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The Birth of a New Garden- Step One

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

As anyone knows who has seen many of my posts here, I have a LOT of big gardens…. Much of the past few days has been spent doing the beginning preparations for my first New garden in over a decade. Like I really need another new garden…. Well, this one had been dreamed  about for many years, and it will be where the “Back of the Workshop Mess” photo in the previous post is, or should I now say it mostly WAS. This area has attracted a lot of birds in the past few years, but the area is full of weedy Sumac trees and have fallen over. I have always dreamed of this becoming a beautiful bird sanctuary with various trees, shrubs and perennials to attract the birds in a much prettier way.

Future Bird Sanctuary 1

Shortly after the photo in the previous post was taken, I started breaking up and piling what I could with the hour of daylight I had left after the last lawn mowing. The pile of branches in the left of the photo is from my Diablo Ninebark bush on the side of the Lilac Garden. It should have been trimmed years ago, and I finally took the pruners to it and gave it a severe “haircut”. The pile far back is what I was able to break up of the ugly Sumac trees that fell over into the lawn years ago.

Future Bird Sanctuary 2

I finally got put on Ken’s calender and Wednesday the chainsaw was put to the mess. You can see from this photo above how many of the trees were laying on their sides.

Future Bird Sanctuary 3

The bonfire…. The first day of chainsaw work we had a fire going constantly as Ken cut and we both dragged limbs to the fire. In addition to the Sumac trees, there also  was great abundance of overgrown wild grapevines. Those made getting the tree limbs out pretty tricky…. we had to cut the vines to free much of what had to go.

Future Bird Sanctuary 4A little bit later, more of the workshop trailer can be seen. We kept working till it got to dark to see where we were walking.

Fire at End of Day 1

I wanted to see what the new camera would do, and took a few photos of the fire as I left the area for the night. This one came out pretty good even with not too steady hands. One thing about all the rain we have had since August, the ground and everything else is still really saturated and we didn’t have to worry about starting an unwanted fire somewhere else.

Future Bird Sanctuary 5

By the time I got my body to allow me to get back to work the next day, Ken had gotten most of the trees cut and burned a lot more. Now most of the trailer can be seen, There are still some Sumac, wild Roses, and a lonely Ash tree left on the south end of it. The Ash tree will be the only thing left by the time all gets cleared. The trunks of the trees were left high enough for Ken to hook a chain onto them and pull out the roots. Sumac is really hard to get rid of because of all of the roots running just under the surface of the ground where new babies pop up. The more roots out the better, but I have found with the Lilac garden that if I keep a deep mulch of hay, any babies that pop up can be plucked easily and after a couple years less and less try to grow.  I am still amazed when I see some garden catalogs offering various Sumac varieties for sale…. They do have pretty fall color and red fruit clusters in summer, but they are huge invasive weeds!

Maple in Woods

Here is one of the young Maple trees that has kept growing despite having Black Walnut trees not far from it. Most of the rest of the woods is Green Ash which in some areas are being attacked by a borer, so I am glad to see other varieties finally taking hold.  I plan to find a not too big one of these Maples that might be too close to another to flag with ribbon to dig next Spring for the Bird Sanctuary garden or somewhere around the workshop to provide shade.

Baby Ginkgo Tree Leaves

Here is one of the two Ginkgo trees I purchased in the Spring. One of these will go in the North end of the new garden. They can get really huge, but that will take probably take more than my lifetime for that to happen, but I will still give them plenty of room. I also bought another Acer griseum (Paperbark Maple), a pink  Dogwood, and a Carolina Silverbell. I joined the Arbor Day Foundation and received another group of baby trees, and also have some baby shrubs from my gardens in pots. These will be used as some of the understory bushes.  I am now trying to plan how everything will be planted. Not all will fit in the new area, but many will go there. The nearly bare area after removing the junk trees is over 50 feet wide at the far end of the trailer. I have some tall trees, medium height ones, and the bushes, then will fill in with various perennials. The new garden will look a  bit sparse and the birds won’t be too happy for a while, but eventually it should be alive with them again, and more enjoyable since I plan to have some paths and seating areas in there.

Fungi on Stump

And now for some more random woods and garden pictures… Above is another rotting stump in the woods with three different kinds of fungi on it.

Steps Stone

This good sized stone looks like it has had steps cut out of it… It was near one of the old stone walls on each side of an abandoned roadway that goes through the middle of our land.

Walnut Trees

This is the back yard group of Black Walnut trees as viewed from the edge of the woods. They have really gotten huge in the 21 yrs we have lived here. The only shade that comes close to our trailer. It’s still dangerous to stand under them now with the huge crop of nuts falling, but they make the nicest shade in the summer.

Walnuts on Steps

Here on the steps that go to the back yard, you can see some of the nuts… I think this year is the biggest crop yet…. and many are Huge!

Blooming Grasses

The Ornamental Grasses in the Maple Tree garden are in their full glory! I really need to put a person in one of these photos… these grasses are huge… Miscanthus Goliath is the largest clump on the right, Pannicum Cloud Nine is the really light and feathery one, and way in the back just coming into bloom is Miscanthus giganteus…. a perfect name for it…. It is over 12 feet high. Goliath is around 10 ft high.

Variegated Grass in Bloom

Here is the Miscanthus variegatus blooming in the Arborvitae end of the Maple garden. This plant  has only been here for 2 seasons… There are two, but you can see the left one is pretty scrawny. It was a smaller chunk when I planted them and is just starting to take off.

Pink Clover

Here is a closeup of a Pink (Red) Clover flower… I keep practicing with the new camera and am getting more good macro shots.

Queen Ann's Lace Closeup

One of the last Queen Ann’s Lace flowers in the field…. We have only had a tiny touch of frost, but it won’t be long now till the flowers are done for another year….

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Posted in Flowers and Gardens, inspirations, Landscapes and Skies | 1 Comment »

Back in The Studio!

Monday, September 26th, 2011

Since my previous post, I think it has misted or rained part of just about every day. Thankfully, nothing really measurable, and only a couple brief downpours. We certainly could use a dry spell.  One thing about the soggy outdoors, is that I have been back in the sewing studio…. Finally! Since starting the Weekly Journals, I actually have been able to make a small piece each week!

Sunflower Photo

This photo is one that I have taken of my only Sunflower. I didn’t plant it, the birds did, and this is the only one that I allowed to grow… This one grew at the end of the row of planters along the walkway to the driveway. The Black Oil Sunflowers are much shorter than most varieties, and their petals are much shorter… Not  as striking as many other varieties, but this one did add a splash of yellow out front. If you look closer at the photo, you can see a few visitors… 3 different typed of bees.

Week 3 Sept 18 Sunflower

Since my creativity has been near non-existant, for my week 3 journal I decided  to print the Sunflower photo onto cotton and play with different threads and stitching over it.  Since there is nothing that a colored thread can do to improve upon the beauty of the petals, I used a clear thread there.  For the flower center, I played with one  way of following the rows of florets. They seem to swirl toward the center, so I did a bunch of repeating “S” curves intersecting in the center. I used a variegated thread in shades of golds and browns, but if I were to do this again, I would use a different thread. In this, the darker brown shows more than I would like… Trial and error… Just what these journals are for….

