color is lovely! So soft and muted. I think they are my favorite of all. Worth waiting for!

Below is a pic of some coleus I stole today from a shopping center. These are very pretty, but I had seen some down the way farther, that were even frillier and with more color. It was so hot, I couldn't bring myself to walk back down to get them. We had the kids there, where the movie theater was, and neither of them could sit for the movie we went to. An American Girl movie about a gal named Kit, who was raised during the Great Depression. My Mom went along and she and my daughter got to watch the whole thing, while I wandered around outside with the kids! They said it was so nice, rated G...just a very sweet movie. I will rent it one day for myself!!!

Does anybody want to paint these???

Is tomorrow really already Friday??? My gosh time flies! Hey, I found out that I type 39 wpm with an online typing test! Better than I thought. I basically use the two finger method, and I have to look!!! LOL. Sad. I needed a 35 wpm to get the job, so yeah!!!

This is my hubbys last few days off for a vacation week, and we are looking at a lot of rain with this tropical depression off coast. We thought we would try and do an overnight trip somewhere with grandson, but now not sure...may be not worth it with all the rain. We shall see.

Have a wonderful Friday everyone! xoxo- Julie

Elephant, pink eyed peas, wildlife and more...

OK, first, I apologize to all Cactus Monday folks that I have no cactus anything here today. I am just plain exhausted and cannot think about one more thing today!!! My daughter and I took the kids to a wildlife rescue, and we walked in the heat (although we did have a lot of shade here, from massive trees, thank God)...the pic below is of the three of them posing on a large cat statue there. It was a neat place with a new permanent black bear habitiat, which was really awesome to see!

I did 4 loads of laundry, and cleaned, and took the kids to a park for 1.5 hours, made dinner, fed everyone, and tended to the garden. Here is a pic of the first pink-eyed pea I took off my plants to check the size of the peas...and they were perfect! Of course, I had to share it with you, and see...they really are pink-eyed, rather than black-eyed! They are ultra sweet, and it sure is easy to see when they are ready to come off the plants due to the color change. I cannot recommend planting them highly enough. Of course, my middle name should be FUN, so these plants are perfect for me!!!

Here is Donovan's finished paper mache elephant! It turned out so cutely! He was so proud showing his mom and dad! Now we are thinking we must make some Fathers Day gifts from the left over glue/water mixture. I am thinking of fashioning an alligator pencil holder for my husband. He loves alligators!!!

Here are a few shots of Donovan's zinnia pot. The last pic is of the latest one, a very tall, ballet pick flower! This pic does not do it justice...it is really beautiful! Can you see how tall the one is compared to the others???


Thanks for stopping by!!!

My day!

First I went out to view my eggplants...lookin good. I did have to remove one little one yesterday, due to something boring into it. All the rest have no problems so far!



Here are some little rag-tag moss roses that I found growing all over in my grass...so I had pulled them all up and relocated them to a patch of dirt in the garden, and during the day they are opening up these sweet flowers now! They are growing right in front of my new gnome! Looks like he is standing in a beautiful grassy meadow!!!



A few zinnia shots (my fav flowers right now, as you know! These are in my tire gardens, but Donovans pot is still going strong!!!




I got in a mood for cold, juicy fruits today, so ran over to a close outdoor market and bought strawberries, watermelon, mango and some gorgeous yellow squash for tomorrow....the grands and daughter and I ate fruit in the afternoon after playing at a beach park for a few hours...it was so good!!!

And now it is 11:30pm here, and I am laying here wide awake with Doozey under my arm all snuggly...and I just ate this oatmeal pancake made from scratch and slathered with butter and syrup! My goodness...sinful. I am wondering when sleep will come...but probably good to sit up a few hours now, eh??? LOL. I am such a late night person...I am looking for a job and watching RFD channel...(Rural Free Delivery...a country living channel...farming and such).

A pot of flowers for Soulbrush!

A pot of homegrown zinnias for Soulbrush! I hope you are feeling chipper soon, girlfriend!

And a nice sized caterpiller that will soon, I believe, become a beautiful Monarch butterfly! I saw these on some milkweed plants at Lowes and had to take a picture!

Planted flower tire gardens!

Well, I accomplished my goal of planting my tires this morning!!! Yeah!!! I got all the flowers at Lowes...cheating I suppose...but I wanted instant gratification! No time for seeds...

In random order (cause I am lazy)...are a few views. The flowers are yellow and orange (mmmmm...my favorite color) orange zinnias, white and red vincas, variegated coleus, and a red coleus, and purple salvia! The actual nursery guy helped me with a taller purple plant that could take full sun all summer and keep blooming. I sure hope it holds true! I know the zinnias will not last the whole summer, but my hope is that all the other plants will be much fuller by then and I won't have any worries.

I really like the taller purple salvia! I put the taller plants in the backs of the tires in relation to my view out the kitchen window...

Do you think the butterlies will be attracted to the red vinca and the salvia??? Please continue to ignore the horrid condition of the grass on this side of the house...it is slowly filling in with more reguar water and fertilizer! I had moved things around, too, so you see bare spots from where things had been sitting...like Buddha and my strewberry pot! Weeds will be slowly worked on as well in these areas, and another application of Weed and Feed very soon!!!

I adore coleus!!! All of these plants with three days of water from my sprinklers should do OK. I will be watching closely each morning when I go out to water the all of the vegie gardens too!!!

Red zinnia!

Here is the next zinnia to open in Donovans pot. Red center with red petals! The inner petals are still closed somewhat, which is why you see white there, but by tomorrow it should be fully opened! I couldn't wait to take a pic! LOL! You can see all of Donovan's zinnias HERE, HERE, and HERE if you missed any, and are interested. It has been fun!

Donovan's newest zinnias!

Here is #4...a much smaller pink one...very simple and sweet. And we got two of these white ones that are fairly large as #'s 5 and 6.

#7 is gonna be a solid red one! Just waiting for it to open a little more...

Mixed zinnias!!! Yeah!!!

OK...we got our answer today...the 2nd zinnia opened and it is a different size and color! So we had mixed seeds, and I was like a kid in a candy shop when I saw this! I am eagerly awaiting the next one to open now...and to see all that follow...

Small things make me happy!

Update on the gardener's pot!

Donovan finally got his first zinnia flower! He's got quite a few others ready to open as well. It looked like it was going to be a purple flower, but then it opened and voila...a lovely shade of pink! It was a mystery as to what color we had. I wonder if the others will be pink, or if they were mixed seeds! We shall soon see!

Hey there purdy!!!