Hot TUNA and other garden disasters

 

After you have been gardening for awhile you start to accumulate gardening disasters, some are excusable, a learning curve, others just make you shake your head and wonder what you were thinking..

There are a few that I am probably going to have to live with for a very long time.  One of them was planting what I thought was a nice ground cover called Houttuynia.  Many new gardeners mistakenly call it Hot Tuna, and it seems the name stuck, since I always refer to it as that in my head.

It does smell great when you crush the leaves, which you will be doing a lot of as you vainly try to pull up each and every root. It happily takes over all territory, and it will not die.

Another “former true love” of mine, that has decided to do it’s best to repopulate the garden is Milium effusum aureum, or Bowle’s Golden Grass. And to think that I highly recommended it to so many people, I even dug it up, and gave away chunks of it.  

I’d hang my head in shame, except I didn’t know any better then. 

But like a bad boy on a motorcycle, it looks so GOOD when those chartreuse fronds are blowing seed heads everywhere. Eye catching, hot!  Vroom, vrooooom.

And this baby, it may be called Austrian Violet, but I only know that I got the smallest strands wrapped in tissue from a Alberta gardener.  If it can live through those winters, it can live through anything. Now it grows where ever it wants, even hanging upside down from a hole in the brick fence, how it got there, I have no idea.

It’s a race to see who will take over the garden first, the Hot Tuna, the Bad Boy Grass, or the Alberta dinosaur that spreads like wildfire. 

So, now I have shared my shame, what are your gardening disasters?

Come on, we all know that everyone has skeletons in the gardening shed, share.

Jen

 

 

Click on over to my new blue blog Blu oom, there are some

wonderfully blue Anemone shots today.

Birthday Friends

 

She’s been my friend since I was 8, and she was 7.

Forty years this summer. That’s a very long time, through thick, and thin, through births and deaths.

Through heartaches, triumphs, moving, marriages, and divorces. 

We know each other well, and we have shared many of life’s milestones and memories during occasional visits, and semi annual birthday phone calls.

There is still a lot of catching up to do.  We have gone through the fake French Jeans, and the striped Adidas runner phase, Scottish Country dancing, and those hideous matching yellow woolen pants our Mother’s dressed us in. OH MY!

We find ourselves reconnecting near the April, and November birthday times.  Hers and mine. We may be birthday friends now, living our lives separately, but it’s when the calendar swings around to a birthday that I know I can expect a call from her.

For who else other then your family knows you better? A long term friend is a lifetime’s treasure. One who has seen you skin your knee, learn to bake, and come of age.

So here’s to strong female friendships, birthday wishes, and  many more candles on the Birthday cake.

Some of life’s great joys.

Jen

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Life and dancing in the rain

 

 

Life, is not about waiting

for the storm to pass

It’s learning how to dance in the rain.

Some quotes just seem to make you catch your breath, stop, and really think.

I’ve been doing a lot of dodging raindrops in the last year.

I think that it’s time to learn how to dance.

Jen

Year long challenge, nothing new, nothing wasted.

  Jess, and her family have challenged themselves to do for a year what some commenter's on her blog see as impossible, some see as frivolous, and many wise readers view with respect.

This Calgary, Alberta family has challenged themselves to live one year, from January to December, without purchasing anything other then food, and basic hygiene products new.

They are shopping at thrift stores, thinking before purchasing, and making conscious choices. It can’t be easy, such as the time she writes about replacing a plastic pipe from their bathroom sink, and still fulfilling the nature of the challenge.

 They are making waves, as some people disagree with their policy, and others are encouraging them.  Their personal challenge is gathering momentum, and it seems everyone has a opinion about what they are doing, as local newspapers, and regional television stations  interview them.

Jan writes her blog, “Nothing New, Nothing Wasted” with a interesting and very personal slant towards this challenge. She is fun to read, and it makes you think.  Energetic, enthusiastic, and a creative solution finder. Where does she get the time to do any blogging with 3 gorgeous little boys under the age of 8? 

I saw the feature story about Jess, on Global National the other night, and when they mentioned that she had a blog, I left her a message.  She promptly wrote back, and asked

“I'd love to pick your brain about gardening - we are new to it this year, as we speak my husband is filling the 'flower' beds (now food beds) with dirt. So... what is next? Where do we get, or do we need organic seeds?”

