Daffodils and Tulips

Spring has been a long time coming, but finally there is a reason to take photographs!

 

An Update: What has been happening in my Garden

I tend to be an eager gardener who favours the final few weeks of April to get a jump start on work in the garden. The weather is usually a bit cold, but the chill in the air usually means there are no black flies or mosquitoes to torture me. I also find that most perennials, which are still dormant at the end of April, are to sleepy to notice when I up and move them to a new bed.

This spring was so wet and miserably cold however, I was simply unable to get any kind of a head start on gardening. When the weather finally did warm up, I must confess I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the work that suddenly needed doing. For the first day or so, I wandered around the yard like a lost soul, trying to figure out where to begin.

The daffodils opened up and then it started to rain...

It rained for days. I fell behind even further.

The garden soaked up the rain and plumped out into a lush green jungle.

In the shadow of mature trees, most of the back garden lies in dappled shade. The main border along the right side of the yard is some 5 to 10 feet deep (shrubs at the back, perennials in the foreground).

In the past, I used to start work at the front of the bed. Attempting to add a bit of order and a nice crisp edge always seemed so gratifying. The problem was that, as you can see from the photograph above, by the time I could get to the back of the border, the plants had filled in so much that heading into the flower bed was a bit like setting out on safari.

I am proud to say that this year I mended my errant ways and started at the back of the flower bed.

The rain brought out the tulips and quickly did in my Double Flowering Almond (below).

The ferns were more than happy with the wet weather.

The Circle Garden at the very back of the yard is, at this moment, a sea of Forget-me-nots.

On the long weekend, we worked like fiends on the new raised vegetable beds; digging out sod and laying down weed mat for the paths. The weather on Saturday was good, but on Sunday and Monday, it alternated between hot, humid and raining.  We were both exhausted at the end of each day. (This post is already too long and so I will tackle the subject of the vegetable garden in the coming days.)

For today, I end as I started, with a handful of blooms from our crabapple tree.

Vintage Bottles

On our limited budget, collectables and antiques have to be purchased for a song. Old bottles, which can be had for as little as a quarter meet that criteria.  In little groupings, old bottles make pretty vases for spring flowers.

For these photographs, I started with Kim Klassen's Warm Sun texture. I color-adjusted  Warm Sun into both a blue and grey version of the original. I layered them on the image (soft light) and removed the texture from some of the areas of the picture. 

Click the link here to see the other entries in Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesdays.

Bring Spring Indoors

I love to have flowers in the house and am always looking for new ways to display them. Here is a novel way to bring spring into your home.

Things you will need to recreate this arrangement in your own home:

Decorative metal trough (find decorative pots at garden supply or interior decorating stores)

3 small bulb pots

Spanish moss (find moss at a garden supply store or craft store)

pruners

twigs snipped from the garden

paper butterflies (find the butterflies at a craft store)

For this arrangement, I used three small pots of daffodils that I got at the grocery store (Total cost just under $10).

I watered them and then placed them in the metal trough. If you scout around you can often find metal buckets or troughs that hide the less than attractive plastic pots in which spring bulbs are most commonly sold.

To support the leaves, which I sometimes find flop down unattractively, I used red dogwood branches that I snipped out of the garden.

Then, I added some Spanish moss to disguise the plastic pots.

(Tip: Spanish moss can get a bit messy, so for an easier cleanup work over top of some open newsprint. If you or someone else in your household suffers from allergies replace the moss with shredded paper from a craft store).

For a final flourish, I twisted paper butterflies on to the dogwood branches.