Week 3 Sunflower Detail

This photo shows a corner of the piece close up. I used a deep green to tanish variegated thread for the fill quilting behind the flower. I didn’t really want the quilting to stand out, so I played with a “sort-of-herky-jerky” kind of stippling. I have never been able to successfully stipple and have always avoided doing it. Since I often have shaky hands these days, I thought I would try the shaky look. With the values in the thread going from very dark to quite light, I tried to get the lighter stitching in the lighter areas and the darker thread in the darker areas… Not sure about the thread choice here, either.  Something with less shift in values would have been better, I think. The piece is bound with an earthy, mossy green yarn couched on the edges. Finished size- 8″x10″.

 

Studio Organization- Cutting Table Pile

The Sunflower journal was finished in little bits and pieces of time during a very busy weekend, and as usual, I ended up with a major fibro flare (or should I say total Crash). It was a very enjoyable weekend, but I paid for it with days of barely being able to sit up. Finally by Thursday afternoon, I was a bit less wobbly, and while trying to figure out what to do for week 4′s journal, I ended up in a cleaning, sorting and purging mood. It all started out innocently enough when I decided to poke around some of my fabric shelves and then pulled everything off them (piled onto the cutting table of course).

 

Studio Shelves

The shelves in question are mostly covered by my design wall, so I really didn’t know just what was there… In the photo above, you can barely see those shelves to the left of the design wall with the batting flapping over them. I found all kinds of forgotten treasures….The main group of shelves that are seen in this photo are just a part of the wall to wall shelves that Ken made for me that cover two of the studio walls. Most of the end wall shelves are behind the design wall.

 

Studio Organization- One View from the Door

From this view, you can see my ironing board and machine past the cutting table. The pile on the table was shoulder high at this point. Buried on the shelves I had emptied, were rolls of Contac paper, Freezer paper, various types of stabilizers and more. I decided that these would be much more accessible if they were on the shelves to the left of the ironing board….  Next step… empty those shelves too…  The photo above was taken after those shelves were filled back up.

 

Ironing Board Shelves

All the rolls of various stuff that is necessary for creating are now neatly on the shelves where I can easily see them and use them. I did have to do a bit of fudging to make the shelves deep enough to hold the rolls so the ends would show…. Foam core is wonderful stuff (inside the empty Strathmore Paper boxes)! I even have a shelf that I will use for stacks of Wonder Under backed fabric pieces that are too big for the containers I store them in. There are clear containers of various sizes and shapes with the smaller “Wonder Undered” pieces on the shelf that is even with the ironing board surface…. (buried in the photo above).

 

Studio TV Corner

Well, as any cleaning session tends to go…. cleaning one area led to clearing and re-organizing other areas. The corner shelf above the TV was a real problem…. I had nearly a garbage bag full of Wonder Under backing papers that were stuffed on that shelf. I usually save all the backing paper because it comes in really handy, but there is a limit to how much of the stuff I really need. Now with the excess gone, I now have a couple of tubs of fabric there.

 

Buried Machine Again

The cutting table is not the only thing that got buried in the cleaning process…. Why is it that things always look so much worse before they get better.  I found a lot of random blocks, WIP’s, and odd fabrics. The painted piece on top of the pile is a piece of fabric that I played with years ago…. Lots of random flowers and leaves, etc.

 

Studio Neat Shelf

Here is a photo of the TV corner before I put the tubs of fabric on the corner shelf. The shelf above the window was another disaster zone that had random UFO’s, tissue and other papers, and whatever… I cleared everything off, and decided that this would be a better place for my backer boards, mats, archival bags and wide format paper. These things were on the shelf over the ironing board, and  needed to climb on my chair or use a step ladder to get to them.

 

Studio Paper Organized

Above the shelves by the cutting table, there are more shelves to the ceiling. This area is a bit out of the way, but I can access things without too much trouble, so I decided that the papers could be stored on the lower shelves. Things higher up are used rarely. There is a tub of random, fun collage goodies to the right of the rolled papers.

 

Studio- Under Cutting Table

This area under the cutting table is also a bit neater. I am not happy with where the paper cutters are stored, but for now it will work. The laptop case contains my “traveling beading  studio”. More white and off white fabric pieces and scraps are in the plastic tubs.

 

Tub on Wheels

This is the space between the cutting table and the design wall… just enough space for this plastic tub. During this cleaning spree, I even took everything that was piled on top of this off (and added it to the cutting table), and sorted out what was inside. I thought it would be great if I could have it on wheels, and was going to do a “Suzy Homemaker” job of putting casters on a piece of plywood, but Ken did this up for me! A much nicer job that I would have done. Now I will be able to move this out of the way much easier if I need to access the shelves or electrical panels behind my design wall.  I won’t kid myself….. this will probably be stacked up again, but it will still be easier to move (so far only two flat boxes of scraps are there now).

 

Studio Chair Space

Just to be sure no one thinks everything is in order…. it’s Not!  The counter to the right of my machine with the laptop and printer and drawer units isn’t getting organized this trip…. I don’t think…. the area my chair is in is not that roomy…. While I am sitting in it right now typing this, the corner of the cutting table is at my back…. The floor does need cleaning, but it will never be pretty again… most of the black that shows is where the top surface of the tiles has worn off from my chair rolling over it. It was supposed to be commercial tile, but it didn’t have the nice glossy finish that it should have had on it. In order to have the room I do at the design wall end of the room, the table is rolled to block more than half of the doorway…. Pretty cozy…..

 

Studio- Empty Shelf Over Ironing Board

So far, the shelf above the ironing board and sewing machine window is pretty empty. This is where I stored the backer boards, mats and bags…. really hard to access because it is higher than the top of the shelf units which are 6ft high. I will probably be stacking clear plastic tubs up there with various fabric bits and pieces. Ken made the two shelves over the windows too. I can use every bit of wall space for storage to the ceiling on every wall.

 

Painting Sample

Here is a photo of that fabric painting sample that was on top of my machine a few photos back. I was experimenting with painting flowers. This has been hiding out for many years…. I think I did this before I really got into sunprinting. Since I ran across this, I thought it would work for this week’s journal piece.

 

Painting Sample Pink Flowers

I decided to play with various threads like last week…. I began with a cranberry to light pink variegated for the bright pink flowers.

 

Painting Sample Quilted Detail 1

I did some of last week’s jerky stipple type stitching for the paint dabbed floral areas. I started with some of the cranberry thread, then switched to a purple to rose to lavender thread for more of the random flower look.

 

Painting Sample Quilted Detail 2

I used the purple variegated for the rest of the purple flowers, then used a variegated green with deep to lime shades for the foliage. I tried to make the purple painted blobs look like Tulips. I used the greens for a grassy look along the bottom. I also outlined the  leaves for individual flowers and did a sort of upside down scallop for random foliage.

 

Week 4 Sept. 25 Journal- Painted Sample

And here is the full view of the piece. It is just over 8″x10″ in size. You can see the Irises and to the left, what looked to me to be an attempt to paint a Delphinium, so I stitched it that way.  This is by no means very artistically correct, but as a piece to play with I learned more about what I do and don’t like about using variegated threads.  I didn’t bind this piece because it may be screaming to be cut into small sections that would look better separate from the whole.

Now that I am 4 whole weeks into making these journal pieces, I am feeling really good about getting myself into the studio and actually stitching something at least once a week. Now that the studio is almost reorganized again, maybe it will be easier to find things and maybe I’ll get that “creative groove” back!

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Posted in Dyed or Painted Fabric, Play, Weekly Journal Quilts | 3 Comments »

A New Beginning?

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

My last post was 3 weeks ago, and the perennials in the gardens are beginning to look a bit shabby… It didn’t help that we had nearly a week with no sun and 4 straight days with rain… One of them with 6.5″ in less than 24 hours….

