Home and Gardening With Liz: July 2013

July 22, 2013

The floral parade...

The floral parade continues.

It's such a treat to see the flowers showing off their happy colors and pretty faces!

My island out front has been blooming away. We had a garage sale this past Saturday and I worked on prepping for it throughout last week...which was hard because of that heat dome we were under. 98 with a heat index of 105

The day of the garage sale it cooled off and it was quite comfortable. People were taking tours of my gardens. They were all so kind and complimentary. Made me feel good!

These drooping Delphiniums are all that's left of those big 5 ft. tall ones I had. I love the bright blue color. It makes for some nice summery color combinations.

These little cone flowers are coming along nicely.

The Zagreb Coreopsis have turned out to be a winner!

When I found these Shasta Daisies at the garden center I liked how the flower's face is straight up. I've got to hunt around the plants and see if I can find their tag, because I don't remember their name.

Last week

A new cone flower I put in last year looks pretty mixed in with some these purple delphiniums.

Too bad I didn't remove that green plant stake for the picture!

The Peachie's Pick Stokes Asters are starting to bloom too.

Still waiting to see the Black Eyed Susans!

This butterfly weed made it back. I love their color.

More cone flowers- I believe these are called Little Annie

I love the soft delicate flower of the hostas.

Summer, summer, summer! Yes!

Out back the hostas are all blooming. I enjoy watching the hummingbirds visit them. They dance around feeding off of them and it's a joy to watch.

These are short and stout but I love the variegated

coloring they have. These are Amber Tiara hosts.

These hosta flowers are draping across like flags hanging.

The Endless Summer Hydrangeas are blooming.

I love the different stages of the flower.

My soil is very alkaline and even with the fertilizer that's supposed to help turn them more blue this is about as much blue as I can get from them.

Love their soft fluffy flowers

This one is a giant...almost like 3 flowers

Last year I had no flowers due to the untimely frosts so I'm tickled to see them blooming!

These Sunday Gloves day lilies are framed with some Razzamatazz day lilies.

I think they are a stunning lily. Definitely my favorite!

Thanks as always for visiting!

I love to hear from you.

I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to visit much lately,

but I will try to do better!

GARAGE SALE!

I was busy all last week preparing for a garage sale.

I live off of a main county road that gets a fair amount of traffic and I've always done well with getting people to stop in.

I did advertise in my local paper and on Craigslist.

One way or another I was able to sell most of my goods and I'm grateful for that!

Step one, we decided to build some tables to set things on. In the past I've used some saw horses with a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood or whatever I could find. My logic was that we could reuse these again. Boy the price of lumber is crazy. We ended up buying floor decking material because standard plywood was ridiculous!

We cut the 4 x 8 sheets into 2 x 8's and we bought 7 ft. 2 x 4's and cut them to 3 ft. lengths. We had a bunch of 12 inch pieces left over which we used to connect each table at the seems and it straightened them up.

Everything was screwed together so it could be taken apart easily. (Dig the sexy sox on my hubby)

Our garage is split with two doors and we used the left side for staging.

Dan insisted on covering up our stuff that wasn't for sale by adding this visqueen which we happened to have on hand from some other projects. (Staple staple staple...) Many years ago some nosy (older guys) went right around my tables at a garage sale and were nosing around in our tools. I had to boot them out! That's why we do the privacy plastic thing.

I bought a bunch of (cheap) vinyl tablecloths with the flannel backing to cover the wood because it's picky and this looks better. I started bring my stuff to the tables.

I marked everything with little strips of masking tape and a marker which is a super inexpensive way to do it. Those little round ones they well with prices on them already are nice but I had too much stuff and wasn't going to pay for them (cause I'm cheap!)

We have left over pieces of carpet from different times that we've had carpet laid. We cut small strips and I staged pictures on them.

I forgot I had this faux olive tree stored away so I sold it too!

In the center of the room I created a space for some man stuff. I was thrilled that hubby brought out a lot of stuff he was harboring.

He works on industrial electronics for machines at machine tool shops around a five county region. That is our business.

This is a crazy shot. I used the panoramic mode on my iPhone. You sweep from left to right as your taking it. It made a crazy curve of the garage door but you get the drift. Some of the things on the floor were taken outside the day of the sale. It was in the upper 90's all last week while we prepared so we had fans going all the time.

I popped into a party goods store the day before and spotted this garage sale balloon and I combined it with the polka dot ones for an eye catcher. It had a weight at the bottom and we stuck it into the mail box and closed the door and it worked great!

By 4:00 it was pretty barren. We brought in our signs and I condensed what was left into a couple of spots.

Sunday we tore down the tables we made and the plastic was taken down.

It's not a pretty garage, but it does the job.

