Two superlatives. Tonight may be one of the most beautiful nights of the year. And tonight I made the best soup I have ever tasted! Garden kale, 'Tongues of Fire" dried beans, my frozen garden tomatoes and local keilbasa. Yummm!!
Today was a dreary rainy day and we're having a nasty round with a stomach bug going through the family. Not Fun! To cheer me up and brighten my day I decided to play around with some of the flowers that are blooming in the house. . . .
I am looking for a fountain for my back patio. Here are a few examples I found at the very special garden shop, Roger's Gardens. If you are in the Orange County, California area and are a gardener, you would enjoy a visit to this wonderful nursery. There are plants galore and everything beautiful you need to beautify your home.
reBlogged
to whimsy
on Dec 2, 2007, 11:38AM
Posted by earlysnowdrop Reblogged by Old Roses to whimsy on 2007-12-04, 00:31:39
As the tentacles of winter begin to wrap themselves around our garden, it is fading so fast that I feel like I should start scanning the obituary column for news of its demise. There are, however, little clumps of life here and there; especially with the epimediums. Some are evergreen, some semi-evergreen, and some are deciduous for us; all are nice. Actually, I prefer to call them 'angelwings' rather than their other common name 'barrenworts'; the latter name sounds like a disease of the feet in old people living on the moors of the far northlands. . . .
reBlogged
to foliage
Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to foliage on 2007-12-04, 00:31:15
Goldilocks (Margo Churchwell) sent this to me today. With this caption:
“Well I have a few minutes while I dry Rabbitbrush seed on the guest bed. I picked it earlier today and it was frosty. In order to avoid mold I’ll dry it today and then put it in the freezer for a week to kill the bugs that will eat the seed. . . .
reBlogged
to seeds
on Dec 2, 2007, 5:44PM
Posted by Mary Ann Reblogged by Old Roses to seeds on 2007-12-04, 00:30:37
Just imagine the room below even more scary with crap everywhere and millions of spider webs - that's what I started with today. Behold my new Garden Cave!
My house is small and indoor space is pretty darn limited. I have no rooms with south facing windows other than my bedroom, which barely accommodates the king bed. Not only do I need a place to store all my gardening crap, I need a place to work on my seed starting. So, with no other choice, I've been banished to the gloomy dirty basement. . . .
reBlogged
to tools
Posted by Gina Reblogged by Old Roses to tools on 2007-12-04, 00:30:20
Phlomis lanata or Jerusalem sage was an introduction to the garden this year it's sage coloured leaves are hairy like many Mediterranean plants a useful mechanism for capturing moisture when the humidity is high. Although this is a tough plant and can tolerate the hottest and driest conditions it is none the less a showy plant with many bright yellow blooms. The flowers which appear in two stages are held above the plant by almost leafless stems. First a ruffled collar of flower blossom opens, the stem continues to grow several inches before producing a more compact flower at the shoot tip. This plant is attractive to pollinating insects too.
reBlogged
to plants
Posted by Colin & Carol Reblogged by Old Roses to plants on 2007-12-04, 00:29:56
What happens when you put a rainy day, a check book, and a book sale together?
That's right, big trouble for me. The sale actually started on Friday night. If you are a friend of the library, (and I am a VERY good friend!), and you pay yearly dues, you are invited to the sale on Friday night before it opens to the general public on Saturday morning. I decided that I had run out of room for books, so I made plans for Friday night, and managed to keep my mind occupied on Saturday, so that I would not think about the treasures that I was missing downtown. . . .
reBlogged
to books
Posted by vonlafin Reblogged by Old Roses to books on 2007-12-04, 00:28:44
At Ernie's, I got a new kind of persimmon, a Sharon. Tasty. Reminds me of a cross between a cantaloupe and a fresh date. With a little bit of complexity, like a citrus cinnamon. Nice. I also bought a cool purple sugarcane. Stuck it in the ground. We'll see how it goes. . . .
My Brazilian friend grows limão 'Cravo,' selling them at an amazing price of $2 a dozen. They produce copious amounts of mildly-acidic, vaguely lime-y juice. The flavor is somewhere on the tart end of a lemon-lime-orange. While I have trouble getting more than a tablespoon of juice from a lemon, the slightly larger limão 'Cravo' will easily yield a third to a quarter cup. VERY juicy. . . .
I spent this rainy afternoon and evening catching up on my blog-reading and found everywhere howls of protest at recent changes in Blogger's comment forms. Specifically that people without Blogger accounts who leave a comment no longer have an automated way to include a link back to their sites. . . .
reBlogged
to blogs
Posted by Entangled Reblogged by Old Roses to blogs on 2007-12-04, 00:27:29
Yesterday we got about 5" of snow, the first of the 2007-2008 winter season. As per usual, the weather forecasters were out in force all of last week, warning us about the first big storm of the season. They had been forecasting 8-12" here in the Twin Cities, but of course the total was far less than that. I went to the grocery store on Friday night, and the crowds were the same as the day before Thanksgiving. The way people were stocking up on food, you would have thought we were going to be snowed in until spring!. . .
reBlogged
to weather
on Dec 2, 2007, 7:25PM
Posted by Talbin Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-04, 00:27:10
Ok, for any who didn't get the reference of the title, it is a play on Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman's motto, "What, me worry?" That statement is, as Wikipedia notes, "a shorthand for unquestioning stupidity".