Soggy Hibiscus

The above photo shows the Pink Hibiscus after one day of rain on Sept. 6…

Back Yard Rivers before digging

September 7th- The Mound Garden river was flowing again…. This time, I had a ditch dug in the dog yard to divert some water to the woods… It took a lot of water (near the back fence), but there was more water going through the Mound Garden than in any previous storms of the year….

River outside Studio

This photo shows the river as it passed in front of my studio window… The water running by the propane tank headed straight for my studio wall and ran right around it, then flooded much of the dog yard… Poor pups! They didn’t know whether they wanted to go out to do their business or not… Some water had puddled under my sewing machine and the towel I keep along the wall was soaked, so some re-routing of the river was required.

Back Yard rivers after digging

During a slower rain shower, I was able to dig the ditch in front of my studio deeper and also dug the ditch to the woods deeper to give the water a place to go. As you can see in this photo above, there is a lot of water in the ditch in the dog yard, and very little in the garden… That helped for a while, but a later heavy downpour caused breaks and overflows in the ditches, so I had to choose another break in the rain to do more digging…

Van in driveway

We usually park the mini van in the lower parking area, but we had gotten groceries the last time it was driven, so it was parked and left in this part of the driveway… The water was getting really high, and when I went to move it before my second digging session, the wheels were already partly buried in the gravel that had washed from the upper part of the driveway.

Flooded Dog Yard again

This was one of those helpless feeling moments…. The latest heavy downpour had overflowed the banks of the ditches and broken part of one of my new levees (left side of pic, inside the dog yard).  When I got out there later to do damage control, I found that grass, leaves and other debris as well as LOTS of driveway gravel had plugged the wire of the fence and caused water to stand everywhere and return even worse to the mound garden.

Dog Yard after Flood

Sept. 8th, after the bulk of the rain had fallen, this is what the dog yard looked like… The two piles of mud and gravel along the back fence is what I dug out away from the fence, trying to get the water to go under instead of through it. I had 3 areas where water was flowing under the fence, and the middle one clogged again…. The gravel came from far up the driveway….

Culvert by Upper Parking Area

This photo shows some of the deep gullies formed in the driveway… I am really glad I added the big rocks by the pipe before the storm… This culvert has been washed out too many times this year.  There was still a big ditch from the previous storm, so I filled in much of it with rocks…. Some stayed! It’s amazing how much damage water just from 1/4 mile above us could do…. all that water ended up heading to the Susquehanna after collecting more along it’s path…. We were very lucky living this high up. The river flooding was near or above record levels with many homes and businesses being affected.

Wet Mini Rose

Here is a lonely bloom on the mini Rose bush….

Harry is still trying to grow!

“Poor Harry” seemed to like all the water…. He seemed to put out some pretty good new shoots!  The poor thing has been munched on much of the summer… it seems every time he has put out new growth, it has been eaten off. This time I gave him a douse of dear repellent before he became deer snack again.

And speaking of “Poor Harry” (a Harry Lauder’s Walking stick bush), he was the inspiration for my latest batch of art cards for my trade group.

Harry in the Petunias

The full view of Harry shows the dead branches that he was left with after being mauled by deer. I liked the shape of these branches, so I left them even though they are dead. A bit of “sculpture” in the garden. I took this photo and removed the background in photoshop to  use for the art cards.

Balance ATC's Printed

The theme for this trade was “Balance”… My gardens have been about the only thing to give ma any balance to my life lately, and Harry makes a pretty balanced “sculpture” in the garden, so he was to be the star. I began by fusing random scraps of fusible backed fabrics to parchment paper until I had  just a bit larger than a sheet of paper. I wanted to print Harry’s picture on this fused background, so I painted over the fabrics with titanium white to soften the colors, and a bit of gel gloss to seal and snaggy edges.  I then set up the document to print and it  worked! No Jams!  The above photo shows the printed fabric  base.

Balance Pair started

This photo shows two of the cards after they were cut to size and Inktense pencil was added for the Petunias in the garden. I had only dampened the pencil for Harry’s leaves, and not the flowers yet.

"Poor Harry" Balance Cards

Above are four of the finished cards… See how much more vibrant the colors from the Inktense pencils are after I painted over them with very dilute gel medium. I added some more deep shading on Harry with the pencils and thicker gel gloss to give him a little shine like he has in real life.  I finished these cards the day before the heaviest rain hit, and they got in the mail just in time… I’m not sure how many days we were without mail after that….

Studio Window Garden

Since I have been pretty creatively blocked lately, I have been trying different things to get things moving again…. A member of the Quiltart list was about to turn 49 a few weeks ago and decided she would make a little journal quilt each week during her 50th year. She invited others to join her, and since I just turned 50 last month, I decided it might be something to get me back into creating.  For the first piece, I used the photo of the view of the garden I see from my studio window when sitting at my machine.

Week 1 Sept. 4

The “due date” for the first piece was Sept. 4th…. Thankfully the rules for the group are pretty flexible, and I only had part of the piece fused together by then, but for me that was better than I had done in a long time. Yesterday, I finally finished it…. It took a while to do the quilting with all the thread color changes I did, but Free Motion Quilting seems to be like riding a bike… I was a little rusty at first, but moved along pretty quickly. The photo above shows the finished piece!

Before I started quilting week one’s quilt, I worked on the second piece.

Week 2 Beginning with Photo

Since week two included the storm, I just had to use a part of one of the photos of the water flowing through my Mound Garden.  Above is the photo I used with the beginning of the quilt before quilting.

Week 2 Sept. 12

Here is the finished piece for week two. I played with different shades of beige and brown threads for the muddy water and gravel in the quilting. The main fabric in the middle of the piece is a bit of a small piece of a batik I had that gave the feel of much of the upper part of the garden. The lower part of the garden is a piece of my pale hand dyed fabric with Inktense pencil used to add the green for the leaves of the plants. I used little touches of titanium white paint for the Phlox and Echinacea flowers, and quilting with a variegated bright pinks thread makes the Vinca flowers.

While these two little pieces aren’t a lot, I really hope they will be the beginning of my creative mojo returning…. Maybe I’ll even finish a quilt that I started nearly 1 1/2 years ago.  I’ll take any creative bursts I can get!!

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Posted in Flowers and Gardens, Weekly Journal Quilts | No Comments »

In the Gardens Mid July

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

There are still flowers on the Hemerocallis (Daylily) plants, but they are now beginning to slow down.  Since my last post, I made some interesting discoveries. The first was a nicely double flower on the variety Double Cutie.

Double Cutie Double Bloom

One of the stems of this variety opened flowers more double than the first blooms.  The one in this photo above was the most fluffy of them all… As you can see, the stamens in this bloom became petals, and they even have pollen like normal ones. One of nature’s wonders!

Another interesting discovery was with the variety Melon Balls…. One evening, I found all of the flowers were streaked with white and pale peach… I had not seen them like that before and thought it might have been caused by the sun or heat…

Hemerocallis Melon Balls Faded

The faded blooms were very interesting looking, and after a few days of stalking them, I found that it did seem to be the sun doing the fading. After a few days of finding streaked flowers in the evenings, I finally  got photos of the flowers morning, mid-day and evening… The more sun during the day, the more streaks there were by evening… What a great find! Flowers that changed as the day progressed!

Hemerocallis variegata

Also, as I mentioned in the last post, there was another double flower that hadn’t bloomed yet… It finally did, and here is one of the flowers. The original plant had variegated foliage, but most of my clumps have reverted back to green leaves. I will have to make an effort to dig out some of the remaining variegated parts to keep propagating those. The green foliage is much stronger growing, so it can take over if you let it keep growing. My clumps have been ignored a lot over the past few years.

