Gargoyles in the Garden!

Forget concrete geese, elves, and deer! i have my Gargoyles! This green one is the first I ever found - i painted him with the only paint i had on hand at the time - a strange metallic green fabric paint! The fangs weren't cast very well, so i actually made these for him - implants, if you will!

... a few others...

i really like this one - he looks like he can't take it anymore!

My newest addition to the family - he's just a tiny thing found at a thrift store- and yes, i added the touches of paint!

Early Spring Pics

i'm getting antsy - went around the garden and took photos in the bright, cold ( unfortunately, VERY cold ) afternoon. LOOKED warm and pretty, though...! Above is a just - budding lilac with last year's kiwi vine curled around it.

My hubby loves rocks - moves them around and arranges them all the time - sometimes we both forget where the bulbs are planted!

These are some of my favorite little spring ephemerals ( chionodoxa ) on the rock garden.



...reflections in the pond....



i love Easter Egg trees ! Easter is my favorite holiday - nothing to do with religion, exactly, just like the pastels, the flowers, the celebration of Springtime!

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Yay! First Day Of Spring!!!

i am referring to yesterday (even though the first day of Spring was almost a week ago). i mean that it was the first day when i could TELL it was Spring! It was fairly warm, rained on and off in the morning, but cleared up in the afternoon. The breeze had lost it's chill, the birds were singing and i could SMELL things growing! From a distance i could see a faint green tint to the trees and bushes, which told me that they were starting to leaf out. These first few days like this make me feel as if i had been holding my breath for six months and can finally start breathing! The weeping Crabapple in the front flower bed still doesn't look like much, but just wait a little while longer, and it will be totally transformed!

I Love The Tropics

...which is funny, cause i've never BEEN to the tropics! i have palm tree jewelry, palm tree clothing, palm tree screen savers, even growing a hardy palm in my Z5b climate. It's an obsession with me- i was born in this area, but i still hate wintertime - hate the cold and the dark (while it still may be dark in the winter in the warm zones, it would still be WARM!). Plus my Tillies could stay outside, where they belong!

i complain every winter, and everyone tells me, "Oh, then you'll complain when it's hot". Not hardly. Yes, in the summer, there are times when i am really hot and sweaty and worn out from the heat, but no one ever hears me complain. Now, when i was a little girl, a lot fewer people had air conditioning, and summer was sometimes miserable without it! i'm not crazy - i'd love to live in a warmer climate, but i still want air conditioning for a little relief occasionally. But only occasionally. In fact, in our hot, humid summers, we don't use the air a lot - we're happy when we can finally open the windows and get fresh air. i recall our first apartment- the air conditioning was included with the rent, so it was on all summer. i realized at the end of the season that i hardly knew it had been summer! Oh, we were comfortable, but we never heard birds singing or frogs croaking, never smelled fresh mown grass or felt warm evening breezes coming in the windows. So while i'm all for air conditioning, i think there's a point where it's overused.

Did have about 40 houseplants, though :o)....

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! RANT !- PLANT SWAPS

i have attended quite a few plant and seed swaps in my day, at least, as many as i can find (alas, this is not a popular area for gardening enthusiasts)! But there are some things that bother me...First off, if you want plants or seeds and show up at my garden, i will probably give you more plants than you can carry away! We gardeners are like that. But, when i attend a SWAP (i.e., TRADE), i expect everyone to bring something in exchange for the other items they are interested in. Well, in my city, the plant and seed swaps also welcome people who bring nothing to swap (and there are many folks around here who want something for nothing), i believe primarily to promote this wonderful hobby/lifestyle, which i am all for. So i am happy to see folks show up who are beginners, or people who just don't want to bother to bring anything, that is, IF there is a time period provided for the 'swappers' to swap first -the ones who actually have dug the plants up, divided them, potted them, watered them and labeled them, and/or collected seeds, dried them, packaged them, labeled them and transported them to the swap! That is a lot of work, but for the possibility of finding something cool or rare or pretty at the swap, it's worth it to me.But don't show up with nothing, run in ahead of me and grab the only variegated lilac, or Butterbur,or speckled violet that i had been looking for, when you don't even know what it is and didn't do anything to warrant your having it! Plus most beginners don't realize that if two or three of you want one plant, most of them can be divided! But the "something for nothing" people just grab a huge bag of Cannas or grasses and run, not realizing that a lot of gardeners just bring them in that way, thinking everyone will take a part of them. So it has bothered me enough that i have contacted the people who organize these swaps and given them my opinion on this (whether they wanted it or not- LOL).

AND it always seems like those are the people who complain the most- "Oh, it's awfully crowded", "Why doesn't this have growing instructions?", "This is an older packet of seeds, someone's trying to rip us off!" All actually heard from a young (non swapping) couple near me at the last swap!

Please, if you don't have plants or seeds and want to go to a swap, at least go to the local dollar store and buy a few packets of seeds, or ask a gardening neighbor if they have anything extra you could bring. It's only the considerate thing to do.