Spring Recap Part II

Yay! I found my camera.  This made me very happy.  I also realized that there were a lot of early spring flowers on it that I didn't get to share.  So before we move onto other things you get to see more of what my Mother's garden was like a little while ago.

These first few bulbs are all more rescues from my Grandpa's garden.

Grape Hyacinth

 These guys were kind of funny.  I think they might be a more wild type.  They were much larger with heavier foliage than I'm used to seeing grape hyacinths with.

Peach Daffodils, one of my favorites

More Daffodils

Shhh.  Don't tell anyone, but I think daffodils, or 'Narcissus', were named after my Dad.  Well, at least his personality ;)

Pink Tulips

Top view!

These were quit the surprise!  I found that was half the fun of saving all of these bulbs from my Grandfather's garden.  We had no idea what we would be getting.  I don't think these are something either my mom or I would have picked out but we both absolutely loved them.  They were giant!  Especially compared to the little yellow ones. (remember?  midget tulip?  No?  Go look at the previous post then.)

Rock Cress

Love!  Another favorite.  It's sooo much happier this year.  My mom and I went through the trouble of removing the weed barrier that Dad had put in years ago with such good intentions.  That's whole different post though.  Suffice it to say, the rock cress has been as thrilled to have it gone as us.

A Hybrid Tulip of some kind

Sorry for the poor focus on that shot.

Mountain Alyssum
 

Red and White Snap Dragons

Every year we have snap dragons come up everywhere from seed in all kinds of different colors. It's a fun way to see genetic recomposition in action.  We have blooms that we never planted, or I've ever seen in the stores.  They love to grow up between cracks and between rocks in particular.

But I won't ramble here.  I could easily make a post about the snap dragons in the garden alone.  I'll rant then :)

Tiger Lily

 You know what?  It's nice growing up, having a job, and having money to spend.  Being able to buy this lily and plant it for my mom as an early Mother's day present might have made me even more happy than her!  And she was really happy about it.

Garden Gnomes

And last but not least, garden gnomes!  No, not the creepy plastic ones.  These cute little guys make fabulous ground cover and seem to do really well in our dry climate.  They're another one that we never have to plant because we always get tons of them from seed.

I have to confess.  I have a love hate relationship with the gnomes.  Why you ask?  Because they consort with the enemy!  They hide nasty baby weeds beneath them and say "nothing to see here but us!"  So I don't see them, and don't get to pull them out when it's easy.  Guess the garden gnomes think I should wait until those weeds grow up a bit and pick on some one my own size.  Also, they're learning bad habits from their weeds friends.  The june grass has taught them how to take over beds and even choke out other flowers!  Because their so cute though, I have a really hard time pulling them out.

And that's it for this year's early bloomers.  Admittedly some of these guys bloom all summer, like the gnomes.  But I wanted to share them anyways since they open up so early in the year.

Spring Recap Part I

Oh dear lord.  It's already May.  How did this happen?  It seems like only a week or so ago I was enjoying the first spring blooms and buds, but now things are a riot of color and our earliest bloomers are going to seed.

Originally this post was going to be a day early Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.  But then I realized that I've lost my camera, which has all the pictures of what's going on right now.  The only stuff on my computer is from earlier this year.  I really missed out sharing this stuff earlier.  So, I'll share it now!  And, provided that I find my camera today, you'll get the official Bloom Day post tomorrow.  Two posts in a row would be a good way to get things moving after months of nothing right?

But enough chit-chat.  On to the pretty pictures!

Violets in the lawn

 My mom and I are both drawn to the purple flowers.  There's a lot of yellow, pinks, blues, and reds that show up later in the year.  But when flowers first start blooming in her yard it's pretty much just purple with a little bit of yellow.

So proud of this photo

Pasque!  Our first bloomer every year.  This fabulous fuzzy purple plant has gladly taken over the north end of our 'island'.  Be prepared for more pictures of these guys later.  They're actually going to seed right now, but I spent weeks dead heading hundreds upon hundreds of blooms (one day last year I counted. 400 some odd faded flowers I removed, and that was only one day of many!) to keep them going as long as possible.  You would think dead heading that many flowers would be a chore but it really isn't.  It's by far one of my favorite spring activities.  It definitely helps that they are so soft!  Seriously, when they get warm from the sun they feel like a living critter.

Pretty pink primrose

Another spring favorite.  Because the primroses have been doing so well my mom and I went and bought a ton more this year.  This pretty pink one is my favorite and was the first one to open up.  Mom got it to cheer me up last year when I struggling with depression.  Pictures of all the new guys will be coming ;)

 The bleeding heart was a new introduction to our garden this year.  And he is just so pretty surrounded by the pasque.  He seems to like his new home.  He's still blooming!