OK, now that I have pretty much covered all of the Daylilies, there are a lot more flowers in my gardens. Other flowers that have been blooming this mid July.

Front Door Planter Right

In past years, my planters near the front door have been filled with flowers that I usually purchased early to have color out front as soon as possible. This year, I couldn’t afford to get anything new for the planters and I have had to wait for color this year. I had some extra plants left from planting this year’s Memorial Day planters, some white Petunias, Alyssum, and blue Lobelia. I had also been able to get some wave Petunias late June to add a few touches of annual color to my gardens. It is amazing what can happen when you don’t do anything more than take weeds out of planters with the soil left in them from the previous year.

Front Door Planter Left

This is the planter on the other side of the steps. The only new purchased plants in these pots are the White Petunias, Alyssum, and one Purple Wave petunia in the Left planter.  The Violas, Nicotiana, and tall purple Petunias in the Left planter are seedlings that came up from last year’s plants. The same plants and the striped Petunias in the Right planter are seedlings. I even was able to take out  some extra Petunia and Nicotiana seedlings to use in the gardens.  I LOVE “free” flowers! I had to be patient to see much color in the post, but they are now beginning to overflow!

White Asiatic Lily

Back to perennials in the gardens, here is a pretty rare sight… at least this year for me.  The mice and moles, or voles or whatever critters they were ate the bulk of  my Asiatic and Oriental lilies. These white ones are in the Maple Tree garden near the pond that is covered with black raspberry bushes.

Pink Lilies

This stem of pink Asiatic Lilies is one that lived through the critter snacking in the Back Yard Mound garden. This garden used to have gobs of Lily flowers mid July, but between the critters eating the bulbs, the water washing gravel on top of the bulbs, and snacking deer, I had one stem of pink and one stem of yellow blooms. The center of the Mound Garden used to be full of yellow Asiatics that would grow to about arm-pit height. I dug up some of the bulbs this year and moved them around.

Hostas in Washout Zone

This is the end of the Mound Garden where the Hostas have nearly been washed away or buried in gravel. It still amazes me how beautifully they bloom every year. The shade trees in the back yard are Black Walnuts and there are lots of plant that will not grow near them, but the Hosta and other plants I have here and along the stone wall have been doing great.

Mound Garden 7-8-11

This photo above shows the Mound Garden from the lawn at the top of the mound. Toward the right you can see the pitiful yellow Lily plants. The Echinaceas were just beginning to bloom when this was taken, and a couple Hemerocallis Ice Carnival plants were blooming between the Hosta and Echinaceas.Yyou can see the pale lilac Wave Petunias just beginning to grow a bit… I bought them late in the season and they were pretty long and scraggly, so I needed to trim them some so they will branch out and bloom better. I just have to have more patience waiting for the plants to fill out and bloom more. There is a Salvia Black and Blue with blue flowers with pale green leaves… My plants sat on a table out front of the trailer until I could get them into the ground and didn’t get fertilized like then should have been…. Yea, I was a professional greenhouse grower and don’t always do things right.

Back Yard Gardens from Wall

Here is another photo of the Back Yard gardens taken from the end of the stone wall closest to the Walnut trees, looking toward the new dog yard. Vladdi our son’s black Lab is standing at one of the gates hoping to be let free. He has helped my gardens a bit so far by getting a woodchuck who was teasing him from the other side of the fence. I let Vladdi out and the woodchuck was no more. The Hostas along the stone wall are doing nicely. The Mound Garden is to the right in the sun and hard to see. The wider part of the Stone Wall garden is just past the stone steps right about in the middle of the photo. On hot summer days, the shade of the Walnuts is wonderful.

Lady Fern

Here is one of my Lady Ferns tucked between one of my Krossa Regan Hostas and the stone wall. Last year the fern was pretty scrawny, but this year with all the early rain we had, it has done great.

Deck Planter with Back Yard in Background

Here is one of my deck planters with the Back Yard gardens showing in the background. The deck planters didn’t get many new plants this year either. The Nemesia in this planter was a gift, and the Petunias, Nicotiana, and Violet plants are seedlings from last years flowers. Some more “freebies”. I had so many baby plants coming up, I had to take a bunch out and put them into pots to be used in the gardens. The Petunias I had here last were plum colored with deep plum veins. This year I have shades of plum, pink and lavender Petunias.

Phlox Flame White with Eye

Here is the only new perennial plant I purchased this year. Phlox have done really well in all of my gardens, so I have been adding new colors and dividing my favorites to fill various spaces. The Flame varieties are shorter growing varieties than the older varieties. As with most perennials I buy, I just HAD to divide this one into two pieces and it is now a part of the Mound Garden.

Vinca Annual

Along with the lavender Petunias, I have also planted Impatiens in the shady areas, White Petunias along the front edge, and behind them are these Vinca flowers. I found these in a greenhouse I stopped at on the way home from giving a lecture to a quilt guild in Reading PA. I tend to “shop” my way home if I have a few dollars to spare. I also found these in a beautiful shade of pink. I only have 12 of the Vinca, but they should fill out quite nicely in the next few weeks.

Hosta Lemon Lime in Bloom

The last photo from the back yard for this post is this Hosta Lemon Lime tucked nearly under the Brunnera Looking Glass.

Hydrangea Anabelle

Back to the front yard, the Hydrangea Annabelle is blooming beautifully. These flowers last a long time, and look great with the Crimson King Maple as a backdrop. There aren’t too many small delicate plants in the Maple Tree garden… It is the largest garden and a great home for some pretty big and aggressive plants and shrubs.

Carpet Rose

Not too far from the Hydrangea is one of the few Rose bushes I have. This is a Carpet Rose that is a low growing variety that blooms on and off all summer.

One Tomato Left

Not all plants in the gardens ind up looking good. Even though I sprayed the Tomato plants with deer repellent, they still got munched on. I bought 3 nice sized plants that had Tomatoes started and this is the only fruit left. Since this photo was taken, they are all growing much better and look like they will do well if I can keep the critters away from them.

Poor Harry

Here is another victim of critters. This poor Red Leaved Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick was beginning to put out some new shoots after being chomped by deer over the winter, and the new shoots were eaten… There are still some shoots trying . I have put more repellent around this and hope it can get growing again.  It has reddish leaves on twisted branches.

Monarda Summer Wine

Here is a closeup of a Monarda (or Bee Balm) flower. This variety called Summer Wine is a really pretty bright fuchsia wine color. This is near Harry, on the end of the Maple Tree Garden with the arborvitae. I used to keep this area for annual flowers, and am slowly adding perennials here. I have planted more Wave Petunias in this garden and the Purple Wave’s that are planted near the Monarda are nearly the same color. So far not much color yet from the Petunias, but in a few weeks if the weather cooperates, I should be able to see them from my kitchen window.

Evening Sky

Again a post is getting pretty long…. Here is a photo of the sky one evening, looking through the Maple Tree garden. The left round tree is the Crimson King Maple. The Monarda and Harry are to the left not shown in this photo. You can just make out the Hydrangea flowers along the lower center of the photo. The Maple trees, Balsam Fir (center) and Junipers are getting pretty big. It’s amazing to think that less than 20 yrs ago these all were pretty small trees from a nursery I worked at back then.

The great thing about the gardens is that there is always something new popping up or beginning to bloom. There will be more posts from the gardens…. the Echinaceas and Phlox are beginning to really come into bloom now.

