Good Bye 2020!

Looking back thru 2020! 

Yes, in many ways and for many reasons we are all eager to move forward into 2021.  

Looking back thru 2020, which we gardeners do every year to review our gardening season to determine what changes we may want to target for next year's growing season, we recognize it has been a challenging year in general for all of us! 

We faced the changes in our lifestyles due to the Covid Pandemic and recognize this will continue into 2021 with the confidence this pandemic will come to an end.  As gardeners, we have developed a strong faith in the future!   Hopefully the news will be more uplifting to watch and read.  This country has sure experienced a year filled with turmoil that has affected each of us in some way.  

Personally I have been reflecting back on the challenges I have faced.  First our last big vacation plans for a trip to Alaska, which was to include a visit to the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, was cancelled due to the Pandemic!  Our social life went thru ups and downs with the various changes in coping with the Pandemic.  Being we are in the older population segment and we live in a major medical community, we rolled with the recommended guidelines to protect our health and that of other people.  The money we would have spent on our vacation ended up being invested in our home by early winter when our home was resided to decreased the physical maintenance of the siding and gutters.  

I thought I was handling the lack of social activity and contact with family and friends quite well, especially during the summer which allowed us to enjoy the outdoors and gardening.  But suddenly one day this late fall I found myself in tears for no specific reason and realized the problem was I was not handling the drastic scale back of social interaction with family and friends as well as I thought!  Slowly I have been working at ways to handle that better, the biggest challenge was facing that was the problem and I needed to take some more action!  

The holidays were a mixed bag of feelings and emotions.  Counting my blessings needed to be done more often indeed.  In a few days it will be my time to pack away the holiday decor and return to finding a cozy comfortable home environment and ways to increase my contact with friends and family.  I have a few projects lined up but I really need to discover more plans to get me thru the dreary overcast days of the the MN winter in a more upbeat mind set.

Noticing my grow lights for my plants are bringing them their needed light to be happy, I may be shopping soon for some lights to help me be more happy.  I realize our 13 years in AZ as snowbirds added more sunlight to my life, which had a very positive affect on me!

And I will saying goodbye to one of my favorite holiday plants soon.  I have chosen to enjoy them when in season and look forward to them again next year, like I do my Holiday dishes! 

 

I am looking forward to my traditional oyster stew for supper tonite!

Ho Ho Ho!

 Wishing you all Ho Ho Ho's in your heart this year!

And that you are safe, healthy and are looking forward to 2021!  The best is yet to be!

Thanks for being in my life!

A creation by Karen LeQuia

Tammy's Winter Welcome Container!

 Note the container Tammy used!  During the summer it is absolutely a show stopper overflowing with flowers!  Winter it certainly brightens up the neighborhood!  Yes, her personality is reflected in the energy and sparkle of this creation!

Just like she brightens up our neighborhood!  

Barb's Winter Porch Pot!

Barb got creative this year, she became my inspiration by spraying dried hydrangeas with red spray paint!

I love the variety of interesting accents she wove in among her greens!

 

Rita's Holiday Porch Pots!

 Rita has such a flair for creating container plantings and her holiday ones always reflect that skill!

I just have to share one of them with you!  It will look great all winter!

Porch Pots for the Holidays!

 What to do for 2020!  I recalled last winter being attracted to a striking winter pot of greens accented with twigs that were silver!  It was so simple but fresh and sparkly in the sunlight!  So, that became my theme for this year's outdoor decor!

Before I had a chance to begin putting my plan to work, I discovered a special Holiday Fairy or Elf had delivered a very attractive pot of mixed greens to my house one morning.  I have not been able to figure out just who it is from, but I am sure enjoying the special gift!   I just slipped it into one of the two matching pots by the garage and added some silver twigs and it fit right in with my plans!  

Another friend showed me the dried hydrangeas she had sprayed with red paint this year, so I figured a silver one would be a great accent to my larger pot!  Will see how it holds up to the wet snow, etc., but so far it handled some rain just fine!  And I have a supply in reserve I can spray to replace occasionally! 