Pasque, bleeding hearts, and those fuzzy things in the background are my neighbors daffodils :D

Yellow tulip

I can't look at this little guy without laughing.  These yellow tulips are rescues from my deceased Grandfather's garden.  We have no idea if they are blooming so close to the ground because of trauma from being moved, or if he remembers not being able to bloom for years because of getting mowed down by deer, and is therefore afraid to go any higher.

Mountain cress (i think)

 Another plant inherited from a grandparent's garden.  This one came years ago from my Grandmother's garden.  My mom adores it.  I think it's pretty too.  This is admittedly, not the best picture of it.  *grumbles* stupid missing camera

English daisy

And another new comer!  It's cute!

Alright.  I'm off to find my camera.  But wait!  I'm curious, what are your favorite early bloomers?  And is your garden dominated by one end of the color spectrum, or is it a rainbow?  Does is shift from cool colors to warm along with the season?  And one more question.  Does anyone want pasque seeds?  If you do just ask!  It's time for me to collect seeds and there are just so many of them.  I'm already sharing with family and neighbors but there's plenty to go around.

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.

The Garden Apartment

When I first started this blog (originally called ‘My Own Blog… Take that!’ M.O.B. For short.  I rather liked the irony of ‘joining the mob but keeping my individuality’ to bad it really was an online journal no matter how much I tried to say it wasn’t and just wasn’t working)  I knew a little bit about writing and absolutely nothing about blogging.  I probably still don’t really know that much, but I’m learning as I go along.  Most of my original post were about, well, blogging. The posts I was writing were really for my own personal processing.  This one kind of is too.

But that will change.

For one, I now have a theme.

Out of all of my hobbies and activities; ballet, writing, drawing, gardening, gaming, hiking, running, other physical activities, reading, school, comics, etcetera, etcetera; gardening is the one I think I really want to share with the blogging community.  Now, I don’t actually have a garden of my own.  I live in an apartment with my boyfriend along the beautiful Wasatch front.  I cheat by helping my Mom with her gorgeous yard but it isn’t the same as tending a place I can call my own.

Here’s what you can expect from me in the future.

Container garden: planters, ideas, what I’m trying and what is and isn’t working.
House plants: kinda the same thing as with the planters only inside.
Bonsai: this is my newest hobby that I’m looking forward to exploring and sharing with you.
There will also be the occasional post about my Mom’s garden, the wild life on my hikes, and heaven only knows what else.

It should be fun!  Thanks for reading and I hope you find something you can enjoy here.  Feel free to send me any tips or fun things you come across.  I hope you can learn from my mistakes.  I’m really a novice at both gardening and blogging but what’s life in not a learning experience?

Blogs and Journals

Even though there are people out there who treat them as such Blogs are not public journals, or diaries.  They have similarities but they are hardly the same thing.  For starters they are a completely different type of forum.  Typically a journal, and especially a diary, is private.  That doesn’t mean people can’t share personal bits of their lives on blogs.  Blogs are not private.  Most bloggers that I’ve read put quite a bit of themselves out in the open.  Kudos for them.  I’ve noticed that they are a good way to start very healthy, fun, public discussions.  And I think personally that writing a blog can be a lot more fun that attempting to record your life on private paper.

Recently however, I got a journal.  I’ve wanted and needed a place to write down my personal thoughts, especially things that I can’t or don’t want to share.  I also want the hard copy.  My mom still has her journals from when she was about my age and they are definitely something to cherish.  I’d like to think that my journal is for me and maybe my family.  My blog is also for me.  But it’s also for everyone out there who stumbles across it.  They’re both awesome and have their place in my opinion.  I look forward to trying to keep semi-regular use of both of them.

The leather is really soft =3

When I created this blog I named it “My Own Blog… Take That!”  I kinda liked that the WORD for the first part turns it into “MOB… Take That!”  I come from a family with a history of proud non conformist.  I planned to do with this whatever I wanted as I was inspired to do because I wanted to and for no other reason.  I still intend to do this.  I’m not a great writer.  This has most likely been stated somewhere before, but my sister is the wonderful writer.  So I never expect to make money or become popular or win awards through this.

Then I got an email.  I kinda skimmed it.  But from what it sounded like I was getting offered money to post stuff (most likely adds) on my blog for my community.  It also stated that it is my job to find out what interest my community and to address it!  Or something like that.

Now I won’t lie.  A little money would be nice.  But like I said.  I’m not a great writer.  And they clearly didn’t read the first post about this being MY blog for ME.  As selfish as that may sound it’s true.  It is not my job at the moment to write what will please others around me.  Especially when all my time is taken up being a student and trying to become a ballerina.  Maaaaybe I’ll go hunt that email back up and read it carefully.  Look into it a little more.  But I’m not so sure I want to.  Even though I now have my own personal journal, this is still mine and my forum to do with as I please.  Isn’t it?