Showing posts with label african violet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label african violet. Show all posts

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Gold and Glory

It's a good thing I gave you a one day break from the morning glories, because they sure figure prominantly today. But look at these colors and decide if you can blame me.

Once again, I am running a day behind and these are photos from Saturday morning's garden.

We had a late-night party at work (I expect that often sounds more fun than it is, though this was not an unpleasant evening by most accounts), so I didn't actually get out of there until well past midnight...and then stopped in briefly at a friend's house party, so my arrival at home was rather late and I really wasn't up for posting at that particular hour.

I didn't even get to watch much in the way of Olympic coverage yesterday, though I was finished with my shift in time to catch the medals ceremony for the US Swim Team, including wonder-aquaman Michael Phelps, who earned his eighth gold for these games, breaking Marc Spitz' old record of seven at the Munich Games in 1972.

(thanks to Afod for IMing me in the office as the shift wound down to let me know of Phelps' latest victory!)

Is it strange that I remember that? I think '72 was the first time I watched the Olympics. I'd have been seven years old at the time. Of course, those games were marred by awful things, so perhaps that burned it in my young memory, as well. But I remember Mark Spitz' poolside moments, too.

In an interesting bit of foreshadowing of Phelps' Olympic glory perhaps (because it's always easy to see the foreshadowing the next day), one of the sulphur cosmos plants - which had previously only been producing blooms in electric orange - began blooming in yellow...or maybe we should say, gold.


The garden is a wild patch of chaos still. No amount of deadheading will change that, though at least I can keep the blooming going.

Any serious attempts to weed things out at this point would probably leave big patches of emptiness and cause instability for the plants that would remain, as everything has grown together into something larger than themselves.

Which is fine by me: between work and life there's plenty to keep me occupied away from the business of obsessive garden tending. I'm afraid every August finds me leaving it to its own devices to some extent.


I have now harvested the first couple of Early Girl tomatoes, since they had finally come on with some nice color. I haven't tasted them yet, though, so I'll have to wait to give you the remainder of my review of them...and we'll see if mine are any tastier than other garden bloggers' reports.

Finally, I'll deflect your attention away from the garden for a moment, to show off my African violet, which is merrily blooming its little head off by my bedroom window.

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Palm Sunday Surprise


Well, this is a little more like it!!

The African violet at my bedroom window surprised me with a few delicate blossoms this morning. I had hoped to see some flowers here soon, as the plant's been growing nicely over the winter. I just didn't think they'd come so soon! Yay...

Behold, the miracle! Inside this wierd looking husk lies all you need for some of the most fantastic flowers possible. Just add dirt and water.

I got a five pack of assorted lilies at the Christmas Tree Shop recently for pretty cheap. Especially since this particular five-pack had six bulbs in it! The last one was a little small...so I'll keep my expectations low.

But I remain excited about the bonus and look forward to seeing what colors these will be. As far as I'm concerned, you can't beat lilies for adding some spots of random fabulousness in a border garden.


And it was fun to get out there and dig a few holes in the ground. It wasn't nearly as soppy as I thought it would be with the recent rain, so the drainage seems pretty good, save one patch of clay pretty far down the fence.

I'd already chosen things from the old place which had thrived in similar conditions to plant at that end...so perhaps all will be well.

I also found, during the Move, a packet of sweet pea seeds which Mom and Dad brought me from their trip to England.

They're a few years old, as they'd been misplaced during a previous Move, but I planted a bunch of them just the same, around the fence posts. I have a good feeling about them and it's the right time of year for planting.

If they germinate, I'll make some string trellaces for them to clamber on.

More bits of green are appearing here and there...like these chrysanthemums. I can't be sure, as things got a little mixed up during transition, but I think these are the imperial mums which joined the family last year.

A TECHNICAL NOTE: It's amazing how time flies. As of this entry, I'll have posted to this blog 1316 times since I started in April of 2005. I know this because I realized recently that there hadn't been the option for post tags back when I started and so most of my entries don't have them.

I spent some time today going back and adding tags to about two hundred of the earliest posts. Most of those are just pictures, but still, it will be great to have them all cross-referenced. For example, click on the tag
"lilies" and see what you get!