It was fun to use the hanging basket on my front door, which I won at the Garden Club Holiday Party last year!  I kept the theme going there also with the greens with silver accents!  I plan to switch out the silver accent spray with some red berries after the holidays to change the mood to winter from the holidays!  

What did you do this year?   Our outdoor Christmas lights are not up yet due to our house being resided the first week of Dec. but Denny is hoping to get some of it done in time to enjoy it a bit before the holidays!  

Holiday Elf/Fairy gift!

Over grown dish gardens?

 I love the mix of plants whether it is house plants or outdoor plants!  It adds so much interest to gaze at!

While I admire them when the plants are a mature size, it seems the next step is to become overgrown and begin to not look so great.  Usually houseplants just become too crowded to stay healthy and attractive looking!   Outdoor ones have a short life here in MN and then we start over in the spring!

So, what to do about the house plant garden?  First I do some pruning and thinning but that only seems a fix for a short time.

Then I decide if I want to rescue all the plants by repotting them individually in new pots.  Well, right now I don't have space for seven more plants. So recently, I decided to removed four plants in front, which were suffering the most and leave the three in the back for a backdrop.  Then I went shopping in my stash of fairy garden accessories that I had tucked away for the MN winter.  It didn't take long to spot this adorable cabin (it was the second house I had ever purchased for a fairy garden scene) and it seemed to be just the right size and look to fit!  A bit of small pine mulch and a couple of seasonal touches with pumpkins,...and it was looking much better!

Yes, I think I'll replace the pumpkins for an elf or something for a Christmas touch for December soon!  Then I'll see what other seasonal touch I can find for February!

 

Thanksgiving Flowers

 If you are seeing the below flowering plant at this time, you are looking at a Thanksgiving Cacti!

Yep, there is a Christmas Cacti and also an Easter Cacti!  They are looking different in their leaves but the flowers sure look the same!

My neighbor, Tammy, has quite a collection and display that I was admiring last year.  She gifted me a white one but no blooms have appeared.  I did a search on the internet to see if I could figure out the problem and it appears it has been getting too much sun light at this point in time.  Well, I do have some plant lights providing supplemental light to my violets, which has been great for them, but not so great for my Thanksgiving Cacti!  So, I recently moved it so it would only get the normal daylight this time of the year and am hopeful it will stimulate it to bloom in time for Christmas!  

Tammy's Thanksgiving Cacti

WISHING YOU ALL A SAFE AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  Our family as elected to stay within our individual family households and hold a ZOOM visit this year. This is only the second Turkey Day I have had without some family with me, so it will seem a bit lonely.  But our goal is to have many more Turkey Dinners with us still all together from now on!  May your family also enjoy many more!

  Yes, I have some lefsa waiting for some turkey stuffing and gravy to join it!

It is going to rebloom!

 About a year ago I purchased my first orchid with a goal of it reblooming!  

And then later I purchased a few more and have patiently been watering and fertilizing them and anxiously looking for some sign my goal might even happen!  A year is a long time to be patient!

A few days ago I noticed what appears to be buds forming!  I am so excited!  I will be sure to post pictures of it when it is in full bloom later!  And that will probably be midst this long winter and its challenges to find excitement while enduring this pandemic!  

I did attend a free seminar on orchids at our local garden center last winter, which gave me lots of encouragement with this new adventure.

This morning on Facebook I spotted a free seminar on the internet that looks interesting, so you can also check it out if that is interesting.  My friend, Joan, has a big collection of orchids and they were all the lower priced ones and they all are beautiful reblooming freely!  

 Information on Free Orchid Class CLICK HERE

Unique Totem Pole Yard Art

 I have made a few of these totem poles yard art myself but this one is really unique and personalized to fit the recipient!

My neighbor, Marty, called me to come over and see what her creative sister made for her!

Wow, what a special sister to be designing Totem Poles to fit her sister's life interests!  

This one reflects many of Marty's interests:  At the bottom are two turtles (one hatching) representing her annual task of helping Blandings Turtles safely cross the roads to the Mississippi River when they hatch!