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The Dancing Daylilies

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

I have so many beautiful Daylilies (Hemerocallis) blooming that I decided to do one post devoted just to them.

Hemerocallis Double Cutie

This plant is right in front of my kitchen window in the Front Door Garden. It’s name is Double Cutie and it was supposed to be nearly double, but this first bloom of the year was completely single.

Hemerocallis Double Cutie 2

This is the second flower of Double Cutie to bloom this year…. It has two extra petals… Almost double! Some plants with double blooms will have more double flowers as the plant matures, so it may get more double in coming years.

Hemerocallis Pandora's Box

This photo could be a bit misleading size wise… Pandora’s Box has small flowers about 2 1/2-3″ across. I love the creamy, nearly white color with the plum near the center.

Hemerocallis Bodacious Returns 2

The next Daylily in the Front Door Garden, is Bodacious Returns. I showed a flower from a different day in the previous post. So far I have had no more than 2 flowers at a time open, but the huge blooms (nearly 7″ across) make up for the lower number of flowers.

Hemerocallis Peach Rose

This is one of the Daylilies I am not sure of it’s variety name. I tried to check greenhouse records, but did not figure out who this is. I try to label my  plants, but this one didn’t get one. I do know that it was a poor lonely plant that was brought home when we had our greenhouses.  It is a nice soft peach with a lavender rose blush toward the yellow center.

Hemerocallis Melon Balls 1

Melon Balls is next around the garden. This plant has had a lot of flowers open most every day. As you can see, there are lots more  buds.

Hemerocallis Melon Balls 2

Here is another photo showing one of the blooms closer. The beautiful melon color also has tiny blushes of reddish plum and some lighter streaks in the petals.

Hemerocallis Mini Peach

Wandering from the far side of the Front Door Garden up the path toward the house is another un-named variety… I call it Mini Peach because of the small, soft peach colored flowers. This was another lonely baby that had lost it’s tag at the greenhouse and came home with me. After many, many years here it is finally large enough to divide so I can have  more in other places. The mulching and attention I have been able to give the gardens since losing the greenhouses has helped many  plants to thrive instead of “just hanging in there”.

Hemerocallis Bella Lugosi 2

Here is another photo of a Bella Lugosi flower. I have divided my original plant and now have 4 clumps of it, two in the Front Door Garden and the others in the back yard. This photo shows how the sun makes these blooms seem to sparkle.

Hemerocallis Black Eyed Stella

Back to near the front door, walking out toward the driveway,  is the clump of Black Eyed Stella. This is another small flowered variety. This one is also supposed to be a re-bloomer… I don’t remember if I have gotten any late flowers from this plant, but this is the first year I have a bumper crop of flowers.

Hemerocallis Hall's Pink

Not far from Black Eyed Stella is Hall’s Pink. The bloom in the photo is from a plant in the Stone Wall Garden in the back yard. The plant in the Front Door Garden has not bloomed yet this year.

Hemerocallis Ice Carnival

Ice Carnival is one of my favorite Daylilies with it’s creamy pale yellow to nearly white flowers. The color of the flowers fades during the day as they age.

Hemerocallis Ice Carnival Closeup

Here are a couple more blooms…. This variety has multiplied nicely and I have these planted in the Front Door Garden as well as in the back yard in the Mound Garden and Stone Wall Garden. So pretty in the early evening.

Hemerocallis Swiss Strawberry

Swiss Strawberry is tucked in the middle of the garden not far from Ice Carnival. This particular plant was not to stay here in this garden because the flowers were too reddish and clashed with other flowers near it. I dug the whole clump (I thought) out and plunked it in the woods in a damp area. The clump in the woods is a bit taller, but still growing in the now deep shade. The Spring after I dug these out, it returned…. I obviously missed a few pieces of root and they sprouted and grew happily. I didn’t have time to dig it out again, and now it has grown on me (quite literally)…..

Front Door Garden 7-11-11

Here is a photo from the walkway to the driveway, showing Ice Carnival and Swiss Strawberry with a peek of the dwarf Blue Spruce and Echinaceas in the background. This garden probably has the largest number of different varieties of perennials in it. It was the first garden that I dug out of the yard and planted, but it did start out much smaller. It took a few years to figure out what plants were the happiest here… if it is a wet Spring, this can be a soggy area. The Hemerocallis, Echinaceas, and Phlox seem to take most any conditions I have, so I keep dividing those and adding them to other gardens, too.

This is not the end of the Hemerocallis in the gardens…. There are other varieties in other gardens.

Hemerocallis Hyperion

This pretty lemon yellow, fragrant variety is in the wet area of my Rock Garden and a couple areas in the Maple Tree Garden. Hyperion is a delicate flowered variety that is nicely fragrant. This is the last of the photos I have for this post, but not the last of the Daylilies I have. I also have a couple small Stella D’Oro plants, one is in the middle of the flood zone in the Mound Garden in the back yard, and another is in the Shade Garden that is getting washed away at the edge of the woods.

There are also a few plants that have not bloomed yet…. I have a variety with variegated leaves. A couple still have the white variegated leaves, but most of them have reverted back to green leaves. The neat thing about them is that they have double blooms even if they are a very similar color to the wild roadside Daylilies which I have growing in one of our hedgerows and along the driveway. I also have a small growing plant that I forgot the variety I divided, and planted in the Stone Wall Garden. I guess I will know what it will be soon… the little flower buds are getting puffier….  I also have another plant  in the Front Door Garden that hasn’t bloomed yet…. It is labeled Pandora’s Box, but the flower stem is 3 ft tall…. much taller than the one in bloom. What fun!! surprise flowers!!

This has been a mini-tour of mostly my Front Door Garden and a couple others filled with the blooms of Dancing Daylilies.

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July 5 & 6 Walks and ART!

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

To keep my posts from getting too long, I am including a couple days of photos in each. This post includes Photos of flowers taken during my July 5th and 6th garden walks, and as a bonus….this one also includes the first creative project I have done in a LONG time!

Black Caps

This year the Black Caps (or Black Raspberries) have been very productive. I have picked a few quarts of these luscious berries and eaten most of them myself… I LOVE them!

Blurred Berries

This is what happens when the camera isn’t ready to take a picture…. I am not sure if I could reproduce this effect, but it did result in a fun photo of the berries on this wild Honeysuckle bush.

Free Pink Petunias

These petunias flowers are on one of the self seeded plants. Last year I planted some plum colored flowers with deep veins in them, and this year I have an assortment of pretty shades of pinks, plums, and lavenders.

Kitchen Art

Since all of the drama around here, I finally got out some of my art supplies and worked on some very late ATC’s for the “Arts in the Cards” exchange group. Thankfully, the other traders were very patient with me! The studio is a hopeless hovel right now, so I took over the kitchen table.

Hearts ACEO Pair

The  group of cards due my the end of May had the theme of  “Fabulous Fakes”. I  had planned to do something with fake flowers or such, but after Ken had his heart attack a new idea crept in. Our real hearts don’t look as pretty as the “fake” ones we are familiar with. I used an image from one of Ken’s brochures of a real heart on the backs. We don’t tend to think too much about our “real” hearts unless they cause us trouble. For these, I cut my own stamps for the simple solid heart and the one with the rays around the heart.  I also used some thin metal in pink that I embossed with a pencil on both sides to give different texture. I also played with embossing powders for scrapbooking that I have had for quite a while now.

