Zinnias!

I couldn't go a summer without posting a photo of my favorite flowers, zinnias. I confess, I usually cut them when they are smaller and have them finish opening up in the vase to beautiful shades and variations. I procrastinated... No further sighting of the praying mantis. He/she must be down in the stems eating bugs (surely there is a good supply of aphids down there). Last summer I saw a praying mantis rip the head off a honeybee and proceed to eat it...They are effective predators but indiscriminate. I have had fewer bug problems this year with earwigs who were plentiful earlier in the year. Last year, they were pretty bad in the pluot trees. All of the leaves were moth eaten from them. I couldn't work on the trees without getting showered with earwigs. I think the heat might of done them in which was a good thing. I ended up with 62 pounds of plots halves frozen. I think the tree must have produced at least 100 pounds of fruit!

Garden Angel

I was looking for a spot to photograph a baby boy quilt when my garden angel caught my eye. It has a shaded spot in my garden on an arbor bench. I try to rotate what I plant in the summer and squeeze in as much as possible. A Sakata melon vine has twined itself around the bench while a Marina di Chiogga squash, blueberry bush and fig tree crowd the back.

Color pots

Spring has sprung and my color pots are filled. I love this old wire basket filled with succulents.

I love this blue pot filled with a tweedy, yellow and green coleus, coneflower (yet to bloom from last year), light green heuchera, yellow and pink latte cuphea and sky blue lobelia.

This pink and lime green petunias and sky blue lobelia are my favorite colors this year.

Along with this pink on pink petunia. Yum. Yum. Yum. A feast for my eyes!

Late Fall Garden

Late fall in the garden is a time of transition. It seems that only a few weeks ago it was 80 degrees out and too hot to plant the winter garden. I planted a few violas with scotch moss in small pots. I tried to buy a few more of these small oval pots to plant some mini iris bulbs in. No luck at this point.

Yummy romaine lettuce. I have been picking the leaves off for sandwiches. I still have a few yellow onions grown last year to add to them, too.

I planted twice the amount of red and yellow onions I did last year. Used up all the red onions first. Having your own stores of food is like having your own store (duh!). I think, gee, it would be nice to have some onion to go with this. Then I remember that they're on the back porch! 

Some baby pan choi and bok choy seedlings just sprouted. They should be ready to eat in a month or so.

Newly sprouted bulbs. I've had these mini-hyacinths for a couple of years. After they are done blooming, I put the pots away and let them dry out.

My new thing, fairy gardens. It does bring a bit of pleasure to recreate little gardens. I saw them at a nursery but it seems too expensive to buy all the fairy elements. So, I used things I have around like this bird house and found stones from the river.

Memory pillows

Okay, maybe this isn't the best title for this post... The pillows aren't made of memory foam but from old, favorite t-shirts of my friend's son. He is back from college and having to downsize his clothes. I needed some rags so she brought me some of his discards. I thought I would make him a quilt of his favorite t-shirts from the pile. Alas, he liked plain, un-logo-ed t-shirts...I found these 2 with nice logos from vacation trips to Hawaii. I could tell the Longboard Surf Club was a favorite from the frayed neck. With only 2 t-shirts to work with, I decided to make pillows instead. The t-shirts were boys medium in size so I had to add some fabric to the top of the white pillow to keep the logo centered on the pillow. The black pillow was a wife-beater t-shirt so I sewed a scrap in the spaces where the armholes were to make a 12 by 16 inch square. I cut the t-shirt apart at the sides and used the back to make a the flap since it had a finished t-shirt edge and I don't do zippered closures. I also sewed a 12 by 16 inch scrap piece of cotton batting to the wrong side of the front piece to give it a little more body and to help center the design on the pillow. Then, stitched around the logo, assembled the pieces (make sure the back is in the right order when turned inside out), trimmed the edges down and zig-zagged the cut edges. I slipped in the pillow form,straightened out the back and fussed it about to get it set right. Hope he likes them!

A little better

Here is the finished bookcase.  Hmm, I may be a little obsessed given the titles of the books on the shelves.

My favorite is the book on epigraphy. It is fascinating.

The room looks way more inviting in this direction. Sorry for the uneven lighting from the skylight in the room. Whenever I watch a show on the TV where the people in the show are considering moving into or buying a house or apartment with a slanted ceiling, all I can think of is No!No! Noooo.... don't do it! This is the only room in the house with a slanted ceiling except for the living room which is only a single story (so the ceiling is high, but I don't like that either). Every time I walk toward the low end, I end up hitting my head.  It is quite annoying. And, I am not that tall. Just in case you ever think about moving into or buying something with a slanted ceiling, you have been warned. 

A few campy stuffed animals here and there.

A favorite metal bar table even though I don't like or drink beer (except I do like beer batter for deep frying food).

An old Mexican chair.

The other chair. They are not really for sitting anymore. Some old woolen ponchos from Mexico. Once we wore them to the San Francisco Opera. It was cold and we didn't have any jackets. I can't remember exactly, but I think we had been to the football game to see the 49'ers play earlier in the day and were not "dressed for the opera" but we went anyway. (Oops, another little stuffed animal, all of which my Dad bought at yard sales but that is another story). I bought the zebra skin rug at a yard sale, too, for $20.  You never know what you will find at one, it is real but not in good condition because of its age.

A tour of my garden

I love looking at other people's gardens and backyards. So, let me give you a little tour of mine. The view from my kitchen.

I try to enjoy it in the morning before the heat. Last year, I had a nice cool patch of grass.  Not this year.  Not because of a drought or anything but because I planted strawberries (the very fragrant Mara de Bois) in Earth boxes and I am running out of space in the back yard garden. So, I didn't water the grass.

My beautiful succulents. Shortly after I took this photo, an unknown critter ran amuck in it ripping out many petals from the florets.  I had little teeth marks and scratches, too.  I think it might be a thirsty rat. And snails. I have to go on snail patrol.  I hate snails. And slugs. Apparently, succulents are quite tasty to snails and slugs. They eat the strawberries, too.

Another planter of succulents. This is a tall, concrete pot.  I've planted lots of different stuff in it over the years that really didn't thrive.  But the succulents do.

More succulents. The big one on the left is in the mate to the concrete pot and thriving, too!

A close-up.

I love this combination, to me, it is very Japanese.

Maybe a better shot.  The little pink flowers have red centers and the petals are pin eventually getting more white. The geranium looks a little like maples to me.

Not a good photo but also very Japanese to me, too.  The denim blue glaze on the pots, the vinca (Titan apricot) which looks a lot like Japanese flowers and the color, is the color I remember of Japanese under-kimono.

I love coneflowers!  And, nasturtiums.  And, the blue-green color on the pot. Hope you enjoyed the tour!