The dog represents her long involvement in rescuing aging small dogs (20 of them often with 6 at one time) and giving them love and special care until the end of their lives.  

 The star at the top is a recognition of her special Faith.

 The flashlight represents her extensive collection of flashlights!

 The red knife represents the knife she has always carried in her pocket!

The baseball tells about her passion for The Twins Baseball Team!

Denny is going over to see how it can be attached to the railing on her deck!

Feathered friends visit our living room window!

We don't have many trees in our yard to attract birds, but we do have feeders hanging just outside our big window area in the living room.  Our bird bath is kept open year around, thanks to a heater, so we get bird visitors in the winter for sure!   Feeding them is Denny's passion and we enjoy their visits daily!  This one was recently taken from inside when we had a nice bright woodpecker visitor!   Our boys, enjoy these visitors also and eagerly look forward to the shades opening in the mornings!

Colorful idea for Fall Yard Art!

While on our Fall Color Leaf Peep Drive this year, I found this colorful display of old bikes decorated with paint and flowers for fall!

I couldn't decide which ones I liked the best, so took pictures of them all for you!

Actually this is a great idea for any season if you have an old bike available to decorate!  Once upon a time on a garden tour there was one location which had at least five bikes spread about her garden beds, and they were cleverly mixed in so you could have fun hunting for them!

SE MN Fall Color Drive 2020

SE MN Mississippi River Valley is usually about their peak in color in Mid October.  This year we missed the peak by about a week, but when the morning sun was hitting the bluffs, it was lovely!  I love looking at those awesome old homes built so close up the steep Wisconsin bluffs!  Apples for sale were abundent resulting in a few apple pie purchases!

This year we decided to take in both some of the Wisconsin side with the Minnesota side so we headed to Lake City, MN drove south to Wabasha and crossed the Mississipi River into Wisconsin then drove south to cross back into Minnesota at LaCrosse and then headed SW to Rushford for lunch before heading north to home!  203 miles and 5 1/2 hours of some familiar sights and some new sights including lunch at the Norsland Lefsa Manufacturing place with an awesome bakery and lunch service!  So, a bonus for me, I took home half a dozen, fresh off the griddles, lefsas!  I won't list the bakery goodies that jumped into our car tho!  Sandwiches and soup was so welcome by 2:00 PM!  

Baby Croton a year ago.....

A year ago I won a darling mini Croton plant in a ceramic pumpkin as a door prize at our Shades of Green Hosta Society of SE MN meeting!

I enjoyed it during the winter on my kitchen table with a collection of other mini plants which I called my winter garden!   Spring came and the Croton is a tropical plant so I moved it to my Beach Scene Fairy Garden and enjoyed it all summer long outdoors!  As I was picking up Fairy Garden elements to pack away until next spring, I noticed how healthy this little Croton was and how much it had grown so I quickly replanted it into an indoor pot and sprayed it with insecticide so it didn't bring any little friends inside.

I found the little ceramic planter it originally came in, filled it with some fall leaves to set next to it and am once again enjoying it on my kitchen table for fall color!  And, I happen to know the person who had donated it as a door prize, so now I have a daily reminder of a very special friend to remember with a smile every day!  

  

Fall scenes in our yard!

Just got to recognize Fall with some seasonal accents!  

Pumpkins are a must indeed!  

Fall Hydrangea Colors!

 Fall color change in the hydrangeas!  

Love the softness of the mauve colors this time of the year!  Such a nice contrast to the early season white blooms!  A bit of variety to the landscape.

'Limelight'

'Pink Diamond'

'Quick Fire'

One more Covid Style Luncheon!

This one required warm jackets and even some gloves! 

But the conversations and social activity while sipping hot chocolate and hot apple cider kept us warm!  We chatted about the possibility of continuing these on Zoom to keep in contact until Spring!  We all belong to our Shades of Green Hosta Society and have been missing our usual events and friends during this Covid Time.   A big Thank You to June for hosting this in her gardens! 

There were a few colors yet to add some color to the fall scene!  

   

Quilted Flower Gardens!

