Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

I'm rather happy with what's growing this November at my apartment.  Inside there is only a single orchid bloom.  Surprisingly it's the outside were all the flowers are; despite freezing nights and snow.









When I first planted a pretty little mum in my planter it was still to hot and all the blooms turned yellow and died.  But now that the temperatures have cooled off it's got a couple of buds ready to open.

My biggest payoff right now is my rescue flowers.  Come the end of summer all the annuals were going on sale.  This was about the time my vegetables had kicked the bucket and I had a bucket of empty dirt to fill.  So I rescued plants from Wallies World and my local nursery, who was trying to desperately to find homes for their little beauties.  If I remember correctly most of the stuff was around 80% off and buy one get one free on top of that.

So now I have purple and white verbena and alyssum making my patio all pretty.  The alyssum, which came from Walmart, were pretty sad looking when I got them.  Now look at them! *beams*

And on a side note.  Having now participated in my first Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day I feel like an official garden blogger.  For more happy blooms go on ahead to May Dreams Gardens.

Adventure!

My apartment doesn't have a garden but it makes up for it by being so close to the mountains that I love.

Last week my sister and I took the dogs and went up to explore one of the numerous trails found around Rainbow Gardens at the mouth of the canyon.  And boy was it a treat!

We found a beautiful little green valley that had a natural hot spring!

Jen was the one who noticed that the water was steaming in the chilly mountain air.  So, I went over and held my hand above it and then stuck my fingers in the clean water.  For some perspective, in the shade our breath was starting to show and there were still patches of snow on the ground from the first snow fall.  The spring was the perfect foot bath temperature.  It was hot without being scalding.  I had only expect it to be lukewarm at best since it was just a tiny pool.  Such a fun discovery. :)

And the dogs had a blast running free all over the place.


Just look at that handsome boy.

I can't wait for spring.  There were some cacti growing just outside of this little valley and I just know their going to be gorgeous when they bloom.

Know your weeds

I’ve learned the flowers can be weeds too.  My Mom and I had some alyssum bloom and flourish and as the years went by it turned wild.  It took over the flower beds and grew little spines that would leave a rash on my wrist when we started trying to eradicate them.  And don’t get me started on what a pain it’s been trying to keep the shasta daisies to a reasonable size, or the creeping thyme from choking out the rock crest.  There’s also the gorgeous snap dragons that come up from seed between the flagstones. (I can’t bring myself to pull them out) According to my mother, if it’s not growing were you want it too, or it’s taking over, it’s a weed pull it out.

Weeds can also be pretty.  We’ve quite purposefully left some cinquefoil growing in a few flower beds.

When it comes to weeding, my mom and I follow my grandpa’s advice.  If you don’t know what it is, let it grow.  If it’s pretty and you like where it is leave it, if it starts to choke out your other flowers and isn’t pretty, dig it up.

I’ll pretend that this is the advice I was following when I didn’t pull the weird things growing in my flower box on the balcony and not laziness.

I really didn’t think I’d have to fight weeds in my grow boxes out on our itty bitty balcony since our apartment is on the third floor and it’s somewhat sheltered from wind and other stuff.  So maybe it was also curiosity that led me to leave the little green things to grow amongst my flowers.  There’s no way I deny it was laziness when I let them keep getting bigger when they were clearly not pretty flowers.

When they were finally about 6 inches tall I got off my ass and pulled them up.  Upon closer inspection, while I knew they weren’t flowers, they also weren’t any of the broad leaf weeds that I’m familiar with.  I’d thought maybe they were dandelions in their early stages but they clearly were not.  Then an idea occurred to me.  I sniffed them.  Smelled like lettuce.  I took a bite.  Tasted like lettuce.  So I took them to Chris.

“Do you think these are lettuce?”

“They do kinda smell like lettuce.”

“Eat them!” I demanded.

He obligingly took a bite.

“Taste like lettuce.”

Apparently some of the vegetables I’d attempt to grow in that same box in the spring had decided to germinate a bit later in the year.  Now I wish I had let them grow more but I made the best of the situation and had a baby romaine lettuce salad for breakfast.  I’ve decided it’s good to know weeds as well as flowers so I don’t pull up hapless baby vegetables in the future.