Wild Daisy

Sunflowers Daisy Print

The second set of cards were done for the theme of “Sunflowers and Lemonade”. The wild Daisies were coming into bloom, and I thought I would do some flower prints with them to make my Sunflowers. The idea didn’t work as well as I thought it would. I am used to printing on fabric not paper, so the textile paint I used was too thin. I had to play with the paint to get it thicker and finally got some decent prints.

Pair of Sunflower ATC's

The  prints needed a bit of touching up with my Inktense Pencils and I added the leaves with the pencils too. The backgrounds were painted in a watercolor effect using my Inktense Blocks, water and a paintbrush.  I used the pink metal again and used a scrapbooking paper punch to cut the butterflies, and embossed them with a pencil from the backs.  The centers were made glossy and sparkly by using embossing powder with Art Glitter over Inktense block.

Pale Yellow Pansies

Back to the flowers…. Here are a couple of pale yellow Pansies that came from seed in one of the deck planters. I had assorted Pansies and Violas in the planters in the past couple of years.

Seedling Petunias

This photo shows what I think are flowers from the same plant in an earlier photo. You can also see some of the purple Petunias and Lavender Violas that are also seedlings. The only purchased flowers I added to the deck planters are Impatiens, Lobelia, and white Alyssum. I have even found baby Lobelia plants, too!

Hosta with Cuddles

The nearly washed away Hostas were beginning to bloom in the Mound Garden. In the background you can see the top of Cuddles who likes to follow me when I try to take photos in the gardens.

Hemerocallis Bella Lugosi Closeup

This is one of the first varieties of Daylily to bloom….. Bella Lugosi is a really deep wine purple color with a greenish yellow center. They are hard to photograph due to the deep color. I really wish these blooms lasted more than one day… At least there is a bumper crop of buds this year.

Hemerocallis Bodacious Returns

Bodacious Returns was the first Hemerocallis to bloom this year. The plant is not very tall… barely over a foot, but the flowers are absolutely HUGE! As the name implies, this is a re-blooming variety. It should bloom again sometime in the fall.

The next post will have lots of Hemerocallis flowers of all colors. I have counted at least 13 different varieties in the gardens with flowers in all sizes and colors.

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Catching Up in the Gardens

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

A lot has happened in the gardens in the past month since my last post. I have slowly gotten most of them mulched with hay to keep the weeding chore as minimal as possible, the Iris and Peony flowers have long faded, and new flowers have taken their places as bright spots of color.

Riedels Greenhouse Flowers

While I would love to have the garden in the photo above in my yard, this one is along RT 222 between Reading and Kutztown PA…. The greenhouse is set back from the road, but the flowers literally pulled me in. The end of June, I was in the Reading area to present a lecture and trunk show to the Quiltessence Quilters quilt guild, and on the way home I did some “greenhouse hopping”.  In the past while we owned the greenhouse, I did have gobs of these Tidal Wave Petunias in my own gardens…. Without the greenhouse and with a very limited garden budget, I have none of these this year, and the Petunias I have were purchased the last week of June and are no where near full bloom yet.

Deer by Deck

This little deer and other critters have been making things quite challenging to keep my plants growing and blooming. The deer and woodchucks seem to love the tender buds of various Lilies, Petunias, Phlox, and more. I even found that two of my large Hydrangea bushes have been trimmed by the unwelcome guests. The deer in the photo had been playing with one of our cats in the front yard, then wandered to the back and posed while I stood on the deck. A week after the deer’s visit, and additional sightings of this same critter, we gained a couple more fur-kids…. one who is helping with the unwanted critter populations.

Andrue and Dogs

The photo above shows our two new charges…. Nick and Megan’s dogs. They brought them up from GA on their way to Germany where Nick will be stationed for the next 4 years. They took their 2 cats with them, but wanted to be sure they would be able to find a home they could have the dogs at before having them sent over. Well…. It looks like we will have Roxie and Vladdi here until they get back to the states…. They found that renting a home for 2 dogs and 2 cats was not a possibility…. most homes only will allow one pet.   Vladdi is the big black Lab, and Roxie is the brindle who lived with us for 6 months, a couple years ago.  Roxie is pretty low key… the total opposite of Vladdi, who within 5 minutes of being let out of the car when they arrived here, had killed and rolled around over a skunk AND killed an Opossum that came wandering down the yard. He began his stay as a “skunk dog” who has now had three de-skunking baths and still has a lingering odor especially when wet.  He is helping out my gardens a  bit…. I let him out of the dog yard we now have off the greenhouse when a young woodchuck was teasing him from the garden…. the woodchuck didn’t last very long….

Roxie in new Bed

What was the wood box in the greenhouse is now a comfy dog bed. With just Roxie, we could let her stay in the house and outside when we were with her. Vladdi tends to be a runner, and to be sure we don’t lose a dog, the fenced in yard was made so they can come in and out of the greenhouse. The cats are a bit put out, though…. they “owned” the greenhouse…. Now they “own” the deck for the summer. We will have to figure out how to get everyone to get along in the greenhouse come winter.

Mound Garden Mulched

This photo shows the Back Yard Mound Garden after I got most of the weeding and mulching done… This garden has taken a real beating this year with all the heavy downpour rains that have washed gravel from our driveway all the way through the garden and into the woods shade garden. It is hard to see, but the Dark Purple Japanese Iris were in bloom when this photo was taken. I also had some white Impatiens planted between the ditch and lawn along with some lilac Petunias on the upper side of the ditch.

Pale Japanese Iris

Here is a photo of a pale Iris flower I found… The flowers are usually a very deep, dark purple.

Vladdi and Cuddles

This photo shows Vladdi with his favorite toy and a few others nearby. He loves to chase and catch the frisbee and chew on various pieces of lumber or dead branches from the old Lilac bush. If  you look closely, you can see Cuddles the cat “picking on” the dog…. He is in the gravel at the top of the Mound Garden. That end of the garden was not completely weeded yet the end of June.

Before the Storm

This photo was taken the same day as the earlier two…. A few showers started, and something bigger was looming on the horizon. You can see some water already running down the driveway….

Mound Garden Water 1

Here is the Mound Garden during the storm…. The water turned the garden into a raging river…. So much for the new hay mulch…. Most of it did stay, but a lot got covered with more gravel. The water ran right through the  middle of the dog yard.

Mound Garden Water 2

Even though the Japanese Iris do like water, they are not usually at the edge of a stream. Here you can see how much water was flowing through the Hostas and across the lawn…. This storm was the biggest one yet this year. Thankfully, the Impatiens and Petunias I planted were out of the major water flow.

Lawn Ditch

The storm shown in the previous photos was on June 28, This is what the area that was covered with water looked like after I filled in the ditch, mowed the lawn, and another storm came through on July 2nd. I started with larger stones in the ditch and filled over them with gravel dug out of the garden…. July 3rd, the gravel was gone, but the larger stones stayed… not all was lost!

Deck Planter 1

With all the rains causing trouble in the gardens, I was glad I had my deck planters. I have been blessed with an abundance of flowers that seeded themselves from last year. I did plant the Impatiens, Lobelia and Alyssum in this pot, but the Violet, Nicotiana, Pansies, Violas and even some Petunias came up on their own. The seedlings were so thick I removed many and put them into pots to use in the gardens and other planters.

Back Yard Gardens planted

July 5th I finished planting most of the Mound Garden. It doesn’t look like much yet, because by the time I could purchase annuals, they were a bit scraggly but half price so I gave them a trim and with a bit of patience, will have color again in the gardens.  Things were pretty much mainly green after the Peonies and Iris finished blooming. In the photo, you can see the buds on the Daylilies on the left nearly ready to pop.

