The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Two Bird Blindness

I am a bird lover and observer. I have a multitude of feeders set up all around my house—close to my windows—so I can sit and work or cook or sip my coffee and watch these fascinating creatures.

Birds are extremely beneficial to my garden also, so I like to keep them around even if I have to bribe them with a little food.

Several years ago I saw a fabulous bird at my hummingbird feeder. It wasn’t a small bird at all, it was about the size of a starling, but the most fabulous bright yellow/orange color.

I didn’t know any bird like that existed in our area. It was so exotic looking.

I later found out it was an oriole. I also learned they feed on nectar and show up here to breed in spring and summer. How fabulous. I was so excited I purchased an oriole feeder.

After I got it home and set it up, I felt sort of silly.

It was exactly like my hummingbird feeder except it was orange and the feeding holes were a little bigger. How would this attract anything other than hummers?

But I decided to give it a shot.

Well, what do you know, another one of them fancy shmancy birds started hanging out at my feeder.

It was short-lived though, it stopped showing up at the end of May.

The next year the same thing happened–they Started to show up at the beginning of May and stopped almost June First, on the dot.

Last year, the pretty birdie stayed a little longer.

This year, I can’t get rid of the little things.

Here is living proof that even though I like to watch birds I am not the most astute birdwatcher there is.

Cattleya Dreamin’

It is that time of year, and I am very excited to see some of my orchids blooming.

This is a Cattleya Memoria Ruby Cosby. It’s really fragrant.

Cattleyas generally bloom in the summer, normally in August, but this year, it’s a month early.

Cattleyas are orchids that like a lot of light, especially an eastern or southern Exposure.

They will not rebloom on old spikes like Phalaenopsis, so if you have one, do your plant a favor, and cut away the spent flowers.

I have heard that when you see a spike starting on a Cattleya, you should move it to a location with maximum light so it will develop stronger multiple blooms.

There’s another bloom on the way, but just this one fills my whole kitchen with its perfume.

I’m going to go smell my orchid now.

Stumble It!

A Face Only a Block of Cement Could Love

A few months ago, as you may recall, I made a purchase of several pieces of garden statuary.

It was one of those deals where I paid one price for several items, some of which I wouldn’t necessarily have purchased separately.

One item in particular, how shall I put this, ummm, sort of creeped me out.

It is a statue of a naked boy holding some sort of a vessel at an angle, presumably pouring something out of it. I believe it was a part of a fountain. It wasn’t the fact that the kid was naked or anything like that. It was just that this cement kid had a face only his cement mother would love.

So I had this scary cement kid and a base that he sat on quite nicely—so—what to do?

I told my husband to help me place him in a part of the yard against the fence where not a lot of people go. I asked that he be placed in the middle of some vinca so it would grow around the statue and cover at least part of it.

My husband was also creeped out by the statue and took my instructions at bit farther.

Stumble It!

Before. And. After.

 
Lately my life has been divided into two categories: 

Before the rattlesnake bite. And after the rattlesnake bite.

Before the bite, I was working on my friend’s front yard—after she remodeled her house.

She wanted some succulents somewhere in her yard. She wanted me because I was her friend and because I’m sure she sort of felt sorry for me.

How do I know this? Well, I did a couple of drawings for her and when I presented my ideas she said suddenly “I don’t want my yard to look like the one you did two streets over.”

Alrighty then.

My friend has very good and very specific tastes. She is very much on the contemporary side while I am very much on the traditional side.

She doesn’t like clutter.

Clutter seems to follow me where ever I go.

She dresses nice and keeps her clothes clean all the time.

I dress...in clothes...that sometimes happen to be...clean.

Her car is always washed and her carpets are always vacuumed.

I can write my grocery list on the passenger door of my car and I think my car has carpeting...somewhere.

She has a girl.

I have two boys.

I could go on.

But I will stop to tell you that I ended up designing a minimalist yard for her.

Clean and green.

Her house is very geometrically bold, so I decided to use curves in her garden to soften the look of the house. If I had used more straight lines for the garden it would have looked too stiff and unwelcoming.

Here are the Before and After pictures:

 

 

 

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