When Mom was here, I sent her home with the Wedding quilt (my SAHRR creation). Plans for a new vehicle were still up in the air, and with the wedding in September, I didn’t want to take the chance of running out of time to quilt it.
She kindly offered to quilt it for me and last week she finished it up.
She did an all over flower/leaf pattern with the quilting…
And put a pretty scalloped edge and binding on the whole thing.
It finished up at about 64″ square – perfect for cuddling under in front to the TV.
Now it’s all tucked away until the wedding in September. And it feels good to have that to-do off my list!
While the early summer has been a touch too warm for my liking lately, we’ve had a good amount of rain to go along with it so the gardens are thriving (so are the weeds – so that’s my big job for this weekend). As a result, there are several new bloomers to show off.
Catchfly, Asiatic Lily and False Sunflower. The Catchfly and the Lily will only bloom for a short while, but the False Sunflower will go almost to the first frost. It’s also a HUGE plant – almost taller than me.
And remember how I was lamenting how almost all my foxgloves were the bright, brash pink. But then one whitish one did come up in the catio (even though it’s really a pale pinky purple)….
Well – I discovered ONE pure white one out front, as well as this paler pink. The paler pink is a bit of a puzzle. It’s a version called Artic Fox Rose…. but I only ever had it out back – not out front. How its seeds got all the way out there is beyond me – I won’t complain! I’ll be spreading the seeds of both of these around to get more!
New Dawn – the Climbing Rose on the catio fence is in full bloom. It’s flowers are small, but they are everywhere!
It will be interesting to see if this one blooms all summer – it didn’t last year, but I believe it’s supposed to.
Out front, the arbour climbers are really showing off too.
Eden on one side.
Quicksilver on the other. I’m amazed how quickly they’ve grown to cover it. I only planted them last year.
The Sundrops have absolutely exploded too! I was surprised. Mom has a sundrop plant and it hasn’t spread like this. Of course, hers isn’t in full sun – and this one is! I am going to have to split this one up much sooner than I thought!
The White Ballooflower is blooming too. I was worried about it because it didn’t do well last year – thanks to Relic and Burton using it as a nap spot. But they’ve left it alone this year and it’s thriving – it’s even coming up in another spot ACROSS the catio yard. Don’t ask me how THAT happened.
Both of the Honeysuckle vines are blooming nicely. I’ve seen a few hummingbirds but no pictures yet, They are elusive little creatures.
This little plant is another of my “curiosities”. It’s a type of Campanula. It’s very small – only a few inches high. You can see it has these bright chartreuse leaves. And then it gets covered in tiny blurple flowers. It’s such a pretty little thing. I had to move it a few times because it just kept getting lost under other plants. I have it at the front of the sidewalk garden and it seems to be thriving there.
And speaking of small…. These little guys popped up in the front garden in front of my bee balm. It’s Annual Fleabane (though I always knew it as Wild Aster). It’s a native plant, and most consider it a weed. But it won’t take over, and it’s good for the pollinators, so it can stay. It’s a pretty tall plant, but the flowers are no bigger than a dime.
And last – I took the advice of many internet gardeners and planted some Borage near the veg beds. Apparently it’s a pollinator magnet, and brings them in so they pollinate it, and your veg. It’s got pretty little blue flowers so it’s a welcome addition.
Now – I better go pay some attention to those weeds….
It was a fun little pattern, but if you’re not fun of wrap and turn – stay away! This chick is full of it. I don’t mind W&T at all, thus I have a completed chicken!
The pattern also calls for a couple colour changes, creating strategically placed stripes…
but I felt that the colour changes in Mom’s handspun were more than enough so I left them out.
We woke up to rain Sunday morning so I took advantage of the enforced indoor time to get the top of my red and white quilt together.
Naturally, Burton had to be right in the middle of things. The blocks went together pretty quickly. They are big (16″) and are only 16 of them. Once they were together, it was just a matter of adding some borders. I wanted it big enough to cover the bed, and drop down the sides to past the top of the dust ruffle.
Mission accomplished!
Here’s a closer look at those borders.
Progressively larger borders until I got the top to 88″ square.
I have more of that red floral from the border for the binding. And this beautiful print from for the back.
It’s not part of the Moda French General line – it’s from Connecting Threads – but I thought it was a pretty good match to the overall feel of the quilt.
I’m not sure when I’ll be able to quilt it, as my vehicle situation is still in a bit of limbo (Dory is still drivable, but we’re keeping her to local trips, just in case – I need to get something newer soon). But I’m happy to have the top off my to do list.
I fully expect to have a finished butterfly to show you today. But after digging up all that sod, I just ran out of steam.
I had barely enough energy to finish that flower at the bottom. So – I still have two leaves left to do – then this one will finally be done.
Now that the major work in the garden is done, I’m hoping to settle into more of a routine that should help me get my projects done in slightly better time. At least, that’s the theory.
After saying I wasn’t going to buy many more plants for the gardens this year…I bought so many that I had to expand one of the gardens.
I really didn’t want to do this, because ripping up sod is such a chore. But I still had a pile of plants, and literally no where for them to go!