Pink Lilies

These Pink Asiatic Lilies are pretty rare sights in the gardens this year. I used to have many, many varieties of these and Orientals, too. The mice or other critters must have eaten many of the bulbs as there is no trace of many of them this year. Of the few that did escape the critters, many of those became deer snacks…. the deer seem to think that the Lily buds are like candy. The biggest problem…. Once the buds are eaten, I have to wait until next year for flowers again…  The deer also like to munch on the Phlox buds too, but at least those will re-grow new shoots that will bloom a bit later than usual.

Pink Achillea

This will be the last photo for this post. This was taken on July 5th. The Achillea, or Yarrow, likes hot, dry weather. It has grown a bit taller than usual and has flopped due to the many rain showers we have has this year. This is growing in the Lilac Garden which has not been very colorful since the Lilacs finished their bloom months ago. In the week since this photo was taken, I finally finished planting all of the annual and vegetable plants I purchased late June. All but a few areas have been mulched with hay, and the Daylilies have been blooming. The Phlox are beginning to bloom a bit, too. To keep posts from being too big, I am dividing things up a bit. I have taken many many more photos throughout the gardens in the past week or so.

 

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From Spring and Summer to White?

Monday, March 7th, 2011

This is definitely proving to be a winter like some we used to have quite regularly…. The worst storm of the winter decided to pop up quite unexpectedly yesterday while we were exploring the beauty of Spring and Summer in Philadelphia.

Delphiniums 1

Yesterday was the first full day of the Philadelphia Show. We ended up going there as a last minute decision, and were expecting to meet Marla and a granddaughter or two. We didn’t get to see the granddaughters, but spent some nice time with Marla.  The weather forecast was calling for heavy rain all day, and we left home in rain, some quite heavy on the way to Philly.

Fallen Roses

The Philadelphia Flower Show is a Huge, Beautiful show full of displays of flowers and gardens of all types. This year’s theme was based on Paris, so there were many Parisian inspired displays. One of the first big ones we saw was this display of roses that had toppled due to someone (or more) touching the outer ring of roses. It looked like a horribly challenging thing to fix with crowds of people watching.

Pink Table

Here is part of a display of very opulent tables perfect for a wedding… I loved all the pink…  I will post a bunch of photos and not too many words here:
Oops!  If I would get the captions with the photos I wouldn’t have to write so much…. This is a beautiful Yellow Lady Slipper Orchid.

Wild Display

There were even weeds in this display… It was a natural looking woodland walk.

Can Can Dancer

There were 4 displays done like this… The dancer image is made from various items including cut up cans to create the shadow.

Bed of Roses

Not sure how comfy this would be, but it was beautiful!

Funky Lilies

I just HAVE to find out what variety of Lily this is… I am pretty sure is is a Lily that seems to grow like and Oriental or Asiatic by the looks of the foliage.

Pitcher Plant Flowers Maybe

Here is another one for researching… The plants these flowers were coming from looked to be Pitcher Plants… I have never seen flowers like these. There were yellow ones in some other planters, too.

Rock Garden

The plants in this planter were placed between thin slices of rocks placed on their edges… a really neat idea! I love the tiny Alpines growing here.

Pink Hellebore

There were lots of Hellebore plants in many of the displays… this is there usual blooming season. Another “I want”.

Floral Fashion 1

There were 4 parts to this display… Each had a floral arrangement that depicted gowns on mannequins.

Botanical Prints

A very large display of watercolor and colored pencil botanical art pieces really got me thinking that I need to start sketching and trying this myself…. I love these and would love to be able to do some of my own….

Tulip Vases

Very Elegant, simple vases full of Tulips… So pretty with the narrow metal bands curved throughout.

Rose Ring Fixed

On our way out of the show, I was able to get a photo of the Rose display that had toppled over earlier in the day.  The photos shown here are only a few of the 270+ I took… There are many “flops” due to my camera and the very low light at many of the displays. It was a very crowded day, but it was great to be able to wander through the flowers and plants in the displays since things have been pretty white here at home.

Philly in the Rain

When we finally left the city, the rain was pouring down…. Made for a few interesting photos, but it was not raining all the way home. After calling home to see how cold it got, we found that it had been snowing much of the day here….

Ice Covered Tree Half Way Home

It was spooky enough riding in a car on busy highways in the pouring rain, but things changed…. The photo from downtown Philly was taken about 6PM…. at about 8:20, the wet road turned into a slushy road, and the rain turned into sleet. We stopped for gas where this tree was covered in icy slush.

March 6 Snow Storm1

Fortunately, Ken is a much better driver than I am as a passenger… I spent most of the ride home gripping a door handle…. We passed a lot of big trucks that were not able to climb some of the steeper roads, but we were able to slowly keep going. Each town we got to meant we were that much closer to home. We had heard that our county was under a state of emergency, but we had no place to go but home…. The main roads actually were better once the slush and ice had turned to snow and frozen roadways.  Most of the main roads were plowed, but when  we got off them, we were following tracks made by others. The road we live on was the spookiest…. drifts over it, not plowed, wind whipping, but Ken was able to get the mini van all the way to our driveway!

Bird Houses When Home

Ken got the van off the road, just into the end of the driveway and we ended up  walking down it. We were not prepared for a 1/4 mile trudge through drifts of all sizes and gusty winds…. When we left home it was warm and raining. I had my duckie shoes for the mud when we left, but they stayed in the van…. My sneakers were warmer than they are and easier to walk in. I was lucky to have taken my gloves and always keep a quilt or 2 in the van. With no hat, I wrapped in the quilt. Ken had no gloves or hat, and carried our bunch of curly willow purchased a the show in the hopes we can get some to root. I don’t see well in the dark, and we had no flashlight, so I followed Ken’s tracks. Some areas were blown clear of snow, but there were some drifts nearly butt deep, not fun, but we were not sure how close we would get to home, so only walking the driveway was better than some options.  The first snow photo above shows our tracks to the front step. The other is one I tried to take of the bird feeders, but the snow was falling so hard the flash caught the flakes the most. Pretty interesting shots.

March Blizzard 1

With all the snowing and blowing, we had no idea what things would look like this AM…. Well, here it is…. No tracks can be seen where we walked in, and the large planters that line the walkway are totally buried in snow. To the right you can just see the front corner of Ken’s big van…. A pretty big drift beside that.

Deck Steps

The deck has quite a bit of snow on it even with the roof, and this is what the steps look like…. I remember the guys purposefully packing snow on them to make a sled ramp when they were at home. It is a ready-made ramp now…. The pool rock pile is nearly fully buried,too.

Outside Greenhouse Door

Here is the view out the greenhouse door, with my short handled broom to give an idea of the snow depth. The drift between the door and the Lilac bush is 3-4 feet… just guessing….

Tractor and Van

See that tractor nearly buried in the snow?? Poor Ken has to dig it out so he can use it to dig out a path to get the van out of the way of the pickup, who’s plow is not on right now…. It was only to be a rain storm with maybe a couple of inches of snow at the end….

Pickup and Alberta Spruce

The Dwarf Alberta Spruce out my studio window has a really neat pattern of snow on it, and you can see why the tractor will be needed to get the truck out…. The tractor will have to be used to dig a path before the truck will be able to get to where the plow is buried and then to get it out of the driveway.

Cardinal at Feeder

I guess with the tons of snow, the Cardinal wasn’t as spooky as he has been… It was a bit tricky catching a photo with the feeder twisting in the wind with the bird clinging to it. It will be a while before I get a path to the feeders, so for now I just tossed some seed out onto the snow…. The birds approve. I had to knock snow out of the deck feeder before I could fill that one.

