GETTING MY MONEY'S WORTH - FLOWERS, FLOWERS!

Moving into a new house poses some issues to the pocketbook.  Beautifying the surroundings by planting plants and flowers in the garden takes a toll on the finances as well.  But with a little know-how, elbow grease and hours and hours of time, we really can make the most out of the first batch of plants and/or flowers and save tons of money.

One factor that is important is patience.  I have been known to be very impatient.  I tend to go with the motto that leans more towards the immediate gratification theme.  Small wonder that the first task in starting a flower garden was to grow "Impatiens" from seed.  Not an easy task.  It took weeks and a couple of months to see the result as opposed to running to the nursery to purchase a full grown plant.

I noticed too that my impatiens stalks were a lot thicker than the store bought ones.  Perhaps is the love and care I put into it which helped.

But I digress.  You would have to be patient for the Impatiens story save for later so you can see the progress.  Yes, folks, they are still a work in progress.

In this blog I show you how to collect seeds from the flower pods of the ones you already have.

Shown here is a flowering plant I searched high and low for the name.  It was actually two stow aways in the pot of hydrangeas that my Mom gave me when she moved.  She of course couldn't tell me the name of the flower. So, please, if you know what this flower is called, please leave me a comment.  Thank you.

If you can see the black dots, those are its seeds.  I collected those itty bitty things and placed them in an enveloped labeled "Unknown flower from the hydrangea pot my mom gave me" lol!

Above are the seeds sown from my Columbine flower.  All the pods dried up and I finally got around to dead heading them today.  Here are the seed I got from that flower.  They're really so pretty, that I purchased the purple ones to contrast my red ones!

Purple Columbine flower above.  Isn't she pretty???  I can 't wait for next years blooms!

Lastly, I wanted to show you where I stored those Columbine seeds.  Just a little container I got from Daiso, my favorite store!

Red Columbine below

THE BEAUTY ICYMI - When we see beauty amidst the mundane

Lack of sleep and walking around all day like a zombie may not be so bad.  When your defenses are down from being tired, there is nowhere else to go but up.  Glorious days like today, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the temperate climate, became the first positive thing that happened to turn things around for me today.  So I guess it was time to replant seeds.  Squash, cherry, green bells and lemon.  Creativity heightened from gazing at the first group of flowers I had planted the other day.  Looking up at the blue sky with the palm trees in the foreground made me realize that I don’t really have to drive anywhere to see beauty, I see it all around me right here in my own backyard. There is a lot of work yet to do, but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day, right!
As an artist, I was trained to notice small and simple things because that is after all, the most basic way to translate what we see onto the canvas.  So with a little creativity, I snapped these photos.  I hope you like!

Until the next update, LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

Salvia

Salvia

Ranunculus, Dwarf Celosia, Viola, Columbine

Next home of the string of pearls

Looking over my neighbor's fence

Music, paper, paint, seeds and water, oh it's ON!

THE ROCK JOURNAL GARDEN

 This one is for you, Tita Rosita!  You will always be remembered in my garden!! R.I.P.

I'd like to give credit to Alisa Burke (Alisa Burke's Rock Garden) for this idea!  Each time we go on our exercise walk I try to pick up 3-4 at a time so I can go home and paint these rocks and add them to my rock garden.  I try to associate what I paint to how I am feeling that day.  I started it yesterday so it's still a WIP.  Anyhoo, I try to make each one special so I call this my rock journal!

Till my next post... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

SOME UPDATES! The Succulent Fountain and the new Entryway!

I just wanted to post photos of the entryway update.  The decal "Love One Another" which is my motto at the end of every post I purchased on Amazon, just search for it and you will find it.  Then I opted for snapshots of my family members in lieu of portraits (I think portraits are a thing of the past) in white frames to compliment the trim paint.  In the middle is a mirror I had which I painted the trim white.  And of course a metal wall decor I've had at my previous house to add that splash of color and break up the monotony.

This is going to be the final look!

Here is a before and after pic of my succulent fountain

 My oh my! How they have grown!!

Until my next project... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

UPDATE! PAINTING THE EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE

    

     This house is in badly need of some facelift.  The color has the three Ds.  Drab, dreary and dark.  Time to change it to make the house smile a bit after it gets a new outfit.  See those down trees?  There were what seemed to be a million trees.  They all came down except for one.  The whole lawn was overrun by big roots.  It was choking the house!

    Here are some of the photos from all sides.

So Stuart and Scott (brothers) got to work.  With my choice of color, the house is transformed!  We get a lot of compliments now from neighbors and people walking their dogs, even the mailman!  They all say that the house looks like a totally different house!  Well, you judge for yourselves.

 

UPDATE! UPDATE! - Entryway

 

Before                            After

I know it's been awhile since I've posted but we have been working every chance we get.  It was a lot worse than we thought.  But it just made sense to fix everything as we go along.  The guest bathroom shower enclosure was replaced, I don't need to show you (it's boring).

In the hallway, there is paint on top of wallpaper and there is wallpaper underneath that wallpaper, so as you can imagine, it was a lot of work.  

 

I used 1 part fabric softener to 9 parts water in a spray bottle, let it sit for about 10 minutes and the wallpaper peels off pretty nicely.  There are some parts which are stubborn so I used a metal scraper to remove it.  Then, because some of the wallpaper underneath got torn, we spackled it and sanded to have a smooth finish.  Since the wallpaper left is that yellow flower print, I had to apply Kilz first even though the paint I purchased said it has a primer included.  It's a gimmick, so getting regular paint and kilzing it underneath is much more economical.

 Patience is the key to this project.  Just know that it will take you a lot of time to get it all off the walls.  It took me 4 whole days from stripping to painting.

Here is the entrance. The wall to the right is painted wallpaper.

 

 

So  here is after the first wallpaper was stripped.  It presented another layer of wallpaper underneath... So 70s!

 

 This is after I painted on the Kilz.  Already, the closed feeling of the entryway is now bright and airy.  I opted for a really light blue for the entrance because the rest of the house will be painted the dove grey color.  I decided to break up the monotony by painting this one small section a coastal blue.  It is also in semi-gloss so that the light will bounce off the walls to give it a brighter, larger feel.

 

 

     Of course, I'm not done yet.  I still need to put in my wall decor.  I will post photos after everything is finished so you get the feel of the whole house!

MY LITTLE PROJECT - The Side Walkway!

 Before photo

Well, this project is not so little, at least not in the way of time, back breaking work, etc. This little project involved a crawling vine that grew up and over itself over the years.  It reminded me of a tangled mess of hair that could not be fixed by a hair brush but by some really sharp shears.  The leaves were all diseased and dead and dried leaves lived inside of it.  So dig I did.  I dug and tugged and was finally able to remove this crawling carpet vine which Scott had the fortunate task of loading it into the trailer.  

Now I planted hostas and coleus (annual)! So much neater!

God is great!  Look at the beautiful and different plants He provides for us!

Until my next post... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!