However, as "Eat, Shoot & Leaves" has pointed out, punctuation is important and alters meaning. And so it is with the title of this post. . . .
reBlogged
to environment
Posted by GK Reblogged by Old Roses to environment on 2007-12-04, 00:26:37
I haven't posted in awhile. Two reasons: the drought (see next post) has not only hurt my plants, but it has really hurt my energy for working in the garden.
The other reason is that I've just tired. I get through a morning burst of energy and then...
Anyway, I'm trying to work through both issues and plan for something different in the garden next year. New plants and new structures.
reBlogged
to gardeners
Posted by GK Reblogged by Old Roses to gardeners on 2007-12-04, 00:26:11
This year, I got lucky. Helped by the fact that the day I heard about the Albemarle County Master Gardener Seminar, I sent in my check. It's an amazing deal for $20. Five lectures plus lunch, hard to beat! . . .
Blogger is experimenting with OpenID and is trying to make it easier for people who don't blog on Blogger to be able to comment. I just noticed that a non Blogger gardener tried to comment with the old feature and was having trouble. I've enabled the new comment feature through Blogger In Draft to see how it goes. . . .
reBlogged
to blogs
Posted by MrBrownThumb Reblogged by Old Roses to blogs on 2007-12-04, 00:23:46
I purchased an Amaryllis kit at full price instead of waiting until the day after Christmas to buy them when Amaryllis bulbs are discounted 50%-75% off. It feels strange paying full price for an Amaryllis bulb and the cashier practically had to wrestle the money from my hand but in the end I justified the purchase because it would make a blog entry. . . .
reBlogged
to bulbs
Posted by MrBrownThumb Reblogged by Old Roses to bulbs on 2007-12-04, 00:23:27
Chris and I had never been to Flamingo in Everglades National Park until today. We were looking for a trip to go play with our new Canon Rebel XTI. We have a lot to
learn. I will be reading the manual over the next few days as well as playing around with settings. We are going to trash probably 3/4 of the shots we took today, but we did
get a few good ones. Some sightings we had but didn't get photos of were one snail kite that flew right in front of the truck and at first we thought it was a hawk. . . .
reBlogged
to birds flowers
on Dec 2, 2007, 10:25PM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to birds, flowers on 2007-12-04, 00:22:58
Just after leaving the house, I spied a large kettle of vultures. Maybe someone had left a dead calf again. You know, in that place just down the road where old sofas go to die? But the Purifying Ones streamed out on high before I reached them. . . .
reBlogged
to birds
Posted by Rurality Reblogged by Old Roses to birds on 2007-12-04, 00:22:07
The greenhouse is getting special attention this year. Sixteen degrees outside - it does make one wonder why one spends more time and money on lights and design, and not in installing the bubblewrap insulation that should be going up inside the greenhouse. But, then again, the glass is too wet right now, and there is something just wrong with hot chocolate and bubblewrap. . . .
reBlogged
to weather
Posted by Matt Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-04, 00:20:44
The street tree in front of our house
Two weeks ago, I wrote that stormwater runoff reduction was the "second biggest" contributor to the annual benefits New York City receives from its street trees. So what's the largest contributor? The annual...
Slate-Colored Junco, Junco hyemalis hyemalis, in my Flatbush backyard
We had our first snow of the season overnight. It was in the 20s all day, gradually warming, and it will be in the 30s tomorrow, so it will all be gone soon. I didn't get any...
Festival of the Trees #18, November Arborea, is up on Larry Ayers' Riverside Rambles. This issue has a link to my post about Brooklyn's Trees, the Flickr photo pool I started this year.
The 19th Festival of the Trees will be hosted by Lorianne of...
Bird photography is torture. As soon as you get close enough to get a good shot, they fly away. The moment you walk away, they fly back to the feeders. That's just mean!
This is the best I could do with a smallish telephoto lens and additional cropping.
reBlogged
to birds
on Dec 2, 2007, 3:06PM
Posted by Angela Reblogged by Old Roses to birds on 2007-12-04, 00:18:58
Meteorological winter begins in Northern Illinois on December 1st. Too often there is nothing wintery about that date. The ground stubbornly refuses to freeze and plants become fooled into breaking dormancy early. Not this year. We've been experiencing temperatures below freezing every night for over a week. (Trust me, this is a good thing.) Then yesterday, Winter blew in with a snow-and-ice one-two punch. Unfortunately, I was at a Christmas lunch on the far north side of Chicago and had to drive home in the storm. It's just amazing how many people forget how to drive in snow. I witnessed a driver lose control on the expressway, slide sideways and get hit broadside by another vehicle. At least I got home before the precipitation turned to ice. I'd much rather live where we get reliable snow storms than on the East Coast and in the South where they have to deal with regular ice storms. . . .
It was such a delight to read the gardening advice today given by the other gardeners here on your blog. I agree with the others who advise know your. . .
reBlogged
to gardening
on Dec 2, 2007, 10:14AM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to Gardening on 2007-12-04, 00:18:08
As I said in my last post, marigolds blooming in December is a sure sign that the weather must be mild, though it's hard to be sure as I can't find a complete list of temperatures for this month so that I can compare them with official averages. It's not been all warm weather though - there was one day when it plunged about ten degrees overnight - just the sort of drop that plants don't like. And we also had three days of torrential rain - not unusual for Milan in November. It never drizzles here. We go for months without a drop, and then when it does come it just pours and pours, so that roads flood, cellars flood and occasionally so does the underground, causing chaos everywhere. . . .
reBlogged
to weather
Posted by Sue Swift Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-04, 00:15:19
via My Iowa Garden on 1969-12-31, 19:00:00
