Kylee Baumle's Blog, page 17

Fort Wayne (IN) Home & Garden Show 2014

Entrance designed by Arbor FarmsNothing gets me more excited about the coming spring (on a cold and blustery day) than attending a home and garden show.  Mom and I go to the Fort Wayne Home & Garden Show every year and this year we were there on opening day.

Though it was my intent to leave the show without any plants in tow, you know that just didn't happen.  What was I thinking? There are always a few vendors that I make a point of stopping by to see, because they always have s...

The Cutest Little Cloche

Last spring, one of my favorite online places, Longfield Gardens, sent me a terrarium kit.  It wasn't so much a terrarium as it was the cutest little cloche on a saucer you ever did see.  Even if it hadn't included something to grow, I would have loved just the cloche set.

But it contained a begonia tuber, some growing medium, and a biodegradable peat pot in addition to the glass cloche and the green ceramic saucer.  The idea was to plant the tuber in the peat pot, moisten the s...

Wordless Wednesday: The Impressionable Agave

Impression of crenulated edges of new foliage on Agave

Ecuador: Puertolago, Condor Park, and Otavalo

Overlooking Quito from the east side of Pichincha volcanoThere is no shortage of things to do in and around Quito, Ecuador.  The city is large, with a population of 2.2 million, and is situated on the eastern slope of Pichincha, an active volcano in the Andes mountain range.

At 9,350 feet above sea level, its climate is ideal and like perpetual spring, in spite of its location on the equator. Nearly every day we were there, temperatures hovered around both sides of 75° F.  It could b...

Wordless Wednesday: Unknown Flower in Mindo, Ecuador

When you're in a place that's not native to you, the flora and fauna are often unfamiliar.  And sometimes you know the plant, but when it grows in a much more favorable location for it than you're used to seeing, you may not recognize it.  This one, seen in a hell strip kind of garden on a street in Mindo, Ecuador, looks vaguely familiar, but I can't identify it.  My best guess is a yellow walking iris (Trimezia martinicensis, formerly Neomarica longifolia).  Can I get an...

Ecuador: Guayasamin, the Artist

When I decided to make a return visit (my third) to Ecuador last month, I was determined to see it with new eyes. My first visit in 1994 was for the purpose of meeting our exchange student daughter's family and to see a place that I knew would be much different than Northwest Ohio. I came home from that trip forever changed.

Gabriela and me outside the front door of her home
in Guayaquil in 1994.I got to see several different areas of the country on that first visit, as we traveled in and near...

The Winter That Was, Is, and Is To Come

Where did January go?  Or the beginning of February?  It seems like it was just Christmas, then New Year's, then it started to snow.  And the bottom dropped out of the thermometer. Then it snowed some more and the wind blew.










I confess that I wasn't around for three weeks of this winter loveliness (???) but thanks to the internet and the Viber app, I heard and saw more of what I experienced before I started my travels. There were pictures that I had hoped to post, showing a beaut...

Wordless Wednesday: 'Gold Medal' Amaryllis

Each year I treat myself to one new amaryllis bulb, adding to the collection I've amassed over the years. When I bought this year's bulb last fall, I never gave it a thought that the name would hold any special meaning.  But the irony was not lost on me, when on the opening day of the Olympics, 'Gold Medal' also opened.  It's a winner...

Hippeastrum 'Gold Medal'

 
 
 

Weekend Wisdom: What's the Story Behind Jarlsberg Cheese?

Huffington Post recently posted an article entitled "What Your Favorite Cheese Says About You."  These personality analyses are apparently designed to help you know who you really are.  When we read them, we secretly hope that we're shown to be only good with a smidgeon of spunk, snark, and silly. I don't think we really give much credence to these pseudo-Freudian exercises, but it's all in good fun.

In the latest cheesy edition, by virtue of my favorite cheese being Swiss, I am deem...

Wordless Wednesday: Abutilon

Parlor Maple
(Abutilon pictum)
Zone 9-103-10' tall Sun to Part ShadeBlooms all yearKeep soil moist