Helen Mathey-Horn's Blog, page 18

What to work on in Tedious Times.

This is an update on my 10 stitch project. It is tedious, but so is sitting around with nothing much to look forward to but cleaning or cooking.

#27 Finding Beauty

We didn’t get the snow that was predicted as a possibility, but dang, even so, it is cold this morning. I sat on the porch a short while…in the sun…at least my bare feet were in the sun.

The air is crisp and clear. And the cardinals and jays are really making the best of their time using the feeders and open water. A robin bathed in the water in the backyard.

I ‘cleaned up’ the irises in vases in the house. The blooms are usually only open a day (or sometimes two) before they fold up into a wet ball. Yuck. But they are easy to ‘snap’ off the stem so the rest of the buds have room to open.

And the orchids are still doing their things so there is plenty of plant beauty to hold me over until I can visit a nursery and buy things.

What things? Looking at a National Audubon Society epost this morning about native plants for wildlife I realized I did not have an American Witch Hazel bush. They usually flower in mid-winter which is unusual in itself and the flowers are like miniature bows, kind of puffed out. I can probably find one in the area, just have to think about where to put it. Actually there is a spot in the back that is open enough.

Something to look for when I can go plant shopping again.

#26 Finding Beauty

A cold day with possible snow tonight. Yeah, go figure. If we have ‘white’ in the morning it might be pretty, but then I think of my flowering plants (IRIS) and hope it doesn’t get that bad. We shall see. The nine o’clock news says snow.

So which flowers haven’t I shared?

This is the shelf/window over the sink. Love that apricot iris and notice the roses. Also in the background you might see that I have a hummingbird feeder up. I don’t know if I’m overly optimist or hoping to help any birds that might be here.

This one is a little blurry. This is one of three different vases of irises. How decadent! There are still more in the garden, but we’ll see what condition they are in if we get the projected freeze.

Enjoying the iris’s beauty while I can.

#25 Finding Beauty

Brr, what a cold day for an Easter. However growing up in Northern Illinois I can recall several Easters that were very cold. At least one with snow. I think we had gone to visit Dad’s sister’s family in DeKalb and it snowed…we stayed over. And another time in junior high I went with a school friend to visit her family in towards Chicago during spring break and it snowed then also.

At least no snow here…for the moment.

Yes the signage on the fireplace is left from Christmas, but then it is appropriate for this season also.

I normally would have left most of these in the garden, but the weather forecast sounded iffy and I decided to bring in most of the iris that were flowering. They have a very delicate scent. I can’t think of what it reminds me of, if anything. A scent that is all their own I guess.

We’ve had cold rain for most of the day with possible freezing temperatures tonight. There are still iris in the garden, but in bud and I’ll take a chance that they will be okay. Their season is so short I hate to cut it shorter by harvesting them all at one time.

Fleeting beauty.

Isn’t this purple incredible!

Happy Easter!

#24 Finding Beauty

I had to grab a picture from this angle. We are expecting a big drop in temperatures later today and I don’t know how it will affect the dog wood tree. I’m pretty sure the bridal wreath bush (on corner of the house) will shed most of its small flowers if there is any kind of wind. Both are at their peak right now.

My neighbor was raking his yard as I went to the corner of his driveway and the street and he was ‘No, no…you have to get the picture from over here.’ And he was correct. I just didn’t want to assume I could walk onto his yard to take it.

This is the kind of neighbor you want. (Another kind of beauty.) He and his wife have admired our dogwood for all the years they’ve lived here which is longer than Don and I have. He’s allowed branches lower than most neighbors would, because 1) they are beautiful, and 2) they shade the driveway, cars, ground. Good shade is hard to find in most places in Oklahoma.

He has under planted his side with variegated solomon seals and lily of the valley. I added pink azaleas about six years ago which makes a splash of color for spring, but then the leaves blend into the rest of the green/white bed. As he said, “Very zen.” My side has liriope which is green but they will flower later in the summer with small lilac colored flowers. There are also daffodils in there, but they have already passed their flowering.

This tree had to have been planted about the time the house was build about 1936 to be this large. Another kind of beauty…a gift from the past. Thank you, early homeowners.

#23 Finding Beauty

Some how I missed a day. Not sure how that happened as there isn’t much else to do lately.

Do they get any prettier.

Iris named after the ‘dawn goddess’. Very appropriately.

#22 Finding Beauty

The irises…oh la la! They are just starting, but oh my.

I chatted with a neighbor down the street when I walked the dog this morning. She was weeding her street-side flower bed. It is almost too warm to be out, lol.

