Our Christmas Home

I went around and took a few pictures of my favorite spots in our home this Christmas.

We tried something different this year and instead of using a fake tree that you have to put together, or a real tree that has to be cut down, we are using a tree that we have had since we met. When I was in college I had a tiny Norfolk pine from the grocery store on my kitchen table. We brought it with us when we moved to California and then brought it back with us to Wisconsin when we moved there two years later. W cared for there and now its in Minnesota with us... large enough to be decorated with lights and ornaments.

Last year I went around and bought more christmasy trees- lemon cypress, norfolk pine and blue cypress when they went on clearance. They stayed indoors until spring time when I brought them out in my container garden. Come fall, I brought them all back in. I had to repot several of them, as they grew quite a bit. They make up a good chunk of my holiday decor. You'll see them sprinkled throughout.

Otherwise, you can see my garage sale finds, hand me downs from my childhood & various ornanents and trinkets my mom has given me over the years. Only a fractionof it is out.

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season! Merry Christmas!

Blue and Chartruese

I'm sitting in my newest seating area in our garden, the driveway, listening to the crickets and other night creatures make joyous noise.  The sky is periwinkle. The solar lights are on glowung a dim yellow above me. My new spot is just some chairs we used to have on the lawn but hardly ever sat in- it was too hot in all day sun... now they are tucked under a corner or Virginia creeper, where they get plenty of afternoon and evening shade. I pulled out an old barn bench for a table and some containers from around the yard and now we can hang out while the kids ride bikes, climb the front tree, and play basketball.  It's pretty great.

So this week I was walking around the yard and I found a nice repeating theme of blue and gold in the garden.   Took time to go through the pictures and found I use it more than I realized; I would like to make an effort to deliberately use it more. Here are a few of my favorites. 

I'll surely be growing even more of the blue lobelia next year. I finally cracked the code on growing them from seed and keeping then going all year. This variety is  botanical interests "Cambridge blue." I love it with the Japanese forest grass!

I'm also enjoying the forget me nots... I've got both varieties going in this bed. They bloom at different times. I love them with the langsdorff nicotiana (also botanical interests), and golden hosta.

Enjoy the pictures and let me know if y I u need specific questions answered about what's what. My blogger app is less friendly about me typing between the pictures. 

Happy gardening!

Sure to repeat also is the

So far, so good.

This summer has been so mild and wet so far that the garden is doing great. And I'm not exhausted from watering!  We've enjoyed long bloom periods, and lots of time outside enjoying the cooler air. Here are a few of my favorite spots in my garden this year:

St Cloud Hidden Gem

My family and I go up to St Cloud a couple times a year. We live about 40 minutes from the heart of St Cloud and find various reasons to go there, including shopping and dining. Recently my husband has decided that he is going back to school and will be attending Saint Cloud State University. We drove up one rare free late spring afternoon to get a feel for the university. My neighbors had told me about a wonderful free garden in St Cloud, but all of our visits there never suited a trip to the garden. Either it was raining or we had the dogs, so I never even bothered to look up where the garden was. So there we were driving around trying to figure out the university. We missed a turn and run across a bridge, marveling at the very full Mississippi river... Went to flip around and there was the garden. The rain had just stopped, so obviously I begged my husband to get out of the car with me and walk around and see everything we could see.

Just like I do, they had their succulents in the sun but under a roof we really do get too much rain for them here. 

How beautiful are the trees? And that's the Mississippi River...

I can't wait to go back and see the annual plantings all filled in.

Aboretum in the Spring: Part One

 

Just a quick post of some pictures from a recent visit to the Minnesota Arboretum. I had never been in spring, and enjoyed viewing the early tulips, and daffodils so much. I tried to keep this post entirely full of the lovely tulips, and saved the daffodils for the next one.