Happy May Day!

We love May Day around here. I always send my Mom a basket...it surprises her every time!

I made these bouquets out of old metal juice cans and an assortment of flowers and greenery from my garden. Then gave them to four of my girly-friends I met for breakfast.

Happy May Day to you!

Ah...Spring

It is just around the corner...

I strategically placed a Witchhazel (Hammemalis mollis) across from my kitchen window so I could see it during these grey days of winter. This weekend it popped during the warmer temperatures here in the Pacific Northwest. It is a beautiful winter flowering tree/large shrub with these funny, crepe papery, stringy, sweet smelling flowers. I LOVE it!

I combined it with a yellow-twig dogwood. I think witchhazel smells like Trix cereal!

Now is the time to buy one in the nursery. You can pick your color (yellow, red, orangy) and make sure it is fragrant! And the Washington Park Arboretum has beautiful specimens in the Witt Winter Garden. I highly recommend it as a field trip!

A pumpkin pick-me-up

This was one of my selections. I love the twisty stem.

Wednesday was one of those days.

We all have them and they defy reason. 

A good thing would happen and then a yucky thing would happen.

I am pretty good at shaking that stuff off but enough was enough.

So I went out to the Farm and picked out my pumpkins!

Nothing like the sun, fresh air and pumpkins to cheer a girl up!

Take that, bad day! 

I have a ton of things to do today and as my reward this afternoon,

I am going to style my Fall Vignette at the front entry.

So it is a pumpkin pick-me-up two-fer.

Yesterday AND today!

Mums the word!

Tables of chysanthemums

I went plant shopping for my buddy Cindy Pestka's garden project at my favorite wholesale nursery, Vibrant Plants, out in Woodinville last week. I am a sucker for the plants...I can't lie.

One for Cindy...two for me...one for Cindy...two for me.



Acres of plants in a pretty tapestry just begging to go home with me.

And I really had no business buying any plants. None. I told you...I am a sucker.

A couple of my selections...echinacea (in 2 colors) and gaura.

But, now I am really excited to rework a few beds this fall and these will find a happy home in the upper picket fence garden. It is visible from the front picture windows, so will be admired by us and the passers-by.

Yeah, that's it...that is why I did it. It will be our little secret...

Weeds and Wildlife

I love books that stay with me for years. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is one of those. Written in 1962, one year before I was born, she foretold/forewarned us about the deadly price toxic agricultural practices would have on our health, our children and our planet. We all know that sad story has come true but I am hopeful that a change is coming.

one of my buddies enjoying goldenrod in my garden

I grew up appreciating 'weeds' as wildflowers and realizing their benefit to insects. Especially the insects who pollinate our food.
In Silent Spring, I remember Rachel talking about bees and how in the fall, they depend on goldenrod to stock up on fuel for the winter. So I grow goldenrod. The wild kind. Along with some other 'weeds'. And I don't chop everything down. I leave seed-heads. And brush and leaf piles. I leave some of those, too. It keeps me hopeful.