So I am asking you, my readers where Jess can purchase either online, or if it is in the Calgary, Alberta area, in person, good quality organic seeds, and starter plants.  I tend to buy most of my seeds from West Coast Seeds locally, and they are varieties that do well in our funny, wet, BC summer weather. And I am not sure how they would do in Calgary.

Jess, and her family are beginning gardeners, and this is a exciting journey for them. If you can help out with some good gardening advice for their area, please let us know.

And Jess, keep this going, I personally think that you have inspired many people to really think about what they are buying before they just go out there and do it, and that in itself is a great reward.

 

Jen

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Networking?

 

I’ve been away from blogging dealing with some “stuff” lately.  Not any of it has anything to do with photography, which makes me kind of forlorn. 

But not all of life can be about following your bliss.  Or can it?

Somehow, and I have no idea how this happened a new laptop followed me home from work the other day.  And just like the cat demanding food at 4:00 am in the morning, it has been taking up much of my free time, and it just won’t give up until it gets it.

We are new to computers, having only had a PC for just over 3 years now.  The feeling that we were the only people left in the world without immediate access to the internet was becoming overwhelming.  Every time we called a service provider, or a bank, they would mention the internet.  “Ah, we don’t have a computer,”  we would say, one guy even went so far as to ask how we managed to live from day to day without one.  That was a little bit of a deciding factor towards getting one.

Owning a computer for the first time is a little overwhelming when you need to learn to decipher “geek.”  Applications, programs, bit’s and bytes?  What?  Are bit’s and bytes not those crunchy snack food?  And applications,  isn’t that for a job?

Also what’s with those keyboards on the lap top?  They are different then my PC, I keep hitting a long line of ///////////, when I want to hit the left hand shift key.  At first I thought there was something wrong with the program, and then, I realized that all I needed to do was reprogram my brain to reach over to the far left when I want to hit the shift key.

This blog post was not typed on the laptop, no one wants to read a lot of ///////////////!!!!!!!!!!!!!!%%%%%%%, instead of what I intended to write. But I am seriously hoping that one day in the near future, I will be able to figure out what all the fancy buttons mean, and actually type out something on it.

One day maybe, but for now I have to go, my kitty/laptop is demanding to be fed.

Jen

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Pagoda Lily

 

They came into the nursery every fall, with a beautiful photo on the box, and they slowly withered under the radiant heaters.  Desiccated, beige bulbs, little lumps.   Only a few sold, how sad it is now to realize what treasures those bulbs were.

Erythronium  “Pagoda” is simply one of the most stunning spring flowering bulbs.  You can find out more information on it here from the Pacific Bulb Society’s web site.

Our local White Rock library, adjoining the City Hall, is fortunate enough to have some wonderful, talented gardening staff.  They clearly know their plants, and were always at the nursery where I worked, looking for rare and unusual stock. They have planted the landscaping with all sorts of treasures. And this is one that I adore.

I almost forgot to get photo’s of these beauties this year, everything is earlier then usual, and I wasn’t prepared at all for them to be almost bloomed out. But I am glad that I made the trip yesterday.  The rain stopped, the sun came translucently through the clouds, and the lilies shone.

It was well worth the trip.

Jen

Drop by my new blue blog, 

BLu oom.  I’ve got the blues, bad.

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Spring thrills us

 

~ If you've never been thrilled to the very edges

of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe

your soul has never been in bloom. ~ 

  Audra Foveo

 

Take a few moments to yourself this week, and spend some time with spring.

I think that it will thrill you.

I know it thrills me.

Jen

Drop by my new blog “Blu oom” it’s full of the blues.

Toto, we’re not in Kansas, [BC] anymore

 

OK, my memory might be a bit faulty on this quote, but doesn’t Dorothy turn to her dog  and say “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Well, I don’t think that we are living in British Columbia, Canada any more.  Somehow we got switched to Alberta, or Manitoba, or one of those frigid Provinces.  The ones that we always brag to about what warm spring weather we are having.

And we do it in the middle of winter. 

Yes, we British Columbians are cruel, but we also have the best weather in Canada.