Now to put this away in the storage barn.

We took anything left over to the Women's Resource Center and Goodwill. The electronic/electrical stuff went to a recycling place for that kind of stuff and the rest we took to a recycling center where are garbage pickup company is located.

So that's what I've been up to for the last week and weekend. Next week we move bedroom furniture down to our daughter's place. She's moving into a new rental with more space so she's finally going to have her bedroom furniture from home.

What have you been doing??

July 14, 2013

Americana and French Country

In the recent past I converted my little kitchen dining nook to having a bit of an Americana theme. It caused me to change up the look I have on the burlap covered table that's nearby.

I've blogged about this spot a few times and my Tuscan accents.

(The mirror is too high but I don't want to adjust it until I'm sure it's staying)

Because this table is so easily seen near my dining nook I needed to swing the look so it would work better with the new Americana theme I've started.

I'm debating on that mirror. It was placed there after it lost it's home over the fireplace. It's very Tuscan and I'm tempted to paint it or find a better piece for the wall. It also looks like I'm mimicking my door which I wasn't, it just happened.

I've been playing with this for a few weeks. I brought out two mercury glass candle holders so they would bring in the same metal tone as my accessories over in the dining nook. I had this large white rooster hiding under the table and I was glad to have a reason to bring it out. I put the glass candle holder in the rear to create some height. I think this may qualify as "French Country" but I definitely feel it works better with my dining nook.

Good 'ole One King's Lane got me again!

It's part of a 3 pc. set.

The silks were pulled together from my stockpile.

I stuffed reindeer moss under the candle for

a little added definition.

The other two pieces have been incorporated into my plate rack.

I like how they made these tins look aged as though they were some found treasure from the past.

The smallest one got paired up with this potted sunflower that I laid on it's side. The sunflower was a pick from Pottery Barn a few years ago.

Standing back in my kitchen this is my view. I'm planning to change that elephant table for the blue pottery piece. It was used because it's solid and provided a safe spot for it, but it's not what I want there.

This is one piece that I have in mind for that spot.

The chicken wire lantern piece on the table was another Pottery Barn find from a few years back.

They called it "farm wire" I have a matching serving tray that goes with it as shown here, which also shows how the wall looked before the picture came in.

I do plan to change out the picture kind of seasonally.

I also want to paint the door but I need to figure out what color. I would also love some wainscoting on the wall by the kitchen nook...that's been on the list for 20 years...

So that's my current tweak.... what have you been tweaking?

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Inspire Me Tuesday

July 11, 2013

Hooked on Flowers

Did you know I'm hooked on flowers?

Yep... there may be a 12 step program to defeat it, but I'm not going to the meetings!

I am passionate about planting flowers.

I love to make arrangements in pots. I love the instant gratification that the annuals give me and they are easy to maintain!

These frilly Geraniums are called "Summer Twist"

and I couldn't be happier with them. They've branched out really well and the flowers last a very long time.

I put Bacopa at the base and some Star Flower (Isotoma) to fill in around the geraniums.

Above the geraniums is this long planter filled with these Vinca Titan plants.

They are called Lavender Blue Halo

I mixed in some Vinca vine which has been slow to get going.

By my back door are my two plant stands that I turned into planters. I've set a few decorative items below. I blogged about this creation here

Both of these planters flank the back door slider....

These haven't quite turned out as I had hoped.

The Violas are going to get trimmed back heavily so the begonias will show up better.

This hanging basket has taken off nicely. The Creeping Jenny is a great for hanging baskets and I have some growing out in my perennial beds.

I didn't know the Creeping Jenny would flower like this. I planted it one year thinking it was an annual but it keeps coming back. I love how it spills over the little wall.

My window box is coming along but right now the flowers are in one of those transitions where there aren't many blooms.

My Fairy Garden (in the background) is coming along nicely.

That is a purple Bacopa on the left. The bees love it!

The pot that these are in is actually a huge bowl I bought on clearance from Pottery Barn a couple of years ago. We drilled a couple of holes in the bottom I could use it as a planter.

My big pot on the bicycle stand has gone crazy.

I put a an Alyssum in it called Clear Crystal White and this variety produces large flowers...there are some Superbells called Lemon slice mixed in there too along with some more vinca vine and Purple Archangel (Angelonia)

These little pots have some more Vinca called Cooler Rose and my favorite Violas....and

I think that's a weed on the left! LOL

I mixed this Saratoga Lime Nicotiana with these reds and pinks and I really love the color mix.

I need to rotate it more often- it has gotten lopsided...

This is my burlap wrapped watering can I blogged about a while back (here)

These rusty buckets have been aging with my (abuse) care for the past 3 years...the bottoms are a little iffy so I've placed them on the mulch just in case they let go!