In The Eye Of The Storm

Last night our area experienced a storm that knocked out power in over a million homes, caused supermarkets, gas stations and restaurants to close, weddings to be cancelled and many people to experience sleepless nights while temperatures hovered in the 100's.

We are lucky and still have our electric and internet. But we were caught in the tempest while giving the Lab her before bed walk. We were at the other end of the block from our house when it began.

In a matter of seconds the air went from humid and still to 90 miles an hour with branches breaking off above our heads, flying gravel filling our eyes and GG screaming "get down" at me.  We would crouch beside a car, wait for a break in the wind and move forward until another gust of wind came at us.  We did this for about 10 minutes, mostly with our eyes closed, slipping in the pounding rain with lightening breaking above us in an almost purple sky. It was a very long 10 minutes.

Unusually we had locked the door after ourselves and it seemed an eternity waiting for GG to turn the key in the lock.

Once inside we burst into gales of laughter, hugged the dog and dried ourselves off.

Talk about feeling powerless.

Tomorrow we leave town and and  a very messy yard with tilted plants, a fig tree listing and  an unmowed lawn. We have a broken patio table and leaf debris flung madly about. I debated taking tomorrow to clean it up. Then I got a grip. Remember last year?  We had a earthquake and a hurricane while we were on holiday. Better to live for today.

It will all be waiting for us when we return.

I think it's high time for a vacation!

Carpe diem.

xo jane

P/S. Meg over at Pigtown Design has an excellent post on the storm.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Nordstroms....

First, a big thank you to all who participated in June's flowers in the house.  Whether you brought your garden into your house or your camera into your garden, each and every post was picture and word perfect.

When I get to look at picture after picture of hydrangeas and true garden roses, lisianthus and raspberries, orlaya grandiflower, my new favorite flower,( thank you Denise), bits of shrubbery and handfuls of herbs I am one happy woman. And it couldn't have happened on a better day.....

Because while running errands on Monday with my tall, exuberant friend Anne we suffered a bit of an accident. She tripped, started to slip and threw all her weight and  her 5'10" onto me.  Me with the just healing ankle.  Me with the  now freshly tweaked ankle. I stumbled , I flailed, I staggered and somehow I held us both up.  Too bad no one got a video of that moment.  It must have been the funniest game of Twister ever seen in a mall.

I railed against fate, I complained unceasingly to GG how unfair it was, I talked loudly to myself about how unfair it was and then I got over it. GG said it was an accident.

The brace is back.  Apparently I will zumba no more. At least not till after vacation. But it was just a tweak not a sprain and it was an accident. Right? See why I needed those flowers?


3 more days of work and we're off.  Off to Cape Cod.

Our annual 4th of July party is cancelled.  We're going on holiday.

Your plans?

xo jane

Flowers In The Garden House: June 2012

First ice a latte.  Then wander about the garden with a knife and a Lab.  Cut a flower here, an herb there. Actually stop to smell the roses.  Bring armful of flowers and dog into kitchen and make a mess filling vases and bottles. Bronze fennel alert: inhale deeply.

Fill favorite white vase with echinacea, cottage yarrow, fennel, painted fern, and tradescantia zebrina.

Pose in window.

Fill bottle with stem of red floribunda rose and bit of coleus.

Place in east window. Put on sunglasses.

And then take all the rest, the hydrangea nigra, the hosta blossom, the swedish ivy, scabiosa and one shasta daisy, more of the yarrow and the last of the fennel and make a little posy.

Oh and don't forget to add a bit of origanum rotundifolium Kent Beauty.

Then refresh your coffee, wake your sleeping partner and let your day begin.

As the day progresses you may find said partner has harvested her garlic and hung a large bouquet of it on the mud room wall.

Suddenly transporting you to Greece.

And it all started with a walk in the garden.

What you got?

The Accidental Tourist

It's Saturday morning and the heat wave has broken, I have just finished the first 600 odd pages of The Game Of Thrones ( a genre I don't usually dabble in but hey it's summer) and today is my last day of work for the week.

Let me throw out a thought here: Monday, June Flowers In The House?

If you're new to us here are the rules:.........ok no rules , here's a link to see how it looks.

If you've got it in your garden pick it and flaunt it.

If not, go to your farmers market or indy flower shop and buy a few stems of summer, put them in a vase and invite us over.

We'll visit you, maybe grab something cold to drink and perhaps sign your guest book.  You'll do the same.  You'll travel the States. You'll get to go abroad for the summer.

You in?  Good.  See you Monday!

xo Jane

The Little Garden That Could

Let's raise a glass of ice cold lemonade to the fan that's fanning over my left shoulder and the airconditioners GG carried down our rickety attic stairs last night.

