Culture — Page 54 — You are in My World Now

Everything that can flower is flowering

June 29, 2008 by Tricia

I love this time of year.

Summer is here and it’s warm and sunny outside – well most of the time, it’s been story here the last week or so, and of course the flowers are pretty much all in bloom. Just about perfect if you ask me.

It’s at this time of year that I really try to enjoy my garden. I still have a bit of work to do in the garden (add mulch to back flower beds), but for the most part the hard work is done. Now it’s the plants turn to pay me back for all the care of given them, and oh how they are paying it back this year!

Look at these lovely Heuchera flowers …

Isn’t that a gorgeous color?

On my two other Green Thumb Sunday blogs (Tricia’s Musings and As the Garden Grows) I showed my visitors rose and peony blooms, but there are so many other lovely flowers that are blooming in my garden right now.

Take the Lavender for example – it’s at it’s prime and it’s lovely.

Then there are my many clematis plants, most of which have blooms right now. This one is Arctic … something:

Last but definitely not least is the Malva. It produces such pretty flowers.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture – my garden is alive with blooms and their lovely scent and I’m just loving it.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Still haven’t made plans for our summer vacation

June 26, 2008 by Tricia

Chris and I still need to plan some kind of vacation this summer. He hasn’t even booked any time off yet but at this point it looks like he’ll be off for either the first two weeks or August or the second and third week. He’s still waiting for a co-worker to decide on her vacation time … geesh!

I have a feeling that with the price of gas this year we won’t be taking a long driving trip, but you never know, maybe we’ll end up driving to Chicago again this summer. We did that two years ago when we went to visit Chris’ brother and we had a great time. I loved Chicago. Of course if we go out of the country I’ll get travel insurance at least for me since I have a chronic illness. I can’t take a risk that my Crohn’s won’t flare up while I’m away and I’d hate to end up paying huge hospital bills in the US.

Hmmm the other idea I had for a vacation was to perhaps rent a cabin somewhere near a lake. Yes I know all the good ones are probably booked by now, but I might be able to find something.

What are you doing for your summer vacation?

Can a backyard have too many roses?

June 26, 2008 by Tricia

My yard is so full of roses! I don’t think we’ve ever had this many roses blooming at once. It’s unbelievable.

The rose above is Jacques Cartier I believe … if not it’s the rose that’s right beside it which is Barrone Prevost. Both are lovely antique style roses with heavy rose perfume scent. In fact those two rose bushes are the largest in my yard right now standing close to 12 feet tall each and as I said just jam packed with roses.

I love it. I wish my roses would bloom like this all season, but of course the first roses of spring or early summer are always the most prolific.

Do you still use old fashioned window air conditioners?

June 22, 2008 by Tricia

We living in an older home. It was built in 1927! It’s well built but overall I don’t think the previous occupants did much to change the home. It’s heated with oil so we have an old oil furnace and of course that means no built in air conditioning. I’m sure we could add air conditioning but I think we’ll be replacing the furnace soon anyway so we might as well wait.

So … we use window air conditioners to keep our house cool in the summer. Unfortunately when my husband put them in earlier this month during the heat wave that we had here we discovered that one of the air conditioners (the cheapest one we bought) was no longer producing cold air. It worked more like a fan instead. We figured that the ac compressor is probably shot.

Since it was a cheap unknown brand air conditioner we decided that rather than try to repair it we’d just replace it with a new one so we bought a new air conditioner this weekend. Good price too. Luckily it’s cool here right now because we still haven’t installed the new air conditioner. The other one will cool the house, but two work better for this house.

Does anyone else still use clunky heavy window air conditioners?

Perhaps the most beautiful clematis of them all

June 22, 2008 by Tricia

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I grow several Clematis vines, but by far, the Daniel Deronda Clematis – the one that wouldn’t grow the first three years that I had it, is by far and large the most beautiful clematis that I grow and perhaps that I’ve ever set eyes on.

This is not the best photo, but this was the first bloom and I just had to show you it’s lovely velvet like textured petals.

The petals feel thick and as I said they are very much like feeling velvet material. Most of the other clematis that I grow have very thin petals. This is quite an unusual and spectacular clematis.

I have a great photo that shows the texture of the petals over at my photoblog Breath of Life if you’d like to see that as well.