Heather's Garden

BULB CRAZY

First, the best thing I have ever bought.  Most of the leaves have finally fallen off the trees and it's time for my least favorite chore ever -- cleaning them up.  I was ecstatic when I left home for college years ago because it meant I would never have to rake an acre's worth of leaves again.  I guess I never thought I would be living in a house with deciduous trees again -- ah, the ignorance of youth.  $70 later, I have the greatest power tool ever created.  You guessed it, a leaf blower/sucker/chipper.  I played with it for 5 minutes at dusk this evening and I am actually excited to go out and clean up the yard.  This is the wonder machine (sucker attachment and bag  are on the other side of the living room):

There's snow in the forecast for Sunday into Monday so we have to get everything cleaned up and put away this weekend.

I've obviously completely lost it.  VPH and younger step-son are looking at me out of the corner of their eye wondering what the crazy lady is going to do next.  Why does she keep sticking gravel and glass pebbles in vases and glasses, throwing a bulb on top, and adding water?  This is not normal behavior.  Then she starts putting balls and sparkly snowflakes on the rosemary tree?  Lunacy!

I need to find a star for the top of the tree.  It's so cheesy, but it's fun!  Did you see VPH's new coffee maker above?  The old one died a horrible death and I couldn't see making him wait 20 minutes for a pot of coffee to brew twice a day every day until Christmas, so it's an early present.

I picked up this cute (but loud) wreath at W-Mart today originally priced at $9.98, but I got $2.00 off.  Can you see why:

Did you find the snowman at the bottom with the missing blue metal hair swirl?  I doubt anyone who is in my kitchen will notice it without prompting either.

Okay, I am officially crazy about forcing bulbs.  Wait until I post the latest photo of the amaryllis on Sunday, you won't believe how it's grown this week.  I've started a bunch of other bulbs now.

Two hyacinths are hiding in the cool, dark pantry.  One in a forcing glass:

The other is sitting on river pebbles in a cute little vase:

The paperwhites have been planted in three distinctly different ways.  In an upside down blue glass candle holder that I've always used as a vase packed in river pebbles:

So you can see how tall the vase is (I'm hoping that the tall vase will help prevent the flowers from flopping over, which I've read can be a problem):

A fish glass in the fish-themed bathroom in blue and green glass pebbles:

[I just noticed that I forgot to put water in this one, lol.]

And wedged into a pilsner glass (the bulb is not perfectly round, so air still circulates and I can add water):

I have two more pilsner glasses and you just may see a few of the hyacinth bulbs that I picked up today at 1/2 price appear in them in weeks to come.  [Take that, Gina, you bargain shopper you!]

I like the element of surprise here too, will they be blue, pink, yellow?

Layanee, I love that you're so excited to read my new posts, you make me blush.  I wish I could be disciplined enough to commit to posting on a specific day, but it's never going to happen!

You other new garden bloggers out there -- how are you coping with not having much to post about now?

INDOOR GARDENING

Since it's turned bitter cold outside (4o feels positively frigid after 63 on Thanksgiving), I've turned to gardening indoors.  I've been a bit under the weather and lacking enough energy to dig out the Christmas decorations, but I did drag myself out to pick up a poinsettia on Friday.

Note the nifty silver container -- a freebie from the company that supplies the plants for my office as a thank you for signing up with them.  I killed the orchid that came in it just in time to use it for a poinsettia in my living room:

I am not enjoying trying to take photos indoors with the flash on my camera.  This is the only one that turned out even half true to life:

The amaryllis has really sprouted this last week.  I can't wait to see it bloom.  I'm enjoying forcing it so much that I picked up some paperwhite bulbs on Friday when I got the poinsettia and as soon as I feel up to braving getting off the couch, I'm going to get them started. 

My last purchase on Friday at the garden center was a rosemary tree:

Ignore the dirty dishes in the sink, VPH will kill me when he sees this photo.

So the entire herb garden in the kitchen is now basil, dill, cilantro, and rosemary:

Too bad we don't have scratch and sniff internet, the rosemary tree smells amazing. 

What are you growing inside this winter?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

To all my loved ones near and far (and that includes you, dear reader), I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with yummy food, peace, and tranquility.

It's not typical Thanksgiving weather here.  Someone (I wish I could remember who) recently wrote on their blog that this time of year the trees in their area are usually bare.  That's true in Southern CT as well.  But take a look at the trees above our house on Saturday:

Just as well we haven't raked a single leaf yet.  It will be a while before they all come down.  The reverse view of the yard:

It's supposed to reach 60 here today, but rainy.  If it stays clear I may enjoy a glass of wine on the patio and think fondly on global warming.