Except for the other day.  What is with this? Two gi-normous windstorms, two! And what’s with the white stuff?  Hail, and snow, and sleet, my goodness, the hosta’s are up. Someone had better come to their senses.

Did anyone mention this to Mother Nature? 

What’s she doing, taking a spring break in Mexico? 

Hello?  Hello?  Anyone there?

Oh hi, yes we were just mentioning you.

Pardon me Mother Nature?

Okaaaayyyy, sure I’ll bring you another Pina Colada.

Well, it looks like we might be stuck with this weather for awhile.

Jen

Don’t forget to drop by my new blog Blu oom. 

It’s got the blues!

But Officer, it was a cherry pink magnolia

 

 It’s spring, and all the beautiful flowering trees, and shrubs, are out there shining, and glowing, and generally showing off. 

Add to that the gardeners in vehicles, gawking, peering, and visualizing.

And causing no end of havoc.

Admit it, you too have stopped traffic, slowed down, or pulled over with out proper signaling to stare at something that caught your fancy. We are gardeners, we love plants, of course we are distracted by their beauty.

It might be a beautiful dogwood tree, or the hot cherry pink magnolia. Or maybe it is a orange rhododendron in full candy tuft bloom.

“Slam on the brakes, can that really truly be the color of those magnolia’s”.

Do gardeners cause traffic accidents because they are always gawking at plants?

“Oh, go around, don’t mind me, I just need to check out that tree!”

Can you just hear the gardener in you explaining to the police why you dented that parked vehicle, “but officer, it was a cherry pink magnolia.”

“I’ve never seen one before.”

Now unless he is a avid gardener, I think you would be in trouble.

There are only a few, because they are very rare, and so beautiful, purple Paulownia trees in White Rock.  I know the location of each and every one. 

And when they bloom in early May, watch out, because this vehicle brakes for beauty.

 

Be sure to drop on by my new “blue” blog,  BLU OOM.

 

It’s full of the blues.

Jen

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Alzheimer’s is a thief

My Mother In Law, Rose, a lovely, sweet person, succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease at 89 years old last week.  She may have fought it for over 13 years, but Alzheimer’s had stolen her over a decade ago.

She no longer recognized any family member, she couldn’t function, she couldn’t feed herself, or do anything that we take for granted.

Alzheimer’s had stolen that from her, and also taken her from us.

It comes silently, slowly, sneaking up on innocent victims.  It robs them of family, memories, and life. Isolating in a cocoon of gossamer webs that refuses to let moments become memories.

Alzheimer’s is a thief, it steals indiscriminately, a little memory there, a larger chunk of life here.

Gradually there is nothing left, no remnant of personality. 

But despite that, we have great memories of her, to Gar, she was a wonderful, and caring Mom. 

To myself, she was first, the sweet neighbor who would pop over to my Uncle’s log cabin, when ever I visited.

And after I married her son, she was the quietly confused woman in the nursing home. Convinced that we were sitting in her kitchen sharing a cup of tea, and “oh, did we want to stay for lunch?”  She was a favorite of the nursing staff, good natured, and never raising a fuss.

We are dealing with our loss, it is hard, and even though we have dealt with this together for so long, it hurts. 

Enormously.

Alzheimer’s is a thief, and it has stolen her.

And I can only hope, that one day, they find a cure for this fatal brain disease.

But until then, when I think of Rose, it will be as this photo shows her. 

Laughing, at her 80th birthday party we had for her in the park. 

Alzheimer’s may have stolen her memories, but it can’t steal ours. 

If you are interesting in finding out more about Alzheimer’s disease, and how it is becoming a epidemic, click on the either of the high lighted links above.  If you wish to see the Alzheimer’s card that I have created for Rose,  with a donation made to the Alzheimer’s society of BC for each card sold, please go to Blu oom.

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Thank you,  Jen

Long Weekend

 

 With the Easter long weekend coming up, this seems like a perfect opportunity to take a few days off, and recharge.  I am getting so behind in everything, and while blogging is definitely one of the fun things in my life, I think I need a few days off from it.

I am looking forward to Easter eggs, bunnies, and a lots of photos.  Which I plan to share with you when I get back into blogging next week.

So enjoy your time off, I know that I will as well.

Blu oom will resume next week also.  I will be out there hunting for fun “blue” things to share with you.