In the Garden

welcome to my garden

Well, this year my garden is overgrown and underwhelming. The one-two punch of some heavy rains and two weeks of crazy hot weather made the weeds go crazy and sadly I’m just not motivated to keep up with it. (Happens every year — I’m a gardener in my head, but not in reality, LOL!) But I figured I’d share a few snapshots of the plants that haven’t died!

First, there’s my knockout rose bush. This is one of the hardiest plants we have in the front! And what’s amazing is that a few years ago, I bought the plant half-head on clearance for $1, just to see if it would take. I love how bright the pink is.

rose

Then there are these Black-Eyed Susans that came from my mother-in-law’s garden.

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And the Tiger Lily from my mom’s garden.

tiger lilies

Even though Queen Anne’s Lace might be considered a weed, I love having it around the house. It’s so pretty and delicate and when I feel motivated to cut some flowers to bring in the house, the Queen Anne’s Lace makes such lovely filler.

queen anne's lace

This one is called a Balloon Flower and I think we might have gotten it as a bare-root plant from Spring Hill. We placed an order when we first moved here and while a lot of the plants didn’t take, a few did! The flowers close up in the evening and look like little balloons.

balloon flower

And here’s the Spoon Flower my dad made. This one is pretty rare 😉

spoon flower

I found this spiderweb this morning and I never tire of how magical they look. I left it alone — I feel bad anytime I have to wipe one away. I know it’s silly, but they just seem like so much work and this web wasn’t in a place where it was bothering anyone.

spider web

 

 

And finally, my hydrangea. I had only one pathetic bloom last year and it doesn’t look like I’ll have any flowers this year (no idea why!). I did, however, find this adorable little toad hanging out on a leaf! 

tiny frog

Maybe in September I’ll put out some mums and marigolds and kale… I’ll try to take advantage of fall flowers and pretty things up for autumn. So, how are your gardens doing this year?

A Visit to the New York Botanical Garden

What a weekend! I have so much to tell you about, but I thought I’d start by sharing some photos I took yesterday. While Drew and Jake were at ComicCon, my mother-in-law suggested the rest of us spend the day at the New York Botanical Gardens. I’d never been there and she certainly didn’t have to convince me — I was so excited to finally visit!

We saw the gorgeous Monet’s Garden exhibit, as well as the Haunted Pumpkin Garden (very non-spooky, very fun, and great for children). Noah had a great time planting buckwheat seeds and dissecting an owl pellet, while Laura enjoyed playing in the outdoor puppet theatre and just looking at all the incredibly creative pumpkin sculptures.

Seeing all these beautiful plants makes me wish I was a better gardener! Just gorgeous stuff. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

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I could have spent the entire day wandering around. If you live in the metro New York area and you’re looking for something fun and Halloween-y to do, this exhibit was a lot of fun, plus the grounds are just so beautiful. We plan to go back for the holiday train show and I can’t wait for that!

Baby Birds

When I was a kid, our kitchen sink faced a window. And there was a metal canopy over the window to keep the sun out. One spring a little bird decided to build a nest in the right-hand corner. I remember how excited we all were to have this perfect view of a mama bird and her eggs! My parents named her “Matilda.” (And occasionally we’ll still make a Matilda reference to this day.)

Anyway, it was great… for a while. The thing about birds is that they are messy. And loud! Who’d think that something so small could make so much noise? Well, this spring we had Matilda, Jr. at our house. A bird (species yet to be identified) decided to build her nest behind the outside lamp on our deck. Of course, every time I opened the screen door, the mama bird would fly off and I’d feel bad. But hey — sometimes you just need to take your kid out to play on the swingset!

I did manage to snap a few photos, though and thought I’d share them!

May 30:
Robin's nest behind my porch light.

June 11:
Baby birds! Good thing we plan on power washing the house soon (after the birds are gone obviously).

June 14:
And just like that my baby birds are gone :-( At least I can was the lamp and siding I guess.

 

(See what I mean about birds being messy?) Well, now that they’re gone I can take down the nest I guess. We need to powerwash the siding, so I am really glad those birdies had their chance to hatch! Once we clean up the side we’re (finally) putting up the bird bottle the kids gave Drew for Father’s Day several years ago. Maybe next year the birds will nest in there.