It's come in like a lion, summer that is, and we're waiting for the sun to drop below the leylands before we  water. We just checked the temperature, it's 95 at 7:30 PM.  Ahhhh, summer.

This morning I was up with the birds and out with the mosquitoes ( the biggest bites are just before dawn) and took a few pictures of the New Bed ( remember?) that is filling in nicely with a variety of crops from our compost.

There are 3 tomatoes and a few vines, what do you think, squash, cucumber?  There's also a volunteer euphorbia, martini we believe and a couple of sage plants.

The beds may run rampant with a variety of who knows what but that GG runs a tight border patrol.:)

We're replanting the bed under the back stairs former home of the giant pussy willow.

With every fern we move along comes a lily of the valley here and a piece of  sweet woodruff there.

Well done on the self planting.  Now this garden just needs to learn how to weed itself  and we'll have it all going on. Inside.

Sun's down, I'm off.  

How's your summer growing?

Reflections On What Was And What Could Have Been

We have two teens helping out at the shop this spring/summer. One is home from her first year in college, the other has just graduated from high school.

Both are confident in manner, self respecting and motivated with wicked work ethics.

Both seem to have close relationships with their fathers.

Is there any connection?  I don't know but I suspect there might be.

My father, whose nickname was Frosty, was as alpha a male as you could wish to meet.

My mother gracefully accepted beta status, I fought him every step of the way.

In retrospect I admit to being a big PITA ( pain in the ass, more flower shop speak).

In retrospect I bet he would too. I now recognize his flaws as mine.

I wish we could do it again from a different perspective.  Less struggle, more acceptance.

But I did take away a love of gardening, a love of the absurd and the ability to throw a party.

And I also learned to give to others, both time and money when possible, be there for your friends and that when it's time to put the drink down, put it down. Just walk away.

So today I'll both miss him and honor him by doing what he taught me to do best.  Yard work.  Off to the garden.

xo Jane

The Pot(s) Is Smoking

Oblivious to  my snarky post ( thanks I needed that)  and irritating work moments the garden is doing it's June thing. And doing it beautifully.

We had a choleus love moment in May and the crazy colors and patterns have returned the favour.

We also have a big crush on the Swedish Ivy spilling out of the Mandevilla vine .

This is also known as Plectranthus, but not to us. We just call it Swedish ivy.

Oh don't let me forget to get to the heart of the matter in the June garden.

Undeterred by the gypsy moths nibbling at its leaves grows some nights dinner.

Our first cauliflower.

Can you imagine how good this is going to taste?

Work? What's that?

In The Year 2525

That was the week that was.  I wanted to implement a new way to answer the phone at work. "You have reached  Blah-Blah Florist where it's always a full moon."

This is the time of year customers decide to freshen up their old dried and or silk arrangements. As soon as we see someone teetering into the store carrying a black plastic trash bag we know we're in trouble.

One customer was in such a hurry to come in she just threw on a pair of unlined white lace shorts but apparently forgot to add any underwear.???  She had the black plastic bag in hand though.

Proms are getting a bit more complicated.  Taking a corsage order in like a mini wedding appointment with fabric swatches, pintrest pages, texting seniors and anxious mothers. Last prom today. Whew.

And somewhere in the madness there was a customer who went psycho on me insisting on me hobbling on down to a hotel in DC to redo arrangements that looked exactly like the sample.  I believe the phrase 'jacked up" was used.  More flies with honey people, more flies.

Of course "jacked up" is now in constant use at the design table.

GG had her own set of crazy at the plastic surgery clinic but that deserves a blog all its own.

I'm off to start a new work week momentito.  Hoping to hear a few more please and thank yous.

Good God I have officially become my mother.  That's jacked up!

xo Jane


Quick update: Have just returned home from work and today followed the cray cray path set last week.  We were informed by two different girls that "Prom is stressful" and one returned her boutonniere citing "change of plans". Um, okay.  Maybe gonna go catch a movie instead?

A Full Strawberry Moon

Come the dog days of summer, what I would like to remember is this: the 4th of June, 2012 was a beautiful  day.

The bedroom curtains billowed in the breeze, weeding was almost a pleasure surrounded by  the scents of lavender and rosemary as I was in the vegetable garden. The dog chased bees, the cat slept under the boxwood and there was a partial eclipse of the moon.

A day to remember

And On The 7th Day.....

Ankle wrapped, hair uncombed, iced latte in hand. I'm outta here. The garden waits.

The sun's shining, the birds chirping and my neighbor is already running her lawnmower at 8:00am.

The cat and dog are hard at work weeding and watering. 

Over planted? Don't be silly.  

 

Such an over used word in our garden.

Hope your Sunday is a beautiful and humidity free as ours.