Something I've noticed

You know, there is something of a phenomenon happening this year with my flower boxes. This is a recent shot:


Can you guess what it is? It's really quite odd. I'd say EASILY, maybe by as much as 3 to 1, MEN are LOVING and commenting on these flower boxes this year! Endless parades of men walking by, driving by, riding their bikes by - will stop, and gush on and on to me about how beautiful the flower boxes are. They are utterly fascinated by the ponytail grasses and the papyrus. One noodlehead had the audacity to tell ME about the papyrus, like I didn't know what I had there in the flower boxes. Apparently he thought I had just stumbled upon a random plant at the garden center and then put them in there. Duhhh!

Anyway, it's been very strange. Most of the time it's the ladies who comment about the fleurs, and they still do, but this year for some strange reason, the arrangement in there is really resonating with the men folk!

In other news, the grape tomato plant gave me 10 little beauties this morning!

Isn't that great?!!

The new eggplant seems to be happy in his new home:

This is a shot of a planter I put together for an upcoming charity event this Sunday. They will auction it off! My fall planters are generally a big hit on the auction scene. This one has ornamental peppers, yellow osteospermum, rubrum, two smaller grasses, a decorative kale and some ivy.
Here's a close-up of the cute decorative peppers and their cute, purple blooms:


And, of course, I was at Marblehead Garden Center a couple days ago to get the above planter and plants, so, of course, I had to get myself a couple of those rubrum for the side yard.I love the combination of colored foliage and then the cute puffy guys at the end of the stalks! So cute, and they last and last right up until the first frost.

Ok...Off to walk the dogs and then loads to do for our upcoming boat trip!

Have a great weekend!

Random pretties

There is not much new to report over here. Summer is summering along with warm temps, less humidity (thank GOODness!) and just general niceness. The dog days of summer, as they say! We still have not had much rain to speak of - a couple little showers here and there, so I am still a slave to my plants and must water them again today!

An exciting occurrence in my back yard for the last few days - tons of monarchs and other butterflies have been visiting, but even more importantly? HONEY BEES!!! I could barely believe my eyes a couple of afternoons ago as I was outside enjoying my nice flowers and tomatoes and such! If you have been unaware, the honey bee population recently crashed and our poor farmers have to now import honey bees from England and other places to pollinate their crops. They are essential to the whole system of producing fruit and other crops. SO! Imagine my delight upon seeing about a dozen honey bees enjoying the butterfly bushes in the back! Woooo HOOOOOO! Oh, I was talking to them and telling them to stay as long as they like! They could even build a hive nearby - I would really not mind! Oh, it was exciting.

Wait - let me go look and see if there are any back there today. Maybe I can get a photo!

It's not a nice clear one, but there's a honey bee right there:When I was just out there there were a kajillion of them! Also some butterflies, bumble bees and a wasp. Wasps are not welcome. They are just plain nasty critters.

In other randomness, my grape tomato plant is producing like crazy now! What a payoff!Add water and VOILA, yummy tomatoes to ensue! I'll have to pick a bunch of those today!

I also got another yummy vegetable plant yesterday when I was at Marblehead Garden Center for a couple projects. An EGGPLANT! It's already got baby eggplants on it and it was a totally healthy, great-looking plant with plenty of blooms, so I HAD to get it. It was all of $2.80. I could justify that. I'll photograph it later today for a new post tomorrow, K?

Onto the pretties!

Lantana:This is a wonderful plant. They are a very hearty tropical and just come in so many nice colors and color-combinations. They grow well in containers or in the ground - all-around a great plant for the garden. An annual up here, perennial in warmer climates.

Nice grouping here of my perennial mums, the lantana, annual salvia, boltonia, white tall phlox, and then the jacob's ladder that looks like it might be getting ready to flower again!

The back door is looking pretty:

The calibrachoa I planted in pots last week are finally starting to flower:

Forget-me-not sprouts are getting really big now!

And last for today, but far from least, the gorgeous hydrangeas in the back yard. I LOVE when they turn these colors:They don't even look real they're so pretty!

O.M.G.

If you are new to the abbreviations that are consistently used for texting or computer shorthand, the name of this post is OH. MY. GAWD.

Men of the world, please listen. Women who know men, please listen.

At no time, ever, ever, never, ever should a man wear black socks with shorts UNLESS and ONLY in the rare case that you are a professional basketball player or soccer player or it's part of your uniform. Other than that, if you are not a professional or somewhat recognizable athlete, please, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT wear black socks with your shorts.

Similarly, no socks of ANY color with sandals. Sandals are sandals. Period.

The reason I got off on this rant is because I was out driving yesterday and happened upon quite a male specimen.

Not only was this dude wearing black shorts with yellow and white stripes (think bumblebee with bad taste), he had on black dress socks, black sneakers and a t-shirt that made me spit the water right out of my mouth! Get this - this guy, with his white, pasty, stickly legs and his bushy hairdo and his HORRID get-up had the audacity to wear a t-shirt that said "Surrender the Booty"!!! I was so dumbfounded I had to laugh! And this guy was not sporting a pirate outfit, or that might be acceptable!