My favorite quilter, Doris, held a Fall Quilt Sale in her Garden of 175 pieces of her creations!

Proceeds were donated to a local Cat Shelter, and a Dog Rescue Organization!  I have three of her treasured Quilted Flower Garden Creations I have managed to collect in past years. So I made sure I arrived early to this event!  

Such decision making!  But, I walked away with four pieces that I fell in love with!  One went to a dear friend for a birthday gift because she always reminds me of bright Sun Flowers!

One ended up right away on my dining room table because it was an awesome Fall Bouquet!

The reversable Christmas season themed one is tucked away until after Turkey Day!

And one ended up as a wall hanging in my dressing room!  

Such a great way to keep flowers surrounding me all year around!  And they don't need watering!

This one is all hand quilted!

Covid Style Garden Party Luncheon

 So many Hosta Club Events cancelled this year due to Covid safe distancing requirements....

But a bunch of gardeners just need to get together and talk gardening, etc.  It's been a "long distanced summer"!   A casual "bring your own lunch, chair and gather safe distancing in a garden yard" works quite well!  We caught up on our chatting about garden bed prep for fall, etc. and shared some cuttings!  Even a few donations of fall quilted table toppers/wall hangings and hostas for door prizes!  Another garden yard offer for next week's lunch break!  Yipeee!  

  

Mini Fairy Garden came inside for fall!

 A change of pace for on my kitchen table for this fall!  

I usually have one or two mini fairy gardens on my table but decided the older ones are a bit overgrown and I was ready for a change for awhile!  I've loved this one as a memory of our AZ Snowbird years.  Looks like a little ghost has slipped into the scene as it came indoors!

   

Watermelon Pickles!

 Did you have watermelon pickles during your younger days?

My grandma Jo always made a batch or two of watermelon pickles every summer and I loved them!  The last few years I have been searching the displays of homemade pickles and jams looking for a taste of my youth without success.  Every time I buy a whole watermelon I remember how my Grandma Jo always confiscated the rinds to make her favorite pickles.  And often she would buy a whole watermelon for those pickles and quickly cut out that prime center of red goodness to enjoy herself before the rest of us could get to it!  Such tender warm memories to have!

This summer I found a source at our local farmers market and bought the only jar on the display, a quart jar!  Yep, they were a good memory to enjoy, a bit more cinnamon flavor than I recalled, but close enough!  Josie, my great-grandaugher, (named after my Grandma Jo) was here for the weekend and I put my precious pickles on the table.  She tasted one with caution and then her eyes and face lit up!  She loved them and exclaimed she had to have a jar so I told her I'd get her one, which I did the next visit I made to the Farmers Market!

So, do you have watermelon pickles in your memories by chance?

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Monarch Waystations

Yep, the goal with our 3 Neighborhood Pollinator Gardens was to develop beautiful yet valuable attractions with a focus on Monarch Butterflies as well as other pollinators! 

We are ending our first season of these new beds a success and the official designation as a "Monarch Waystation"!  We've managed to protect these precious beds of native plants from deer and rabbits and provided them with adequate sun and water to encourage well established plants!  We've added plant identification markers with common and botanical names for education also!  The Monarchs found our beds,  so we are looking forward to spring now and our second year of growth with confidence.  This has been an interesting and a learning experience!  New plants along with new people in my life this covid summer.  

To learn how your garden bed can become a 'Monarch Way Station" CLICK HERE

U of MN Garden News

 Check this out!

This Covid environment is bringing gardening information to us in so many digital formats.  It is great and either free or a modest cost for most of these wonderful formats.  Great quality for most of them!  Newsletters and Webinars are growing in abundence and quality.  

This one appeared in my email today from the University of MN Extension, a very reputable resource of gardening information.

"Yard and Garden News" in a digital format to your email address!  A quick review of the offering made for my quick decision to subscribe to this free service!

I recommend you check it out and give their free service some consideration.  It's easy to unsubscribe if you don't feel it is beneficial later.

Click here for information on U of MN "Yard and Garden News"

Sunflower Time!

