This blog is about urban gardening, nature, garden photography,indoor gardening and plant propagation. Due to content scrapers I've decided to shorten my feed, sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. I hope you continue to subscribe to my feed and visit my blog to comment on the entries and view the photos of my plants. . ..
reBlogged
to roses
Posted by MrBrownThumb Reblogged by Old Roses to roses on 2007-12-06, 00:46:00
I've had my sweet little garden every-which-a-way. As we say down South when someone marries and divorces numerous times " they're practicing 'til they get it right. " I once turned the entire back yard into a vegetable garden with brick paths separating the beds of vegetables and herbs. Holding a full-time job and tending that garden wore me out. But, my hubby loved it because he could pick some fresh leaf lettuce and make a Korean-style sandwich for lunch. . ..
reBlogged
to design
Posted by Carolyn gail Reblogged by Old Roses to design on 2007-12-06, 00:45:06
There's something about leaving the garden--really leaving it, abandoning it for four months--that makes me feel like I'm a deadbeat dad [or mom]. I walk away, I don't look back, I don't see it's cared for, I leave it to the open elements, the munching deer, left to fend completely for itself. And so last week I left my garden, not to return until April 1, when the house tenants move out, and I can move back in. . .
Thank goodness that Drena, our staff photographer, came over yesterday for a photo shoot of useful garden tools and not later in the week. The snow is picturesque, but would look out of place in our early spring issue. I'm posting a couple pics I took in my side yard today of this first snow of the season. The local weather folks are always alarmist, so I ignored their snow forecasts -- thinking if we do get any, it'd be a dusting at most. Well, I can admit when I was wrong and the predictions were dead on it. It looks pretty out there right now - an unusual, white Hanukkah. Wonder what Christmas day and New Year's will bring?
I've always loved the concept of discovery in gardens; not knowing what lies around the next turn in the garden path or even behind the next shrub. I like the same concept on the smaller scale of discovering a multitude of little treasures in each flower bed; it makes for an untidy but interesting garden. To that end, I've planted small bulbs and woodland ephemerals everywhere, which are slowly spreading around at their whim. My garden doesn't have the grand vistas and landscaping that will place it on the cover of Fine Gardening magazine (or even on the back page), but I'd rather poke around in a little nook that has creamy pink hellebores and clumps of snow white twinleafs surrounded by waves of soft lilac wood anemones and sky blue scillas. Disorder can be a good thing in gardens.
reBlogged
to wildflowers
Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to wildflowers on 2007-12-06, 00:43:38
Manel stood beside me as looked up at the leaves in the trees showing the colours of autumn.
"Tomorrow they will be gone, there will be a Tramontana (Strong wind from the north) and no more colour."
Meanwhile in the coastal resorts the Juntas have taken to cutting back the trees hard to prevent the roosting of thousands of Starlings (birds). Last year saw a cull of 3000, this year we have had bird flu but the Starlings seem to prosper.
The photograph was a standing of trees outside the rail and bus terminus in the city of Girona.
Though true winter is a latecomer in these parts , autumn colour does not hang around too long.
reBlogged
to trees
Posted by Colin & Carol Reblogged by Old Roses to trees on 2007-12-06, 00:43:23
I met Jessica Walliser at the Garden Writer’s Symposium in Oklahoma City earlier this year, and after meeting her and learning all that she was up to, I’d knew you’d want to meet...
reBlogged
to books gardeners
on Dec 5, 2007, 1:08AM
Snow is forecast for this evening!! I am not ready!! There is still to much to do outside!!
As soon as I heard the forecast for snow, I left the Christmas decorating, and headed outdoors. I still have plants that I did not get into the ground, so they had to be either put into the greenhouse to overwinter, or bedded into the garden for the winter. I also had a few planters that needed to be put into the shed, my 2 swings were still hanging, etc., etc., etc. There was one project that absolutely had to be done. In the fall we pick up lots of leaves, and I keep several of the better loads, (the ones that are mostly oak leaves), for my beds. They make a great mulch for the beds that I don't want to cover with bark mulch. . . .
reBlogged
to weather mulch
Posted by vonlafin Reblogged by Old Roses to mulch, weather on 2007-12-06, 00:41:45
It's 11:00 PM and we're getting our first snow of the season. It's one of those easy, floaty kind. No wind and it's nearly thirty degrees (F), so you hardly notice the cold until you've been out there for awhile and then you see your breath in front of you. I remember the first snow of the year last year was like this, too, and Romie and I went for a walk in it, around midnight. . . .
reBlogged
to weather
Posted by Kylee Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-06, 00:41:13
I think it lasted for about a week. We had some rain (a rare occurence) and then it froze and remained below freezing. I guess it was the humidity in the air that condensed on the plants (feel free to correct me if I am wrong) and haloed them all. They were all so pretty. . . .
reBlogged
to weather
Posted by Miss Canthus Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-06, 00:40:54
I was wrong about the rain and wrong about the ducks. For anyone who has read my entries around water you'd realise how nervous I've been about whether the drought and Il Nino really are over. You'd also know that I thought only one duck would hatch out a nest. Well this last weekend (1st-2nd Dec) it poured with rain again, really poured and poured. Just like the other day. All our water storage is full, (granted it's modest storage). Our ponds are full, the ground is nice and wet and more importantly it's all rain that has fallen in the catchment and it's raining in the catchment of the Snowy River and the headwaters of the mighty Murray - yay, rain for Adelaide and the Murray River. . . .
reBlogged
to weather birds
on Dec 4, 2007, 11:54PM
Photo by permission of Shirt Matters
The other day I looked in my closet and realized I must own 2 dozen t-shirts that are at least a decade old. I can’t live without my t-shirts. They are soft against my skin, easy to wear, and so comfortable.
