Tag: gardening

Hector the Great Garden Gnome has Arrived….

He settled right in and found himself a home….


George and Jeramiah quickly rushed out to greet him, and they grabbed the Gnome mobile for a quick tour before the rainstorms began.

Todays project was to get the new flowerbed set up with a sprinkler system.

Hector was very impressed that George and Jeramiah got so much done with the trolls., who can be a bit unruly.
The troll kids showed him the lilacs that were planted earlier in the season and how they made sure each lilac got a water sprinkler.

They are hoping that this planting of lilacs will be able to bloom without the deer eating them and will provide a nice visual screen from the neighbors in the back. They are after all a hardy plant old fashion bush surviving years of neglect and deer trimming…. Time for them to get a nice new home of their own…. There was talk of planting petunias around the rock edge since the middle of the flowerbed is still rough and won’t support much in the way of plantings.

Pinks, Pinky and Gemma are wanting pink petunias to go with the heart rock they found

But the other trolls said maybe purple to go with the lilacs. I had to explain to them that it is way too early in the season to be planting them. Hector concurred. Besides I like red petunias.
Before long the clouds darkened, and it started to rain lightly. Everyone started loading up in the Gnome mobile

Except for Lime who was really enjoying playing with the dirt and planning the next planting….
He did finally head in when Mother nature unleashed the biggest thunder and lightning storm of the season with rain the felt like a waterfall from the sky.
Tune in for more gardening adventures from Hector George and Jeramiah, Poppa T, Pinx, Aqua, pumpkin, Lime, Blue, Gemma, and whomever they rope in for their gardening adventures….

Gardening challenges, The Gnomes have a plan

Jeramiah and George Gnome have been looking over the back yard. Making plans and discarding ideas. It has been a challenging year for gardening. Starting with the fact that Hector the garden gnome has not been able to break free from his other garden responsibilities. They have had to depend on their cousins the Troll family

Keeping the troll family on task is quite the challenge.
And then there is the weather, most uncooperative….

Not enough rain or snow this winter and spring…. Lots of wind, and the cheat grass is blooming….. spreading it’s seeds with the wind….
The challenge for gardening this year is Daunting. The human person (Me) has already had to start the water for the flowerbeds two months early. Many losses of plants that should have survived but didn’t because of the lack of rain or snow this winter…..

With all of these challenges George and Jeramiah decided it was time to hatch a plan to get the gardening done this summer. They gathered the troll family and had a meeting….
They decided that it was a perfect time to invite more of the Gnome family to come live here, I was given a letter.


Dear Gnomes, Family and Friends. Come live with us.
We have the perfect place for you to come live and garden

Lots of room for your whole family to play and garden

The Troll family is excited to meet more of their cousins and would welcome you go come live here in this wild paradise… There is some wildlife native to the area.

But the Desert Lizards, and


the pet Dinosaurs are quite harmless. Though we are not sure about the Dragon… He does seem to get along with everyone….
There will be a pool set up this year, but you might have to negotiate with the German Shephard who owns it….
Can’t wait to see you all again….
George, Jeramiah, Poppa T, Pinx, Aqua, Pinkie, Lime, Pumpkin, Genta and Blue

Spring cleaning one of my Bearded Iris beds

It is April and this year things are growing early for Central Oregon. Todays project was to get the old Bearded Iris leaves cleaned out of this flowerbed…. Because the location of this Iris bed gets more sunlight than the other 5 locations it starts blooming earlier. I have also noticed that my peonies are coming up, so not only do I have to remove the old iris leaves but the old peony leaves and the various different seed heads from last years flowers… Some are still standing in this photo in the background.

It all started out as planned, reach out grab a handful of old leaves and toss them into a pile for the compost pile. But… that only lasted a few minutes. When I put in the raised beds for the Peonies and the Virginnia Creepers, I made the fenceline side of those beds with cinder blocks, after replacing and changing the location of the new fence last year, I decided to remove part of the old fence. This year I decided those cinder blocks were ugly and pulled them. (back left side of photo) My plan was to replace them with more large rocks… Central Oregon has a lot of those, and I don’t have to go far to get the new rocks for this project since I have a lot of rocks close by. I have a couple of other rock borders that I want removed and it is a perfect use for those rocks.

Now that I have placed the new rocks in the area between the peony flowerbed and the Bearded Iris flowerbed, it is time to finish cleaning up the old leaves. Wait I haven’t photographed my work yet…. And while I am at it I need to include the gnomes and the trolls.

I wonder why it takes me so long to finish a project……

Self-Assignment Challenge: Gather from the yard use the vintage Roseville vase.

I have been working hard on refinishing a vintage cabinet that my grandmother had in her pantry for her summer harvest canning. It has been 2 months of painting, stripping paint, cussing, sanding and repainting, in the cooler mornings, before the day heats up or I had to go to my favorite class in the pool. I will save that story for another time when I can look at the photographs and not cringe with frustration. My vision for that cabinet was to store my growing collection of vases and vintage canning jars, that I like to use in my photographs. Yesterday the vases and jars went into the cabinet and I was free to think about photographing some of the flowers growing in my yard.

I have been reading a couple of books by a floral designer named Ariella Chezar, she suggested walking in nature and collecting for your flower arrangements. I have frequently done that with some of the dried barley heads, poppy seed pods and gnarly sticks from the local juniper trees. But I never thought of using the greenery with the juniper berries. As I went on my morning wandering in the yard, I noticed some plants that had heart shaped seeds. I usually pull those plants because they are weeds but, working on the cabinet meant that somethings got to grow. My win.
So my photo Challenge was to take a Roseville vase I bought last fall in a thrift store combine the juniper clippings, the seed heads, with some of the oriental and tiger lilies that have been blooming. The first photograph was the result of that challenge. I like it. But is that it ??? Well No… I had also collected yarrow, bee balm, daises and I had been photographing for a little over 3 hours with all of the different flowers and various containers. The challenge was saved for last and when I got the shot I envisioned, I then started adding the other flowers to the mix. I really don’t know how Mylo the fluffy cow, got into the photo

He does seem to like flowers though