Country Garden
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The Pastime of Daily Walks & Different Kinds of Walks
Ladies, We are immune to ourselves, are we not? What is most normal and habitual in my life is foreign and strange to another. This reality has stunned me on more than one occasion when I have met people who never spend time outdoors and who never take walks. How can this be? My mind can hardly take in the absurdity of never going outdoors, let alone never going on a walk. I can’t imagine never thirsting for the breeze, never feeling the sunshine’s healthy rays glow through my skin, never enjoying the sunrise or sunset, and never spending time beneath the starry sky. Stroll with me for a moment…
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How to Garden During Summer When it’s too Hot to Garden: Make a Garden Photo Book
Ladies, The mid-summer heat is in full force and aside from some sturdy roses, my garden has all but collapsed as of July. Which means of course that I have learned many garden lessons to take with me into seasons ahead. More heat tolerant perennials…check! More morning watering, check! More weeding….check. Less mixed seed packets and more packets of just my favorites…check. I could go on with the lessons learned as I have retreated indoors to the air conditioning, a bit deflated but not disheartened. Gardening is as much soldiering on with wisdom from failures as it is marching triumphantly in the victories. And there were as many failures as…
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Summer in the Garden: Blueberries & Berry Harvesting Dress
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Proverbs 3:17 As of June, the blueberries are turning a ripe blue. I even rejoiced for the birds as I love seeing them swoop into the bush to pluck a juicy treat and often tenderly feed one to its mate. It thrills me to watch their summer feasting as much as it thrills me to pick the berries too. So many experiences like this are gifts from God to be had and must be accepted by venturing outdoors, a willing recipient of these treasured pastimes. Sweet Summer Harvest Blueberry picking tops the list of my favorite childhood moments. Standing in…
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Spring Cottage Garden The Best Roses & Wildflowers
Ladies, For all of the insects that plague the Southern garden, there are as many early blooms. The humidity is descending as the temperatures rise to the upper 80’s already as of May 1st. But as my favorite cool air is now relegated to the nights of enjoying it through the open window, my days are spent in floral bliss and breathing in the heavenly scent of flowers. Finally, flowers For the non-gardener, or the flippant garden-admirer, they may not realize how fleeting flowers can be. One might not realize how many months it takes to finally experience the blossoms and then how quickly they are gone. Our photographs preserve…
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Romantic Flower Garden Design for a Rental House on Budget
Ladies, The gardener must have a plan. But the plan can be “I am craving violas”. Yes, let the flowers romance your decisions. As winter suddenly turned into spring this year as of March, I found myself longing for a long-lost friend, those first blooms of spring during my childhood up North. Violas would appear and then we knew: spring was here. Yet for many years I valued them little. I didn’t think they were worth my time or attention in a romantic garden full of more saucy flowers, showy and brazenly gorgeous. Especially since they are the first blooms of spring and do not last long. But it was…
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Winter to Spring Garden Prep: the Hard Work of Beauty
Ladies, Making things beautiful is hard work. I stood in my winter garden yesterday in the February air looking at how beauty can degrade. None of the outcomes we enjoy happen as quickly as a scroll to it, or a page turned, or a video clicked. The truth of beauty is that it is sometimes hard to create, that it comes after long seasons of dormancy and tending, it can be fleeting, and then we go back to work to bring it about again. The daily borage of insects and mildew threatened to destroy my flowers daily last spring and summer. I went out to water plants in warm mornings…
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Why Grow Hydrangeas: Longest Lasting Blooms in the Garden
Best Return on Investment in the Garden Ladies, This seasons best bloomers was between the double knockout roses and the hydrangeas. But the longest lasting blooms award definitely goes to my hydrangea friends. I’m swooning over their gorgeous blooms that lasted five months from March until August. After five months, the blooms started to look too tattered to keep. I gave them a major pruning once I saw new buds and blossoms and once the old blooms were off, all of that energy diverted to the new blooms and they matured faster for another round of gorgeous blossoms. Economical Landscaping When we moved into this rental house six months ago,…
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How to Design a Mediterranean Country Summer Home: Outdoor Dining, Flowers, & Fashion
Welcome to my summer home in the countryside Ladies, Summer always makes me think of the Mediterranean. So aside from never-ending laundry from sweating through our clothes in one day, I design a summer home reminiscent of this look and feeling of being among the rolling hills of the French and Italian countryside and those coastlines. My vision of this retreat has not yet been fully done but I continually pull from this idea to create the feel wherever it is I live at the moment. The Mediterranean feel, look, and lifestyle has been my favorite template to design my home for summer. Vacation Perspective One thing that stands out…
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What to Wear for Gardening in the Summer
Country women & gardeners have style essentials too Ladies, have you ever noticed how fashion magazines assume we all live in the city and work in offices? Their recommendations never seem to take into account the one who spends her days outdoors, among dirt, plants, animals, even children, working for her own family or a paid job that is grittier. What does a woman wear for her day working at home, working outdoors, surrounded by life, sticky hands, dirty paws, dough flinging off her beaters, flour in her hair, and insects buzzing all around her? I don’t think the fashion industry touted white button-down blouse fits anywhere into this kind…
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5 Things that Create Year-Round Beautiful Garden Design
Learning how to design a garden starts with observing the garden… Ladies, I could have titled this article “The beautiful spot amid a tattered rental property and what it taught me” but that is long winded. This has been our rental property for only four months which makes the dream of an established garden, that takes about ten years to become what it ought, seem like a distant goal. But there were certain features in this largely undeveloped property that speak to great garden design. Observe This may seem a bit slow and unimportant but number one to garden design is to become an observer of your surroundings. Become acquainted…
