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.