Dandegolds And Marilions

Deb´s recent tongue-in-cheek (I hope!) depiction of a marigold eating monster reminded me of my own personal marigold monster.

When we moved house a few years ago, one look at the garden was enough to tell me that if I couldn´t see down to the bottom of it without binoculars there was no way my back would bear up if I had to do the weeding. I had some reservations about delegating that task to Herbert who could just about tell the difference between a daffodil and a rose and only then with the help of a gardening book, so before entrusting the tools of destruction to him, I said, “DON´T PULL UP ANYTHING YOU CAN´T IDENTIFY!” and left him to it. Some time later I started to notice that the very minute my beloved marigolds began to bloom they mysteriously disappeared. I imagined a huge battalion of snails munching their way through them every night so I liberally sprinkled snail pellets around those that remained. And still they diminished. Then, by sheer chance I happened to look in the compost bin one day and was horrified to find a sad wilting heap of marigolds right on top. Confronted with the evidence, the Marigold Murderer looked shocked, shifty and uncertain then rallied quickly and said it must have been Dora. Now, Dora as a puppy was a keen little gardener but she was never quite clever enough to hide the results of her work in any compost bin and she certainly never left anything with its roots still attached. The MM´s second line of defence was to insist that he´d never ever weeded out anything he couldn´t identify and that even he knew a dandelion when he saw one. AHA! Case for the prosecution solved but not quite closed...Time passed and just as the MM thought that all was forgiven and forgotten he received this birthday card.

Click image for a larger view

Would you believe he had the brass neck to actually find it amusing? Even the fact that I´d added years to him by depicting him as a crazed and leering demented senile senior citizen didn´t bother him at all and he even hung it triumphantly inside the door of the garden shed as if it had been his finest hour! I wonder what it would take to make him feel humbled and guilty.

Hmmm.

This page maybe?

First Lupin

Last summer I sowed some lupin seeds in a pot. When they were big enough I transplanted them to a plot in the garden right next to the Red Queen´s rose bush. Over winter they disappeared only to reappear in early spring. I was thrilled and cherished them like new-born kittens. A few weeks ago I was rewarded by the very first flower spike. Since then they´ve produced many more in various colours ranging from salmon pink to pure white but none more beautiful than the very first one.

I´ve used the QP from Time Began In A Garden to frame my lovely lupin.

PS Diane has offered to send me some more bluebonnet seeds as I had no luck with the first ones she sent. I´d love to have these wild lupins in my garden too so wish me luck!

Flowers For The Gremlin.

I´m sorry it´s taken so long to give you the link to the floral motifs freebie I offered you as an add on to Time Began In A Garden. I´ve had a lot of aggro lately. First of all some pesky blog gremlin got in overnight and started playing about with my design and the result was a huge margin at the top and bottom of the background with everything condensed into a little square in the centre. It took a lot of trial and error before I managed to get the appearance of my room back to normal again. After that, for some reason, the little pest suddenly decided to prevent me from posting on my own blog and I had to ask Lajuana to publish my last two posts. Then, as you may know if you have a blog yourself, we had no access to them while Blogger was carrying out “maintenance” yesterday. As far as I can see “maintenance” only entails deleting comments so apologies to those of you who took the trouble to make friendly comments on my last post. I´ve since changed my browser and – yippee! - find I can publish my posts without Lajuana´s kind assistance. On the other hand, as I now find I can also do so using my old browser, it looks as if blog gremlins don´t restrict their activities to only one...

Better get a move on before the gremlin strikes again!

If you´d like these paper flowers and leaves, you´ll find them HERE.

The gremlin can regard them as a peace offering.

PS Changing my browser was worthwhile after all! I´ve just discovered that I can now copy and paste text without having to write it twice, once in Word and again in my post.

Uhoh. Should have kept quiet about that in case the gremlin´s still around!

Happy Birthday, Dora

They say a picture speaks a thousand words so on her 5th birthday I´ll let Dora speak for herself.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DORA!

Garden Deco

I´ve spent the weekend getting my garden/patio deco out of its winter hibernation. Some of it, like the frog with his motion sensor, spend all year out of doors. He´s quite a useful little fellow. He croaks loudly when cats approach intending to scratch up my flower beds and sends them on their way. Appropriately, if unwittingly, he also collects slugs which take cover under him...at least until I find them. Others, like the hanging verbena, are replaced every summer and some, like the cockerel, just get rustier and more disreputable as the years go by. Having them distributed about the garden reassures me that summer, if not exactly here already, is at least on its way.


I´ve used one of the freebie QPs from Time Began In A Garden to display some of my garden deco. I think it´s very versatile as it can either be used as a potting shed window with a view of a garden or any rural scene or as a frame for a group of 8 related photos. If you´d like it yourself, you´ll find it HERE alongside previews of the kit and the preview of a completely new floral freebie which will be coming soon.