A productive day

Today was so beautiful in NC I decided to make a trellis for my climbing hydrangea.  I gathered dead limbs and built this.  It was finished in 2 hours.  If you can ignore the empty pots, ladder and the black garden trailer behind the trellis, please?  (sheepish grin)  I chose a climbing hydrangea because it's a flowering vine that can take some shade.  It will have lace cap flowers eventually.  I used 12' steel rebar for the bones of the trellis and then attached dead limbs.

What are you adding to your landscape this Spring?  I tend to add or change something around every year.  I had a rose garden in the back for 5 years, but this year I moved all the roses to the front yard, and placed a crepe myrtle in their place.




This is what it will look like in about 10 years.  Climbing hydrangea is a slow growing vine. (click the photo to see a larger view)  By the time it gets this big, I'll have built a larger, stronger trellis.

Hazards of backyard hens

It's a farm thing city kids won't understand.

New things

I thought I'd update the photos of my rain garden.  The last photo I shared with you was taken 2 years ago.  Here's the photo I took today:


New plantings include Loropetalum, Verbena, butterfly bushes-both petite and normal sizes, irises, lilies, gladiolas, red hot poker, 'Secret's out' & 'Gold Medal' roses, yellow Knock-out roses, azaleas, several hostas, ajuga and acuba.

Steamy hot weather will be here next week.  I love NC!

Here are some closeup photos of the Japanese iris in my rain garden:

 

What to look for in a sewing machine

A friend of mine has been looking for a sewing machine for several weeks. She's researching brands, trying the new ones and also looking at used machines.  I found a blog that has WONDERFUL advice for anyone looking for a sewing machine.
What to look for in a sewing machine

I've had several brands of sewing machines through the years, including a Featherweight 221 and 222. Currently I use a 1951 Singer 15-61 Centennial, a Bernina 640, a Tin Lizzie 26" longarm quilting machine and a 1501 SWF embroidery machine with 15 needles.

I thought I'd share a photo of my Singer. I restored the top recently.  It looks beautiful, I keep it by the front door. I call it "the tank". I'm using it this weekend to reupholster our doctor's chiropractic table. The leather he chose came from a huge, huge cow! It's gigantic! It's also very thick but the tank will handle it nicely.

You can see the leather in a pile on the floor and the pieces from his table can be seen in my dining room.  The blue bin you see on the floor are my worms. I keep the attachments for the tank in the suitcase.  I found the machine on craigslist for free!

Then there are the Singer Featherweights, wonderful little machines.  A few years ago I bought a 222k as a doorstop.  It lived outside in someone's back yard for 2 decades, and was not a pretty sight.  I bought it for $40 and restored it.  An automotive shop repainted it for me, and then I replaced or repaired everything else on the machine, including the decals.  I used it for a year or so, and made a few quilts.  I sold it for $1,200 on ebay (it had every attachment known to man, which is why it went for so much).  The new owner absolutely loved it. 

I need to get off the computer and sew! ... until another day my friends, may you have no thread nests.

( .....What?.... you don't keep worms in your dining room??? ) 

Good ol' NC blizzard

We had ANOTHER tree fall on the house. 6 days before high school graduation too! We had super help to clean it up though and by dusk all that remained was a stump, saw dust and the ever so lovely scent of gas/oil in the air.

Our front yard used to look like this every spring, a good ol' North Carolina blizzard (flowers falling off our flowering pear trees):

Today, our front yard looked like this:

Master Gardener

I'm happy to announce I am now a Master Gardner, and in honor of this auspicious occassion....