So, I sucked it up and decided to expand the strip garden at the side of the front yard. This garden was only about 8 inches wide, but 10 or so feet long. It was home to several shrubs (Tinkerbell Lilac, Marina Rose of Sharon, and Queen of Heart Butterfly Bush) and a couple roses (Prairie Princess and Caroline de Monaco), with a handful of perennials in between.
I needed to expand it enough to hold two more roses, some daylilies, a columbine, a coneflower, Tickseed, Cat Mint, Pincushion plant and a few annuals. In the end, I created a large curved expansion, about tripling the size of the bed.
It took all morning and most of the afternoon, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. Here’s a closer look at some of the new additions.
Top Right- Orange Conflower. Top Left – Purple and White Columbine. Bottom Left: White Pincushion plant. Bottom Right: Bolero rose.
I was not at all planning on getting another whiteish rose. I already have three – Iceberg (which I’d bought earlier this year), Caroline de Monaco (though the jury is still out on how well she survived her deep cutting) and Eden – the climber which is white with a pink centre and just starting to open on the arbour.
But Bolero is a more creamy white, a big globe-shaped flower, and the most amazing scent. It was the scent that made me buy it! I think it may be a new favourite!
At any rate, it’s going to fun to watch this new garden fill in.
After all that work, I got cleaned up and Dave and I headed out for a little celebration dinner.
Saturday marked the third anniversary of officially becoming home-owners! So we treated ourselves at our favourite Chinese food place in the next town over! I had certainly worked up an appetite!
One of my favourite things about visiting nurseries and garden centres is finding new, unique plants. And I’ve found several this year.
This plant, with is cool red/yellow pea-like flower is called Scotch Broom. It’s a flowering shrub, and I was so drawn to those firey flowers.
This is a Chenille plant and I’ve never seen anything like it! Apparently it does well as a house plant, so I’ll definitely be bringing it inside when the weather turns colder.
A few years back, my passion flower died. So I was thrilled to find another one. This one is more blue than my old one (which was more white). Like the chenille plant, this will come in for the winter. I just need to find a really sunny spot!
Long time readers may remember my Navy Lady rose. She was one of my favourites, and sadly, she did not suvive the move. I’ve been looking for another one since then, and I finally found her!
But in tree form! I’ve wanted a tree rose FOREVER, so finding Navy Lady as one was just icing on the cake. As you can see, I’ve put her in the sunny border of the woodland garden. Her height helps enclose the space just a little more.
In a June garden, the first thought it almost always of roses.
And we have roses aplenty here. Though they are really only just getting started. I’ve added four new roses bushes this year (after saying I wasn’t going to add any). That brings my total up to 12 – not including the mini roses I have in the front boxes, and a couple other mini roses I have scattered about.
Roses have always been one of my favourite flowers. But I am a little picky about which ones I put in my garden. I generally prefer Hybrid Teas and Floribundas, thought I do have a couple shrub roses. My main thing is they MUST be continual bloomers. I have no use for a rose that blooms once and then is done for the season. Scent is nice too, though not an absolute must if the rose is pretty enough.
I’ll share details on the four newbies in another post. There’s lots more rose blooms to come this summer.
June is also the time of the Peony. This one is Coral Sunset, and I planted it the second year we were here. She’s really starting to come into her own now. She’s a little different for me, being a single open peony. I’ve always tended towards to big ruffley doubles. (I have three of them, but they won’t bloom for another few years most likely). The singles are the best kind of peony for pollinators, because it’s easier to get to the pollen. But that’s not why I bought her. I just loved the colour!
The foxgloves are big and bold and brash.
And in almost every garden. I think I mentioned I was a little sad that none of them were white. I love the bold pink ones, but in truth, the white ones are my favourite. But as luck would have it – look was popped up in the catio yard the other day…
They aren’t a pure white (thanks to pollination!) – more of a white streaked with pinky purple, but they are much more subtle and lovely. I’m going to make sure I get seed from these ones to spread around the other gardens. The pink ones are just a little overwhelming!
A pollinator favourite – my ornamental sage is all abloom. As you can see, I have this in multiple colours.
One thing new I added last year was Cat Mint.
The purple one is “Cats Pajamas”. The light pink one is new for this year – it’s “Whispurr Pink” I always thought Cat Nip and Cat Mint were two names for the same plant. They aren’t but they are related. The Cat Nip I keep in a pot because it’s seeds go EVERYwhere if I leave it in the garden. It’s flowers are white, and slightly different – though it’s not blooming yet.
I’ve showed you my Widow’s Tears individually, but here they are all lined up together.
Like Daylilies, the flowers only last one day – but they keep coming.
My white clematis seems to have enjoyed her early spring prune. She’s just covered in flowers. Back and Front.
And speaking of covered….
The Dianthans are doing their thing! I have them through almost all the gardens, because they give such bang for the buck. They are sold cheap, as annuals. But in our zone, they come back and they are pretty easy to help re-seed.
I’ve got a new poppy blooming. It’s called Central Park, and it’s a lovely cherry pink. The poppies have had a bit of a rough time – their foliage isn’t looking as good as it usually does, so I’m going to make sure to spread these seeds. I love having poppies in the garden and I’d hate to lose them.
And last….
Both of my honeysuckles are blooming. I’ve already seen Mr. Hummingbird flitting around. Hopefully I can get a picture or two of him this year!
Wandering Cat Studio 