Fall-front Desk

Charles-Joseph Lemarchand, 1923; Susan Schoedel, AIFD, Freelance Designer

Isaac's Vase

Isaac gave this vase to me for Christmas and I've been looking for just the right flowers for it. These are white ranuculas, and I think they're a perfect match. Can't wait for the garden roses, because they'll be just right for it too.

Cobalt Circle

Ilya Bolotowsky, 1987; Louise Chambers Krueger, AIFD, LaSalle Wholesale Florist. This was one of my favorites. She has cauliflower and broccoli in there too. I like vegetables in arrangements. I took one to Gayle at the Apple Barn last summer that had carrots and celery along with zinnias. And if you're a regular watcher here, you might remember the tomatoes and peppers in the late-summer-back-porch-zinnia arrangements. But I wouldn't have thought to put broccoli and cauliflower in among roses at the art museum! That broccoli has been painted too.

The Hudson at Piermont

Jasper F. Cropsey, 1968; Sue Casebeer, Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri.

She's Cute

Okay, this little girl was not one of the chosen works for Art in Bloom, but I just loved her. She represents a "minor Buddhist goddess of beauty and wealth", from 9th century Japan. I realize she's beautiful and valuable and needs to be protected, but don't you think she'd rather be sitting out in the garden? And I wonder what she thought about being considered minor? I didn't think she looked minor at all. . .

Red Evening Sky

Emil Nolde; 1983; Floral Designer Trisha Haislar, AIFD, Elegant Celebrations

Helen's Australia

Sigmar Polke, 2003; Floral Designer Sophie Connor, Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri.

Floral materials: pincusion protea, anthurium, fern leaf acacia, and rattlesnake calathea

Drive

Kenneth Noland, 1966; Floral Design by Nick Decker, Ken Miesner Florist

Best in Show

Temptation by Marc Chagall; Floral Designer Kay Schaefer. This won Best in Show, both the judges and the people's choice. Really? It wouldn't have been my choice. But it is nice. Next year I'm hoping to go earlier in the show. Maybe there would be fewer people on Friday. (I wonder how many people were there. It was packed!) And maybe my back won't go out . . .

The Buffalo Dance

Artwork by Charles Ferdinand Wimar, 1946; Floral Design by Rhonda Lynn-Moeckel, AIFD, Focus on Design by Schnuck Markets.

Entry # 3

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Sts. Peter, John the Baptist, Dominic, and Nicholas of Bari; Piero di Cosimo; 1940. Deb Feltes of Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri did the arrangement. This one was just beautiful. Love how she included the frame. She used bells of Ireland, flat fern, myrtle, ruscus, palm, snapdragons, and roses. It's not easily seen in this shot, but she wove some bright blue metalic materials throughout to mirror the color of the robes.

The Knitting Lesson

by Jean Francois Millet, 1939. The Garden Clubs of Illinois did this floral design. The colors and textures of the arrangements echo those found in the artwork. Amazing.

Art in Bloom

The St. Louis Art Museum's annual pairing of beautiful art and fabulous flowers. . . These were the huge arrangements set up just inside the main door.

Wayside

Thank you to Kathy and Lori! They sent me a gift certificate for my birthday, which will be tomorrow. Here's a couple of plants that I've had my eye on lately--The geranium blooms look like a pansy, don't they? And I love pansies. The hosta is Liberty. I've picked it up several times at the local nursery, but kept putting it back, thinking I'm a hopeless hosta addict. I'm going to keep looking for a while. Half the fun of a gift certificate is thinking of all the possibilities!

" . . . Everything is in divine order. As surely as the stars move on their course, your loved one left at his appointed time. Already he is engulfed in a greater good, privy now to a higher order of life. . . He is fine, resting comfortably, able now to make sense of so many things."
Answered Prayers--Love Letters from the Divine by Julia Cameron

$5 Bargain

I am so thankful for grocery store daffodils. They are good therapy.

Home is Where the People Who Love You Live

We had a wonderful time over the weekend. Todd & Lori were great hosts, as usual; and Bruce treated us all to lunch at Abuelo's. I miss everybody already and can't wait to go back. I always feel like we are going home when we travel to Lexington.

Snow Snow Snow

Mark used the snowblower to get the truck back up the driveway. That little fence just below the feeder is two-feet tall.

Just Back From Paducah

This is a shot of the formerly fabulous Ninth Street House--which has been refurbished back into its former glory. It didn't look like this when it was Ninth Street, but it was still THE place to go for lunch or a special dinner. I remember going there for lunch and just having the strawberry shortcake--the real kind, with thin, crispy layers of shortbread that tasted like sweet piecrust loaded with berries and whipped cream. You can't get California Chicken Salad here anymore; but fortunately, Curtis Grace still serves that famous salad with his wonderful iced tea at the House of Grace, now located out on the beltline. Not the same ambiance, but still the best chicken salad ever with that curry-mayo dressing over chicken, grapes, and almonds. And for desert--pie, of course!

