What a whirlwind weekend!

Our weekend at Carol’s house was wonderful as always. I enjoy the time we get to spend at her home. It’s so peaceful there. Of course most of the time we spent was burning up the roads to nursery after nursery after nursery. We visited eight different nurseries in five cities just on Saturday. We were some tired puppies when the end of the night rolled around. We also checked out the local flea market for good plant buys too. We picked up two new crinums with unknown names and a blue orchid vine for six bucks. I thought that was a pretty good deal. The best deal was the new statuary pieces that we got. These things were TOTALLY not figured into the budget, but when you come up on a good deal you have to take advantage of it. I had seen the items we purchased at other places where we live and this guy was selling them for exactly 1/5 the price of the other stores. So we took full advantage of the savings even though we knew it was going to put us in a little bit of a crunch.

The first thing is a Venus of Canova statue. I’ll be the first to admit that she isn’t the most detailed statue, but we have to be realistic. She wasn’t carved she was poured into a concrete mold. Besides, once she gets a little patina on her from tree sap and lawnmower dust she’ll have a very nice weathered look to her. I think at that point, when you look at her she’ll give the feeling that she has adorned another garden for decades before she found her way to ours. To begin with, Jamie and I couldn’t decide if our garden could carry a statue like this but once we put her into place she looked as if she had always been there. She stands about five feet tall on her pedestal. I thought she was an excellent investment for thirty dollars.

I guess our garden has a hodgepodge of themes to it. It’s a little bit formal, a little bit Japanese and a before we are done, will probably have a little bit of a cottage feel to it. I wish I could make myself stick to a theme, but we just see so much that we like and most the time it’s polar opposite of the direction we were heading the week before. The house is the same thing, an eclectic mix of things, but to me it all seems to fit together some how. Frank, an artist friend of mine that probably has no idea just how much I’ve admired him since we first met almost eighteen years ago, once told me you don’t have to stick to a theme. As long as you get things that YOU like. There are certain characteristics that we as individuals are attracted to, so when we find things we really like, those items all have some uniqueness that captures our attention and that defines our “taste”. In the big picture, everything will come together because it is a blend of the characteristics they all have in common that originally attracted us to them as singular items to begin with. The end result is a theme, and that theme is all about you. I know I did a poor job of explaining that, but long story short, I’ve found that Frank was exactly right. Our garden may seem a little chaotic and a mixture of style, but in the long run I’ll bet it becomes a master piece. After all we are ‘Creating Our Eden’. All that being said, this next picture is one of the two new Japanese lanterns we got this weekend. I didn’t take a picture of the smaller one because I wanted to have it sitting in it’s new surroundings and not just on the back patio where it is now.

The chrysanthemums are putting on their spring show right now. I don’t really care for the color yellow except when it is the color of a flower. Then… it is my absolute favorite.

Jamie and I have built a very impressive Daylily collection since the beginning of spring and there seems to be no sign that our new addiction is slowing. We currently have forty-eight different cultivars. This past week I noticed that the foliage has been looking a little ugly on some of them. I was certain it had to be more that just aged leaves. So, day before yesterday I diligently searched for the symptoms and the name of some disease that could be the problem. I didn’t have to search long before I found it. It’s a fungal infection called Leaf Streak and from what I read it appears to be a nasty rascal and contagious. This weekend I intend to wage a full scale war on this invader! I understand it only responds to about three different fungicides, none of which I have been able to locate online. Keep your fingers crossed that I find one of them tomorrow. We added four more to our collection that we got on our visit to Carol’s house. Three of them I was able to catch in bloom, but the ‘Apricot Sparkle’ will come most likely in next week’s post.

‘Lady Georgia’

We purchased three unnamed daylilies at this little nursery way out in the country. I really like to have the name of every plant we buy and I almost didn’t get them for that very reason. I asked the lady running the place if she could tell me what the name of them were and she said, “Yes, those are daylilies.” Then she continued on with her phone conversation. I’ve identified two of them but this one I still don’t know.

‘Little Mystic Moon’

Jamey spotted this little jewel. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I have completely fallen in love with this color. Just look at it, I think it is an absolutely incredible shade of purple.

‘Purple De Oro’

Jamie took this picture while we were visiting Carol. Her garden was filled with hundreds of butterflies. You could feel magic everywhere. What are these crazy little bees with no stripes?