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY

I've been gone from GTS for over a month -- sorry!   There hasn't been much gardening going on around here lately.  In fact, we still haven't done our fall clean-up and Thanksgiving is less than a week away! 

Most of the garden died off in a killing frost a week ago, but amazingly this rose plant just keeps going:

And I always thought roses were fragile plants.

Just to illustrate the death and decay here's the herb basket with dead basils (though the sage and thymes are holding their own):

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

POST-RAINY DAY BLUES

The forecast for today was 60 degrees and sunny so VPH took the day off to stay home and help me with garden clean-up.  We had a killing frost come through over the weekend and it looks bad out there...very bad.  Unfortunately we didn't plan for the rain storm that started late last night and soaked everything, which has canceled garden clean-up day.  We can't very well put away wet wooden lawn furniture or lug around pots of wet soil.  Oh well, keep your fingers crossed for another warm, but dry, day soon.  On the plus side we're having a fun lazy day at home together.  Oh and the rain gave us a construction respite for the day.

THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY

Remember the enormous garage going up about 50-75 feet from my bedroom?  Now they're driving screws or something that is incredibly loud and annoying.  I uploaded a video to YouTube so you can get the full sound effect.

And that is from inside the house.  I'm trying to watch TV and I keep having to turn up the volume to hear the dialogue.

This morning (a Saturday) they woke me at 8:30 am with the beep-beep-beep of a bobcat backing up repeatedly over and over and over again.  I am not a morning person.  On a Saturday I want to be able to sleep at least until 9:00 am and then wake gently on my own. 

When will this stupid thing be built?  Really how long does it take to build a three car garage?  We've been listening to this for well over a month.

And this is garden related.  I don't want to spend any time in my garden between the noise, construction guys able to clearly watch me putter around, and the diesel fumes from their equipment.

IT'S OFFICIAL

I'm a gardening geek.  I have joined the ranks of people franticly running around in the dark with a flashlight trying to save their tomatoes and peppers from the impending doom of the first hard freeze.  Yup, I even covered the best producing tomato plants with a blanket in the hopes that the remaining 10 or so green tomatoes will survive the night.  I am thankful that in this, my first year gardening, I haven't had to face this issue until November 7th.

UPDATE:

I'm not sure that there was a freeze last night, but it definitely got really cold here.

As promised here's what I saved last night by flashlight:

I went out this morning to see if the tomatoes survived the freeze under the blanket.  They look pretty good to me:

However, their uncovered buddy looks pretty bad (but it looked pretty bad before last night):

I brought in the dill and cilantro last night and today they moved to their winter spot on the windowsill above the kitchen sink next to the basil (my only window with southern exposure):

Displacing this guy:

Hopefully the window off to the right will provide enough sun for it to survive the winter.

I also made beef stew today...it was a very productive day for me!

STILL HERE

My mood is oodles better.  It must have been the Fall Frumps.  But I did get lots of sympathy from VPH and have been able to talk him into doing things that he normally wouldn't, like go to Christmas Tree Shops with me on a Sunday! 

Their recent flyer featured more things than I am usually interested in, like an amaryllis kit, a mission style bookcase, and an over the sink cutting board (perfect for those of us with little counter space).  I also loved the kitchen island on the same page, but if we squeezed it into our already overstuffed kitchen we would have had an 11-inch opening from the kitchen to the rest of the house and I just couldn't see that working long-term! 

Have you ever been in a Christmas Tree Shop on a Sunday?  I do not recommend it.  People constantly stop in front of you blocking the entire aisle with their cart.  How completely obtuse do you have to be to do that?  The aisles are so narrow that it's impossible to pass even if you don't have a cart.  It's 12 hours later and I'm still pissed about it.

Even with the idiots we managed to come home with good stuff -- some not even advertised.  Unfortunately they were out of the over the sink cutting boards, but here is the latest addition to our living room (we have dark wood bookshelves lining the opposite wall, so the dark wood works):

The bottom two shelves are full of board games -- mostly Trivial Pursuit and Scene-It, and the two top shelves will be for DVDs since we've run out of room in the entertainment center (1/3 of which is out of frame).  Maybe some time this winter I'll give you a full tour of the living room.

But here's a close-up of my amaryllis:

I'm a little concerned about the large amount of dried roots coming out of the bottom.  Is that normal?  I kind of thought there wouldn't be any roots  or what appears to be new growth from the top. 

I also picked up 4 hyacinth bulbs to go into the vase when the amaryllis conks out and another hyacinth bulb and a forcing vase.  I'm going to start it in 3 weeks.  With the inevitable red poinsettia for the living room at Christmas time, we should have flowers blooming through the winter if all goes according to plan.

I am still hoping to see the mystery flower in the wildflower patch in full bloom, but just in case we get a killing frost, here it is nearly there:

Cosmo -- right?