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Men never cease to amaze, do they ladies?!!

Dog Days

Oh my goodness! I love my doggies! They are SO stinkin' cute! Their summer hairdos are adorable and I cannot tell you how many times I get stopped when I'm out walking them - everyone wants to know what breed they are and they want to pet them! I think we need to make up a breed so I can stop explaining that they are Border Collie/Mountain Dog mixes. Koty, our boy, is a Bernese Mountain Dog mixed with Border Collie. He is an expert swimmer, hunter and just generally the best dog that has ever been on the planet! I'm not even kidding about that last part. He is funny, smart, SO energetic but also calm around the house. He loves loves loves to play with his toys every day (even though he is 11 years old!) and he is just a sweet and generous brother to his completely dumb sister, Sadie.

Sadie. Hmmm. What do I say? We've had her for 2.5 years now and she is just dumb as a stump. And I'm being mean to stumps. I will give her one concession, however. Last night, for the first time EVER, she actually sat - of her own accord - before receiving her last treat of the night! It was a momentous event! We often have to poke her bum to get her to sit, but she's caught on recently! After 2.5 years. Two and a half years! That's a LOOOOOONNNNNG time to get a dog to learn the word "sit!" Anyway, she did and I'm SO proud of her I could spit!

I took these pictures yesterday...Sadie is a Border Collie/Great Pyrenees mix. She is as sweet as she is beautiful!:Following me around, as per usual. This is her entire reason for being - to be within 3 inches of me at all times. Period. End of story.

Koty howling:


This is our ritual before the morning walk. I start making squeaky "Owwwwww" sounds and then Koty responds! We will howl at each other for 5 or 10 minutes! He wags and wags while we do this, so I think he must like it! Then, after the howling session, it's time for TOYS!
Here, he is playing with his yellow ducky! He also adores his green elephant, pink pig, the long raccoon and his bigger green elephant! Also quite fun, apparently, is my blue sock with the tennis ball in it! It's loads of fun to throw it around! : ) hee hee!

Then, yesterday, when I was outside photographing the flower boxes, I had the great luck of running into my favorite neighbor, and her husband and their ADORABLE doggie, Quan Yin! My neighbor is a dog acupuncturist who worked miracles on our dog Lady in the twilight of Lady's life. I completely attribute Lady's last 8 months to her wonderous treatments. Lady had cancer all throughout her body and was given a week to live when she was diagnosed in April of 2007. She lived for 8 months.

So, if you live near Salem, MA, and have a doggie with ailments, please call my friend's business: Four Paws Acupuncture.

And this is her ADORABLE dog:


SO cute!

Flora galora!

It's just so darn pretty right now in my yard. Everything is just flourishing. I've got pretty greenery, happy vegetables and gorgeous flowers just everywhere! Much as I've not enjoyed the heat and humidity that we've had this entire summer, the plants are just loving every minute of it! Of course, I've had to water and water and water because we just have not had a proper rain this entire summer except for this past Thursday.

HOLY thunderstorms! I cannot possibly impart to you the deluge that we experienced on Thursday afternoon. It was wilder than wild! We got like 2 inches of rain in so many hours. It was a storm of biblical proportion! Not even kidding! I was on my way home from the grocery store and had to slow to like 10 miles per hour to just try to see through the rain. It was a rain blizzard with the same kind of white-out conditions that those of you who live where it snows can be like. Awesome in the most crazy way!

Anywho, I digress. My plants are very happy! They loved that good, soaking rain. It sort of gave everything new life!

I moved the fig to the back yard with the cute, miniature aloe:
I didn't have it in the most ideal location in the house, so I'll have to find a good home for it in the house when the weather gets cooler. It's definitely loving life outside right now! You might notice the herbs in the background, there. They are all just HUGE this year! Check out the size of that basil!

The tomato plant continues to grow ever upward:


Hydrangeas still producing flowers like crazy!A tip for you who grow these (if you didn't already know), do NOT prune back your hydrangeas. They are already setting the flowering heads for next season. If you prune them back, you'll lose a lot of flowers. I know they look ugly in the winter, but just live with it! Once they start leafing out, you'll be able to trim back the sticks that have no new growth and you can shape them this way.

Same thing with butterfly bushes. Don't trim them back too much this fall. Wait until spring when they start greening out. I know people who cut them back every fall, and they don't get the fullness that they want. Just like hydrangeas, butterfly bushes like to grow their new growth on the old branches that might look dead, but are very much alive inside their core.

Ok. Back to fleurs. The forget-me-not sprouts are getting quite big:So cute!

The verbena and brachyscome are looking very nice alongside each other:Aren't they pretty? One definitely gets the feeling that someone over here is fond of purple plants...Hmmmm. I wonder who it could be?!!

And the side yard is looking very pretty with the big row of obedient plants in bloom:
Aren't they so pretty? I love how delicate they are.

Flower boxes are still going strong:

Ok. That's all I've got for today. I'm having a lovely, lazy Sunday. Hope you all had a good weekend, too!