Bonica in Better Days

This was a lovely rose in its day. Huge four-foot shrub that was about five feet across, loaded with blooms every spring. But it went into a slump over the past few years. Since it's planted right at the front door, it was downright embarrassing the last two seasons. So it's gone. I've been pouring over the garden catalogs trying to decide which rose could replace it. But I saw a comment from one of the bloggers the other day, who said roses were a plant that would flourish for the first three years then die a slow gradual death right in front of her eyes. And that's exactly what our experience was. We babied, watered, fed, begged, pleaded, prayed, fought off blackspot and japanese beetles with gallons of spray--and we still had to euthanize it. So I'm thinking that we should do something different. Maybe a tree peony? I've never grown those, but Sandy has a glorious white one in her garden. Or something easy-to-grow, like a butterfly bush that will turn into a living sculpture in August and September with butterflies whirling all around it. Or a japanese maple. Maybe all three. I could just get Mark out there with a shovel and plant the whole front yard. . . It just has to start getting warm soon. Being cooped up in the house with 18 degrees below zero wind chill makes me stir crazy. A few hours gardening out there and I will be thinking much more sensibly. . . Okay, back to the gardening catalogs!

For Tracy

This went to Tracy, my hairdresser, because she taught me how to dry my bangs this week. I'm 50, nearly 51. You'd think I'd know how to do that, wouldn't you? But anyway, I they look so much better, and lots of other people have liked my hair this week. Natalie even asked me if I'd had some "work" done. So for that, Tracy got flowers--daisies and acacia along with sprouting curly willow. The container is one of the purses that Lori found at Goodwill. This was so much fun to make. The tag says, "Thanks for my new bangs!"

Rabbits

Their tracks are everywhere everywhere all over the yard. This one set reminds me of the face from The Scream. I'm going to set out on a hunt for Milorganite. Milwaukee takes their sewage and turns it into a sanitized pellet form. Some people on the GardenWeb forums swear it's a good rabbit repellent. Gives me an excuse to go to Greenview tomorrow. . . sounds like a good outing for a wintery January Saturday.

Makes Me Smile

My mama has been at it again. What a valentine!

Sweet Peas

Martha Stewart published an article about Sweet Pea Gardens in her magazine a few years ago. Their garden is in Maine, where I'm sure they can grow beautiful sweet peas. Here, with our heat and humidity, they are trouble. They need to be planted early. They need a six foot trellis. (Thank you,Mark!) And the rabbits think that they are appetizers, so we have to put up one of those tacky little fences around the rows. But when they bloom, they are the sweetest flowers ever. So the order is in the mail. . .
sweetpeagardens.com

Sunday Snow

Park's Order

I woke up really early this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. So I ordered seeds! Here is salvia artemis from Park's (#4959). It's really hard to pick a favorite, but this is definitely one of my favorites from last year's season. And it's still out there. Squashed and frozen, but still green. So we'll see if it might be perennial too.

Seed Orders

It's time to start ordering! Roger Swain recommends Oregon Giant snow peas, so I'll try those this year. For zinnias, I always go with Benary's Giant. Johnny's has both in their catalog.

Ellen's New Haircut!

Here's Ellen with the cutest new hairstyle. She's holding her long long ponytail that she has been growing for Locks of Love. Such a sweet thing to do, Ellen--some little girl will be so happy to have her new hairstyle too!

More Tulips

More Ice

Not As Easy As It Looks

This is my attempt at a recent teleflora design. I thought it would be really easy and we could have the patients make some up to sell for Valentine's Day. But nope, not this one. Although it is pretty and I'm going to try to improve upon it.

Two of My Favorite Artists

I just got back from Lexington a couple of days ago. Todd and Lori made us so welcome, as always.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

Here's my beautiful daughter-in-law Rachel. She's terrific--artistic, creative, funny, she loves to read and garden, she loves animals, and she has a tender heart. What I really love about Rachel is how she loves loves loves my son Judson. And for that alone, she is the world's best daughter-in-law.

Zone 6 Gardening

I've always wanted to move back home to Kentucky so that I could garden in Zone 6. Zone 6 is where your hydrangeas bloom year after year after year. And where azaleas and rhodies can grow tall and full and lush--instead of the little two-feet-tall miniatures that are here in this "northern" garden. But now, thanks to global warming, Zone 6 has come to me! It's hard not to love 50 and 60 degree weather in January. Kelly and I have been sitting on the back porch most mornings. And I could, if I would, go out there and do a lot of gardening right now. It's pretty wet, but I could move, prune, and/or plant perennials, shrubs, trees right now. Maybe not everything would survive, but some would. Anyway, here's the site for the new hardiness map. There a cool feature where you can press play and watch the map change from the 1990 version to today's. http://arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm And even though I love this weather and I really really want a Zone 6 garden, I hope there's a day when we (and our children and our children's children) can use all the energy we want because it's clean, it's cheap, it creates more than enough jobs for everybody right here in this country as well as any other country that is interested, and we don't have to fight anybody for it.
NOTE: This rant inspired by Garden Rant. http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/

Better Than TV

I love this guy's pictures. His name is Brent Fultz. I always think that I'll watch the Rose Parade on TV, but then I get distracted by all the talk, the horses, the bands, the commercials, etc.
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~matsci/btf/Rose07/Closeups.html

Art Pillow by Peggy

Love love this!

First Vase of 2007

Went to see Tami yesterday. She's doing okay, but recovering from surgery is no fun. Pretty soon she is going to be hopping and skipping around. (Those little squiggles are from the passion flower vine. I kept a bunch of them and they are still cute--I'm thinking of spray painting some of them too. Maybe purple. . .)