garden

Social Saturday | September 3

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bachelor's buttons tiny bouquet with teacups in the background for a tea party

Happy Saturday Dear Readers! Here are a few things I’ve been up to in the past few weeks.

Thankful For- Tea parties with friends! We served Earl Grey Tea and Vanilla Cheesecakes with sugared pansies on top (this recipe, but with an almond crust). So pretty!

vanilla cheesecake cut into squares with purple and white sugared pansy decorations on top

Reading– Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. I recently read a different book about WWII and was interested in reading more about Bonhoeffer. And then when I visited a second hand book shop a couple of weeks ago, I found this one.

a very tiny fairy egg beside a normal sized egg

Loving– This adorable tiny little “fairy egg” or “fart egg” one of our hens laid. It was so small, yet was perfectly formed with a little yolk and everything! (Read more about fairy eggs here.)

Watching– So many home decorating channels on Youtube. I’ve been especially enjoying XO MaCenna renovating a 1910 fixer upper and Lone Fox working on a 1929 Spanish Revival home. Do you know of any other good home decor channels?

Making– Refinishing an antique dresser! It’s taking a lot longer than I first anticipated, but I think I’m going to love it once I’m done. If I ever finish it, that is…

spicy green peppers, tomatoes and peas fresh from the garden

Eating– Veggies from the garden; tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, potatoes, carrots…home grown produce is so delicious and flavourful!

Hope you have a great weekend, however you spend it!

bell pepper turning yellow and branches with dark berries on them

Last Days of Summer

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blue bachelor's buttons flowers

I can’t believe that it’s already the last day of August..where did the summer go? I had so many projects I wanted to complete over the warm months, but between the humidity and the heat waves, that didn’t go exactly as planned. (I am working on a furniture refinishing project and have been getting up early in the morning to go and work on it outside before the sun heats up too much!)

We’re currently in one last, well, I hope it’s the last, burst of high temperatures. I am hopeful that when we turn the page to September, the weather will cool off a bit. It’s already starting to feel like the end of summer though; the sun sets earlier, the nights are chilly, the flowers are fading and we’re harvesting vegetables from the garden. There truly is a change in the air and the sunlight that signals the changing of the seasons…and I love it!

Here are some of the flowers from the month of August before it’s time to enjoy the fall leaves.

hydrangea flower blooms

bumblebee in a hollyhock flower

There were so many bumblebees on the hollyhock blooms, but as soon as I tried to take a picture of them, they all left, so this is the best I got. They must be camera shy!

pink hollyhock blooms with light striping

My mom grew so many lilies and they all had such abundant blooms this year!

light pink asiatic lily

orange tiger lily and white asiatic lily

broken heart double asiatic lily

orange and yellow sunflower and burgandy and orange daylily

white yarrow and pink blooming sedum

blue sea holly

blue and burgundy purple bachelors buttons blooms

Social Saturday | July 2 (More Flowers!)

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pink and orange lily blooms

And some more flowers today…the garden is in gorgeous colour right now. This is the first year that the plants are really starting to fill in and my mom has done a lovely job of staggered bloom times, so we’ve got even more flowers coming soon. We’ve also had a lovely summer so far with rain and sun, but not too hot, so the plants (and me!) are very happy.

And… that’s all I have to share for today, I hope you have a lovely weekend!

pink roses

pink roses with yellow flowers in the background

fuchsia rose bloom

white mock orange bloom with pink roses in the background

dark pink painted daisy

multi coloured pansies and white yarrow

purple blue siberian iris

Peonies in Bloom

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large pink peony blooms fading in colour around the edges

This is slowly and unintentionally turning into a flower blog…. there are just so many beautiful flowers in my mom’s garden all bursting into glorious colour, though, and I can’t resist indulging myself in taking tons of photos of them! And then, of course, cutting some of the blooms and bringing them indoors to enjoy. Peonies are probably my favourite flowers (if I had to choose just one), but the bad part about them is the bugs also love them. So, you always have to shake all of them off otherwise you inadvertently bring a million tiny beetles into the house. But that extra work is worth it, because they smell heavenly!

pink peony blooms, one cut and placed on a windowsill in a tiny vase

I love these dark pink ones, since they fade to light pink as they open. They are almost all gone now: short lived, but so enjoyable.

pink peony bloom from the side, dark pink fading to light pink at the tips

White peonies aren’t my favourite variety, but this variety with the dark magenta centre is so vibrant that I do enjoy them. They are difficult to take pictures of, though.

single white peony bloom opening with a dark magenta pink splash in the centre

a white pink peony bloom with a dark pink centre

We have several more peony blooms that haven’t opened yet- one new variety called “Raspberry Sundae” that I’m so excited to see. I’ll try to get some photos to post here…and then photos of all of the other flowers that are blooming right now too.

What flowers are blooming where you live? What is your favourite flower?

small pink peony bloom in various shades of pink

masses of pink peony blooms

a single peony bloom in a vase on a windowsill with a lace curtain

After the Rain

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pink ruffled flowers with raindrops on them

We’ve had such a hot, dry summer with heat wave after heat wave. I don’t love hot weather, so I was very happy when we had a nice cloudy day recently with a good rain. Unfortunately, it’s been so dry that the rain didn’t make much of a difference to the water table, and we really could do with several days in a row of a steady, soaking rain…but at least we had that small reprieve. And when it had finished raining and the clouds had passed, there were millions of diamonds left behind frosting each and every petal.

dark purple blue pansy covered in rain drops

astilbe and a burgundy daylily

Astilbe and a Burgundy Daylily

rose mallow with rain drops on the petals

Pink Mallow or Lavatera

rose mallow and german statice flowers in the garden

Mallow and German Statice

pale periwinkle blue delphinium flower

Delphinium

sedum and daylily covered in rain droplets

Sedum and Orange and Yellow Daylily

pink climbing rose

John Cabot climbing rose

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