I started to think. . . .
Grapes No. 4, Issue 5: "After harvest, water and nutrients are withheld from the vine to slow it's growth, and the vine is manually defoliated. Leaves may be stripped by hand, or sprayed with a chemical such as urea to burn them and make them drop. In the tropics, this is usually done at a time when a dry period is underway. The vine is left in this condition until time for it to start growing again. Then it is pruned much the same way as a truly dormant vine would be, and it is fertilized and watered. This will force the vine to resume growth, bloom, and set fruit. Properly timed, it is possible to get two crops a year from a vine this way."
We're going to stray from the prototype this week and watch a homegrown video instead of visiting You Tube. Also, you're getting this a day early because I know I'll be too busy tomorrow.
It's getting cold and nasty outside, but with a little advance planning, as you'll see, we can enjoy our gardens all winter long.
Here's a video I shot last winter with Vincent Simeone, director of Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay. It was quite a windy day, as you'll see. Go ahead and laugh at me as I get blown around by nearly hurricane force winds. I know you will. And it's O.K.-- I'm all about a little comic relief.
After spending an hour chopping ice off the driveway, I thought it was time to ramble around the garden and check things out. As I started to walk across the sloping backyard, I began to slide downhill in loops on the surface of an inch of ice that coats everything. Chastened, I gingerly crept back uphill to the house and put on my crampons, then crunched across the yard as if I was walking through a potato chip factory. All of the garden gates save one were frozen shut, but I was able to enter that gate and wander about, and except for a few fallen limbs from the ice, everything looked good. . . .
reBlogged
to winter
Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to winter on 2007-12-06, 00:37:15
is something that I like to indulge in, especially during wintertime and I'm not the only one, the Bliss team loves live bird TV too. A few years ago the under-gardener made king size windowsills so that all the cats can safely sit or sleep on the windowsill without the fear falling off or cramping their style in any way. In summertime they love to sit and do a spot of sunbathing and during winter they love lying there, basking in the heat from the radiator beneath the windowsill. I usually sit near the window so that I have a lovely view from my garden and when the cats are not on the king size windowsill, they are on the footstool in front of my chair. . . .
The Story of Stuff: Ever wonder why you get the URGE to SHOP even though you KNOW that wanting more stuff is what makes us trash our environment? Free Range Studios just came out with this great new video that tells the whole story . . . how we use up nature in order to make toxic products that all end up in the dump. Watch the video and share it with your students and friends. All the facts are here, about external costs, mining, advertising, shopping, pollution, etc etc.
Don't worry! The story can have a happy ending . . . if you want it!
After over a week of freezing nights, followed by several days of rain-- well, it's a damp, dreary grey mess out there, and not in a charming way. I'm tempted to do a photo-essay of the yard's most miserable, soggy moments, but for now, I'm going to go to the bright side. . . .
reBlogged
to weather
Posted by LisaBee Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-06, 00:34:47
I promised to post about how the garden path I created led me down the path to a career as a garden designer, but I thought that before doing so I would show the long and short shots of the garden. . . .
reBlogged
to design
Posted by Carolyn gail Reblogged by Old Roses to design on 2007-12-06, 00:34:24
The subtitle of Grow Organic: Over 250 Tips and Ideas for Growing Flowers, Veggies, Lawns and More by Doug Oster and Jessica Walliser reads “for first-timers and old-timers alike,” but I...
reBlogged
to books
on Dec 4, 2007, 3:06PM
Posted by Kathy Purdy Reblogged by Old Roses to books on 2007-12-06, 00:33:55
Mistletoe plants are nothing if not enigmatic, which helps account for the Christmas tradition surrounding these holiday plants: kissing under the mistletoe. But what else would you expect from a...
reBlogged
to mistletoe
on Dec 4, 2007, 1:54AM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to mistletoe on 2007-12-06, 00:32:58
A couple of weeks ago, Robin of A Bumble Bee Garden suggested that people post about the weird and wonderful queries that people enter into Google to end up on their blogs. I've had a look at mine and most of them are a bit predictable - balcony garden or balcony gardening obviously tops the list, with balkony plants as a variation. On Google that would have merited a snooty Do you mean ...? but in fact it came from Yahoo! who have obviously just given up on expecting the world to spell correctly and simply sigh resignedly as they tell you We have included balcony plants results ...
reBlogged
to blogs
Posted by Sue Swift Reblogged by Old Roses to blogs on 2007-12-06, 00:32:42
via Mediterranean Garden Spain on 1969-12-31, 19:00:00
