Skip to main content

Top o' the Mornin' To Ya!

... more to come after school drop-off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Many hours later...

I had an errand to run down in Denver. I always love driving through the city. There were many festive greens: planters, pants, green plywood over a walkway, ties, skirts, etc.

BFJ is 1/4 Irish, and we do like St. Patrick's Day, but I don't have a lot of SPD decorations. We do have a big green living room wall! I am planning to make stew and soda bread for dinner. Hopefully it'll be a hit. I was hoping to celebrate today by potting up a bunch of seeds but I haven't gotten to that yet. Maybe by the end of the month. On the other hand, I was very surprised, and cautiously pleased, to find so much green on the outside of my house this past week. Cautiously pleased because we haven't had much snow; we still have two months before one can confidently plant for summer, and I hope my eager sprouts are not killed by a late frost. I hope that we have more snow, and the plants I see can withstand it.

I think this is my allium, planted last fall. I haven't ever seen a picture of the bottom of an allium, just the top, so I can't say for sure, but I don't know what else it can be.


I thought that Teresa, Natalie, and Sue might appreciate this. I grew up in a parsonage, and there was a beautiful and very fragrant dark lilac between our house and the church. A couple years ago, when I knew my parents were soon to be leaving, I dug up a sucker and planted it in my yard. It is still teeny-tiny, but thriving.


Here we have the aquilegia caerulea 'Red Hobbit'. Since columbines are native to Colorado, I am not worried about this one. The picture of it in bloom is from last June, and it's hairy-looking because we'd just had some breezy days with cotton blowing around, but normally it doesn't have a halo like that.

My mother-in-law lives a couple of blocks away and has ten clematis. (I counted them last year.) I think they are so nice, so I've planted a few of my own. This one is Clematis x durandii, planted last year. It will theoretically grow up the side of my shed. I am very pleased to see it cheerily sprouting up already; last year it bloomed, although brand new and only about 8" tall. I have a trellis for it on my "to do" list.
And finally, I am SO relieved to see that some of my blue tulips survived the dog digging them up five times over the winter. It looks like only half of the twelve survived, but I am glad I made the effort to keep putting them back. I have high expectations. I'm not sure whether I can trust my dog to leave this spot alone, though, so I haven't taken the chicken wire off yet. (By the way, the chicken wire has not prevented her from trying to dig them up again, but has prevented her from succeeding!) I would like to plant some thyme between them to make it less inviting. What do you think? Will that keep her away??

If you could use even more green, visit the green week. Green is one my favorite colors, and I have tons but somehow, but I missed it.

Comments

  1. Columbine and Clematis are two of my favorite plants, Karen! Lovely photos - thank you!
    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Such beautiful pictures of all your plants! I need to start looking for blooms in my yard.

    ReplyDelete
  3. these plant are very attractive to the eyes, and I believe it most be spring.

    Uche Ebele Jecinta
    Unizik Awka

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love reading your comments! Please be sure to LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS (if it isn't included in your profile) so that I may respond to you. Thank you!

Popular posts from this blog

reasons I knit

I haven't posted a lot of knitting on here in the last few years.  Not much to say about it but I still knit.   I knit because I love to create. I knit because I love sweaters. I knit because I grew up with a mom who is artistic beyond the acknowledgement she receives, and it's in my blood to do something creative. I knit because I love the good things God grows, like sheep and wool and muskox and cotton. I knit because I love colors. I knit because my boys wear what I knit. I knit because I like the rhythm. I knit because it has a beginning and an end, and they are achievable.  I knit because when my hands are busy, my mouth slows down, and it gives my brain a chance to make better decisions. I knit because I'm really, really good at it, and it's one of the few things that others acknowledge, and we all need that. I knit because I love to knit. I'm working on a colorful shawl in alpaca. 

modular knitting

On the plus side, modular knitting gives one interesting options for colorwork and color blocking.  Sometimes the dye process can give the yarn its own commentary, like this changing of scales. However, there are often many more ends to weave in.  This one is not too bad, but there's at least four ends on every row - 14 rows.  Still, interesting to try something new! Details on my Ravelry page , if you are interested!!  Have you tried modular knitting?  Thumbs up or down??

getting through winter

As classes of all sorts get scheduled, rescheduled and postponed due to weather, and with the short days with less light, I often find January and February to be a forced pause.  Years like this convince me that I should get good at reading rain gauges and keeping track of the temperature.  It seems like we've had an usual amount of snow.  That should be good for our snow pack and seasonal runoff to fill creeks, lakes, basins, but we'll see what the spring brings.  In the meantime, I have been trying to tick off indoor chores and projects, and working on garden things.   We have started a handful of seedlings:  basil, foxgloves, verbascum, lavender, rosemary, onions and something new to us, naranjilla .  We have varying levels of success.  The naranjilla did take a long time to germinate; I think we used 11 seeds, and we currently have five seedlings, some a couple weeks older than others!  We're still 12-14 weeks out from planting and I really had my hands full last year -