I need to get back on the mess of ‘strawberry’ weeds in the back garden. I don’t know what kind of plant it is, but as a strawberry it is a loss. As my neighbor said when I was mentioning it this morning, “Even the birds don’t eat it.” So true. I would leave it if I thought it had some wildlife value. I’m not above having ‘weeds’ for wildlife, witness growing milkweed plants, which aren’t ‘sprouted’ yet.

My birdbaths are getting used. I keep filling them and find them down about 2 inches with the rims wet with splash water.

And speaking of splashing water, in my fountain I have a pot of horsetail rush. The rush has silica (glass basically) in its cell walls which made them natural ‘scrubbies’ for pots way back in the day. Well, something is cutting off a few each day down at the base of the plant. I’ve no idea what it could be. It would have to be awfully hard on their teeth (I’m assuming mammal not bird or insect). They aren’t taking them away, nor are they chewing them up, just cutting them off. Hope they stop soon as this rate I won’t have any plant left.

New shoots are coming up. Also you can see the second pot has ‘pennywort’ in it that I dug up from another spot in the yard. It should tolerate ‘wet feet’ pretty well.

I may have mentioned before that this fountain was my retirement gift to myself. I had been wanting a fountain but until we were living here there didn’t seem to be any sense in getting one.

One more aside, my brothers and I called the horsetails, ‘pull-aparts’. You can pull the segments apart and then ‘slide’ them back together. They won’t ‘heal’ and grow, but as a small kid they were kind of a plant lego, if you will. I still remember finding a plant or two of them in an empty lot across the road and down two houses from the first house I lived in.

And the red maples are such a deep stunning color this year.

So plenty of beauty!

#21 Finding Beauty

So quickly at 3 weeks?

This morning is ‘muggy’. I went out back to work on a patch of ‘strawberry’ weeds. Don’t know exactly what they are but they are some kind of strawberry. They have the leaf, the flower and occasionally a small strawberry like fruit that is not sweet or large. Just a nuisance. So I was pulling some more of it out. It is going to be a multi-day project. Not trying to do it all at once. Some how I let that ‘patch’ get too large, sigh. That’s what happens if you don’t stay on top of the weeds. This is not the finding beauty today.

However…the azaleas continue to look lush and colorful. There are more irises blooming each day and they are also large and lush. Almost decadent in their glory. I looked for a peony back by a fence and don’t see it. Sigh, it is/was a Japanese style peony. My others are coming on strongly, two from my aunt and one from Don’s mom and others I purchased. The tulips in front (the white ones shown in an earlier picture) are still looking good, although I suppose it is only a day or two before they start dropping their petals. That’s okay, the iris will make up for it by then.

Looking at the ‘greenery’ coming up, I’ll have healthy patches of physostegia and golden rod. I don’t see my milkweeds yet, but I think they being prairie plants are slow to emerge (keeps them from burning off in the occasional spring wildfires).

And the dogwood is still magnificent.

And just so everything is not all white or flowers, here is one of my heuchera…coral bells. (Although if you look closely you’ll see the white flowers.)

And the opening photo was of violas, which my grandmother called ‘Johnny Jumpups’ because like lots of plants this time of year, they do seem to suddenly be there.

#20 Finding Beauty

Twenty days have gone pretty fast, but during spring so much is happening in a garden that it is easy to lose track of time.

Isn’t that a beauty. I love, love, LOVE irises. They have such a short window of flowering and then you have to wait until the next spring. Perhaps one appreciates them more because they aren’t with us but a few weeks.

I don’t know the name of this one, but it is a wild purple/yellow color combination. I have a habit of buying at the Iris Society’s sales (usually they have one about now and another in July). I gave up trying to keep track of the names after the first time I bought iris at one of the sales. That year I painted paint sticks white and wrote the names down and put the stakes in by the iris. Should have used something that would not rot. So now I don’t even try to keep up with the names. Something about a ‘rose by any other name’?

More will be appearing in the next few days, so expect more pictures.

#17 Finding Beauty

I didn’t skip a day, but I did skip a number.

So here is the Bridal Wreath planted at the west corner of our house. It was not this huge when we moved in. I do prune out the oldest stems from time to time. Different plants/bushes like different pruning styles. The bridal wreath does best if you don’t ‘buzz cut’ it into a ‘ball’. Take out the oldest branches as close to the ground as you can get them. It will continue to send up new branches and you will get the graceful fountain shape.

It obviously likes this location. It doesn’t last long, and is one of the first things to flower each spring.