Blackbird

I don’t think the Red Winged Blackbirds expected this… He was very happy to have the tossed seed.

I thought I would be posting photos of slightly greening grass with the rain taking away most of the snow that was on the ground…. I guess not yet….

I am so glad I got to see Spring and Summer flowers yesterday…. Back to reality today….

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Recycling Can be Beautiful!

Friday, March 4th, 2011

The ATC exchange group, “Arts in the Cards” had Reduce, Reuse, Recycle as our latest theme. With ATC’s being so small, they are a great way to use little bits of this and that to create unique art pieces.

ATC Base

For this group of cards, I began with a piece of fabric paper that I made at least a year ago. It consists of a faded  piece of fabric covered with pages from an old book, pictures from gardening catalogs, and tissue papers saved from gifts I had received. Much of the surface was covered with pearlescent medium and I had stamped some large butterflies with blue paint. I started by drawing lines for the edges of the cards so I knew how to lay things out for each card. If I had paid attention earlier, I would have noticed that the left 3 cards were drawn too small… I found that out when I was cutting the cards apart in one of the final steps…. Oops!!

ATC Base with stamp waste

The next step was to add the “waste” from a couple pages of postage stamps. These were from Hawaiian Rain Forest stamps that Ken came home with after I asked him to get me some “pretty” stamps…. flowers preferably….. The Hawaiian stamps were the prettiest the post office he went to had. After the stamps were used, there were a lot of pretty “stickers” left behind. I left many of the pieces as they were, and cut others apart. The above photo shows the paper fabric with the stamp waste applied.

Stamped Flowers and Some Butterflies Added

Once I had the stamp waste on, I tried to figure out where I was going to place some pink paper that I made from junk mail and waste paper from the printer, that I had textured by pressing heavy lace into the wet pulp.  (A little piece of the paper is in the above photo with colored in circles on it, next to the glitter.) The paper didn’t look right, so I pulled out my pearlescent medium and a flower stamp to add flowers with. The flowers were too pale, so I added fuschia colored glitter to the wet medium. The glittery flowers lost their definition, but added lots of color. I then stamped more flowers with white opaque paint, and even added white over the glittered flowers. I still wasn’t happy with the flowers, so I pulled out my Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils to add more color. I added yellow to the flower centers, and orange to the petals.

Recycle ATC's before cutting

Somehow while clearing my cutting table to work on or finding supplies, I found a piece of black sheer fabric with the glittery butterflies.  The fabric was already backed with Wonder Under, so I cut out the butterflies and added them. I didn’t have enough for each card, so I found a chunk of printed organza backed with Wonder Under with butterflies and flowers on it. I cut out butterflies for the cards that needed them and also some flowers and leaves to add to other cards that were lacking. The white organza didn’t show up very well, so I used more of the pencils to brighten them up. I added fuschia and orange to the butterflies, and made their bodies and antennae black. The photo above is what the cards looked like just before I cut them apart.

I added Wonder Under to the back of this piece, so I could fuse to card stock backs. When I cut the first 3 cards from the left end of the piece, I realized that I had not measured right for my first line and they were all nearly 1/4″ too short. No problem, I used trimmings from other cards to add to the short ones to make them the correct size (I thought I had all of the cards a bit oversized…. Not).

Finished Hawaii Dreamin' Cards

The cut pieces were fused to the card stock backs, and I colored the edges using a lavender stamp pad that I had never used…. One of those things I picked up from the craft store, thinking it would come in handy some day. In my excitement to get the finished  cards out in the mail to their new owners, I forgot to take photos of all of the cards in the batch…. Above is a photo of the card I am keeping for myself, and 3 extra cards. Thankfully I had a few extras or I would have only had one finished card to show.

It was fun playing with things that would have ended up in the trash or were just being ignored. I also like the images on the postage stamps and around them. Since things are so icy outside still, I could at least play with flowers indoors and dream of visiting Hawaii….  Soon, three of the above cards will be available as ACEO’s for sale in my ArtFire Studio…. I’ll add a link when they are listed…. I guess it’s time for sleep now….

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More Playing with Inktense Pencils

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

After finishing my little Chickadees, I decided I needed to see what else I could do with my Inktense colored pencils. I sold out of my covered mini photo albums, or brag books in early December, and really need to get more made. The covers were made using sunprinted fabric or photo transfers along with whatever dyed or painted fabric I thought looked good with the focus piece.

Brag book- Set of 4

This photo above shows a little group of the books I finished last fall. I try to use my best sunprints for the focus fabrics on the fronts of the covers, but I have LOTS of prints that just don’t have that WOW factor…. They are either not very sharp, or otherwise pretty boring.

Cosmos Sunprint

This photo shows one of the “wishy-washy” sunprints. The fern printed OK, but the Cosmos flowers are pretty blurry. Also, there isn’t much contrast in the piece of fabric. I could jazz it up with stitching and thread, but decided this was one good “victim” to try my pencils on.

Cosmos with Pencil

Above is another sunprint from a similar batch after I outlined the flowers and centers with the Inktnse pencils. I used Fuchsia for the petals, and Sun Yellow for the centers. I lightly dampened the fabric just were I wanted to add color with water, and added the pencil. Since I love all things sparkly, I decided to see what happened if I used my iridescent medium over the pencil to finish things. I used very watered down medium over the flowers, then added some thicker pearl to the flower centers, dotted over the yellow. With the water just where I wanted the color, and careful placement of the medium, I got pretty sharp lines.

Maple Sunprints

This is a sunprint of a couple of Maple leaves on nearly black paint.

Penciled Maples

This photo above doesn’t do justice to these leaves, but here is what happened when I drew the veins in the Maple leaf sunprints done on black. I started by just adding water over the pencil, but since I was playing with sparkle, I decided to add some to these… The effect gives an impression of the sun shimmering off snow on a very cold day. I kept the pearlescent medium just in the leaf areas. The actual look is much softer than the photo.

Ginkgo Sunprint

Here is one of my Ginkgo leaf sunprints on black…..

Ginkgo Cover

I tried a similar idea with the Ginkgo sunprints. I added Fuschia colored veins with the pencil, then used the pearlescent medium that wasn’t as watered down as on the Maples. The thicker layer of paint nearly covers the color completely. The camera is also picking up a lot of shine…. in real life, at different angles, you see varying amounts of the pencil color.

Fern with Flowers

Here is what I ended up with when I dipped the Violet pencil in water, then scribbled over a small flower stamp I have. The stamp gave a faint outline that I then traced over to get more color. I again used very watered down pearlescent medium over the pencil, then thick medium for the centers. The flower centers are sparkly even though they look white here.

Album Covers in Progress

This photo shows some more of the sunprints I played with. A  couple more on black, where I added color, and other sunprints I added little bits of color to. I have used some of last Spring’s dyed fabric for the remainder of each cover. The pieces used here are pretty bright and pull colors from the pencil I added. It will be fun to see how these look when I get them finished.

One thing I discovered while starting these, is that the little sketch book I made and used for my bird sketches will fit just right in one of these covers. I didn’t really pay attention to the size of the book I was making- I just cut the heavy drawing paper I had and folded, but the pages ended up being 4″x6″… just the size of the photos that fit in the albums that go in these covers.

So far this year is beginning much more creatively than the past couple…. Now to get these albums  finished so I can list them in my Andrus Gardens Studio on ArtFire.

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Posted in Book Covers, New Projects | 7 Comments »

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