Recreation — Page 43 — You are in My World Now

Perhaps the most beautiful clematis of them all

June 22, 2008 by Tricia

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.

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Blooms everywhere

June 15, 2008 by Tricia

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It’s amazing how quickly the garden changes at this time of year isn’t it? Two weeks ago I still had some tulips – like this beauty peeking out from around another plant –

Now that tulip is gone, but it’s been replaced by blooming peonies, columbines, hundreds of roses, geraniums and more … I can’t even think of all the names of the flowers that are currently blooming in my garden right now. It’s a delight to walk out there though and smell the fragrance of all those roses at once.

Other short bloomers that are mostly gone now are/were my Dover Blue German Iris:

These German Iris’ are still blooming. I think the only reason they’re still around after our storms and heat waves are because they’ve chosen to grow up into one of my large rose bushes this year. I guess they are getting a little more shade and staying cooler so they’ve lasted longer than they usually do.

Is your garden full of blooms too?

Rainy weekend

June 15, 2008 by Tricia

I can’t believe the storms we’ve had in Toronto this weekend. Late Friday evening we had a huge thunder and lightening storm that caused the power to go out briefly a few times.

The storm and power failure actually knocked out our TV for a while. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you already know how much trouble we’ve had with our DLP TV lately such as having to replace the color wheel and the special light bulb. Those were expensive! So when the power flashed on and off and our TV’s front panel lights were all flashing and the TV wouldn’t turn back on we thought the storm had wrecked our TV. Luckily after leaving it off for about 30 minutes it worked when we turned the power back on. Big sigh of relief. We certainly can’t afford any more repairs for that TV.

Now today we’re having thunder storms again. This time the TV is not on and we’ve got it unplugged too. We do have a power surge protector, but we aren’t taking any chances. That TV is just too expensive to repair to take chances.

The only other problem with all this rain is that I can’t get out into the garden. I’ve got flats of annuals to plant but you can’t plant in the rain and it’s not good to plant in wet soil as that ruins the composition of the soil.

Hopefully the weather will clear up soon and I can get in the garden in a few hours.

Creatures so tiny and cute you can hold two in one hand!

June 11, 2008 by Tricia

Wordless Wednesday

Aren’t these little monkeys adorable? Can you imagine holding two of them in one hand like this?

Grooming Midnight outside worked well

June 11, 2008 by Tricia

I was just sitting outside on our front porch with my dog Midnight. She’s shedding so I got out the grooming tools – ezgroom brush and Furminator, and I sat and brushed her coat.

She behaved the best I’ve ever seen her behave while being groomed. She mostly just sat there enjoying being brushed as she looked around at the neighborhood and tried to eat a few ants that were passing by her feet.

We haven’t been grooming her as much as we should so I’m surprised how good she was. She must have really enjoyed the attention because two people walked by with dogs and all she did was watch them walk by. Usually she jumps up and tries to run at the dogs so that she can play with them.

I usually don’t like being out at the front of the house with her at this time of day because we have several school in the area and all the kids walking by as return home from school usually drives Midnight nuts. She just wants to play with all the kids. Still, she was pretty good when most of the children walked by.

One lady went by with a baby in a stroller. The baby was wearing the cutest baby clothes. Perfect for a lovely late spring day. Luckily our dog doesn’t pay much attention to babies when they are quite. If they are laughing or crying that’s another story!

Does your dog enjoy being groomed?

Next step? Maybe an outdoor bathing session?