A recent visit to the Albert Lea 'Fish Sunflower' Bed was amazing!

Only an hour drive from home and a perfect covid style outing of joy to behold! Great photo opportunity!   I will get this on our agenda again next year, hopefully sharing it with other friends to enjoy also!  

For more information on 'Fish Sunflower Beds' Click here:

Water feature for Tammy!

 Tammy has the magic touch with Denny!   She was admiring the water features he made for my garden beds and convinced Denny to make one for her rose bed!  Yep, he is a sucker for these younger women in his life!  Daughter, granddaughter, great granddaughter and now the daughter like gal in his neighborhood harem!  They all have that magic touch of winding him around their little fingers!

It turned out just great!  And while we are sitting on the deck under the pergola the sound of splashing water is perfect!

Pergola on a deck!

Our newest neighbor, Tammy, decided her south facing deck was just too much hot sun to enjoy with her grandchildren!  So she went shopping on the internet and Denny agreed to help her install it!  A bit of a problem with the "some assembly required" not working out so well.  So, it was returned to the company and like a true gardener, Tammy does not give up....she found another one and with Denny's approval ordered it.  

Yep, this time it all went together just fine!  Wow!  We all love it and are enjoying some social time on it!  It includes flexible screen drapery to keep the bugs out and even some weather protecting drapery!  We added garden themed lighting complete with a dimmer, thanks to Denny's magic fingers!  

"Some assembly required"  2 days worth!

Tammy rescued tools dropped between deck planks!

Almost done!

Light fixture and curtains installed!

 

Update on Neighborhood Park Pollinator Beds Project

 There is color and even Monarchs and bees buzzing in our Neighborhood Park Project!

Earlier this spring I posted about a neighborhood association project I got involved with.  We have three neighborhood parks and had received a grant to beautify our neighborhood.  The decision to develop three pollinator garden beds was achievable using native plants and was the goal.  I volunteered to get involved and ended up responsible for selecting and obtaining 150+ native plants for the project plus taking the responsibility of planting one of the beds and maintaining it for this year.  Thanks to a few gardener friends we've done this supporting the crew of volunteers that prepared the beds for us!  We've had to haul water to them weekly but created a water barrel system that has been filled by a volunteer each week, which made less work for us!  So we only had to take along empty sprinkling cans to take care of the watering tasks!

After three to four months we are seeing the fruits of our labor and investment in passion.  Lots of color and even some Monarch Butterflies and bees are showing up!  The plants, which were primarily first year starts purchased from area growers, have taken root and settled in.  Weeding has been minimal thanks to the donation of mulch from our city park department!  It will take three years for these plants to reach maturity but they are well on their way and being enjoyed by neighbors.  I am anxious to see what growth we have next year!

A week ago I took on the task of supplying stakes with labels for each group of plant varieties in the beds.  The labels included a common name plus the botanical name.  

The bed in Judd Park (which I worked with) is in part shade so this enabled me to use some different plants than the other beds in part of it.  I plan to add a few spring bulbs this fall yet and get some bluebells started next spring!  

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Garden Party Covid Style 2020

 What a wonderful event!

Our 80 year old garden club has not been able to meet since February due to the 2020 pandemic our world is experiencing.  So, when Linda, the event chair, decided to host our annual August Garden Party in her garden, covid style, I was so excited!  At last an opportunity to be able to meet and visit with some of my favorite people which  I have been missing since our club events had been in cancelled until further notice!  Our meeting location had closed, our Plant Sale location was closed, and our Garden Tour was not within safe covid guidelines!  

I arrived on the early side of the start time only to find at least 2/3's the attendees were already there and settled into some serious visiting and garden viewing!  It was all masks, some social distancing outdoors, ice cream treats from store freezers and bottles of ice cold water to quench our throats from the chatting we were doing!

We did a fun plant swap, as one of our usual happenings at this annual event.  

The change from a pot luck supper to ice cream treats was a  most enjoyable and another easy change of our usual happening at this event!  

Thanks Linda to you and your creative committee for providing us a way to socialize together in a very beautiful location!