Bare limbs everywhere

It has been a very busy time in the gardens. Digging Cannas, removing tomato plants, Castor Bean plants, Miribilis Jalapa plants and putting into the compost, taking cuttings. Everything is slowing down, cooling off and turning to mush. I still have some things flowering, Plumbago is still as blue as ever. I still have a few Balsam plants under the eaves that have escaped the frost too. I have been taking my DaVinci Poinsettia and putting it into the closet for 14 hours every night. Then, I bring it back out and put it in the window during the day, in hopes that come late December, those Peppermint bracts will magically appear.

My Amarylis bulb grew quite a bit over the summer. I planted it in a flower bed so it would get maximum benefits. I think it worked. There are also several babies attached to it. I considered removing them to have more plants, but decided to let them stay with their mom for another year at least. I will just have to find a larger pot than last year when it becomes time to pot it back up. Here is a picture of it from last winter, quite a beauty. The variety is Hermitage. I bought the bulb on clearance last winter and it sure brought a lot of color when it bloomed. The flowers also lasted a long time, definitely a plus. I can't wait to how well it will bloom this time.

The leaves are almost gone now. With the rain and wind, they are falling faster. We can see the river again with the view unblocked. We can see if the water is high or if it is low and the spillway visible. The creek has been very full this last week with all of the rain. It has been almost dry, with only the deep pools still full of water. The fullness will finally allow those trapped fish a chance to get out get to the river now.
All of the tall wild flowers (weeds) are dead now and already starting to fall over, exposing the shape and contour of our property once again. The deer will be in plain site, easy to view.

Here is a picture of our giant Black Walnut tree. It is the last the get leaves and the first to drop them. We have no idea how old the tree is, but estimate 80-200 years old. It is quite huge, 205 inch circumference, 106 feet tall, and the crown is 111 feet at its widest. It is in excellent health, with no dead branches and still producing nuts like crazy. I have entered it into the Ohio Big Tree competition, hoping it will be the largest Black Walnut in Ohio. They will come out and take official measurements sometime and compare it with current and other nominees. It is very shady below it during the summer. It also helps keep most weeds down too. We have seen many squirrels climbing its limbs and earlier this week had a Great Blue Heron sitting on a branch at dusk. That was a beautiful sight to see.

Autumn...just the intro to winter

Yep, it's that time of year again. Boy, summer sure does seem to get shorter and shorter every year. The leaves change color quicker, the cool weather arrives faster, birds are gone, flowers are mostly done blooming, farmers are out taking the crops off. Combines go up and down the road all day long it seems.
I've trying to get out every day and get some winter prep work done. I have potted up Elephant Ears, a geranium, spider plants, impatiens, and various other things. I pulled up a lot of geraniums and put them into a paper bag to store away until next year. I've cut the Castor Bean plants down, they were already blown over from the wind. Also cut down the Perilla, pulled the 4 O'Clocks out and am ready to start digging up the Canna's next.
I have a list, and I have checked it twice, three times, for things to be done before frost. I've collected seeds and sorted those out. Some I will keep for winter sowing (another post on another day soon), some I will give away and some I have all set for a seed exchange.
Leaves are falling in swarms now. Some trees are bare already and some are close behind. Raking and blowing them into piles to make mulch will be coming real soon. Walnuts are dropping like crazy too. Here is a picture of what we've collected so far, and I bet there is already that many more below the trees again and we've probably pitched just as many into the woods.
Speaking of trees, there is another thing to add to the list. We have loads of trees, some large and some small. There is a section behind the barn that has many smaller trees, 8 foot tall or less. There is Walnut, Maple, Elm, and Poplar. I need to go out and mark those as to what they are before the leaves fall off. We are going to transplant many of those to other locations on the property once they go dormant. Most of them are too close together and we really want to give the Walnut trees enough space to grow freely. Not that we don't have enough of them, but they won't last forever, so we are going to keep them planted at intervals so that maybe they could last for many generations to come.
Have you ever heard the old wives tale that the first frost occurs 90 days after you hear the first cicada begin its singing? I only heard that this year, in June, from one of the local news stations. We heard our first cicada July 4, which would make our first frost October 4th. Well, luckily, no frost yet, so that tale is ruined. Frost won't be far away though, you can feel the crisp coolness on the wind. It will be here soon, bringing SNOW shortly after.

Ta-Da...the finished chair!

Well, I got the chair done. It turned out really nice, but I am not sure if I am pleased with it or not. I may deconstruct part of it and change it. I am going to leave it as is for a week or so and see if I change my mind.










Here is my handiwork with the foam. I use an electric carving knife (like what you use to cut a turkey) to cut and shape the foam. It makes it super easy, very precise, and fast to cut.
After fitting the foam pieces, they are each wrapped in quilt batting, then with cheese cloth. The arm pieces are then stapled in place. All of the other pieces are marked with an R or L for correct placement and then removed and set aside.
The fabric can then be cut to size, wrapped and sewn around the foam, or with the arms, stapled in place. Each piece goes back to the chair in a specific order, depending on how the foam was placed. With this chair, the order was, arms, wings, seat front, arm fronts, back of chair, seat, back cushion.
For crisp, straight edges, I cut pieces of poster board (thin cardboard) an inch wide and stapled the fabric to it, and then attached to the chair. These pieces were mainly used along the back side edges.


I used some black trim on the bottom edge for fun. I also happened to have on hand, some of the black fabric that you see on the bottom of furniture, to hide the inside. So I used it underneath for a nice finished look. I also gave the feet a fresh coat of black paint.





Here it is! It does look really nice. It is a much smaller chair than I envisioned it to be, but it is comfortable. The fabric stretched nicely, there are very few tell-tale puckers. Staples are all invisible too. I even made a nice pillow for it. I stuffed it with scraps of quilt batting and fabric. It now looks like a brand new chair. Remember what it looked like to begin with?

Flowers and Hypertufa...

I want to show off this Balsam, also known as Touch Me Nots. The seeds were given to me and I sowed them late, as in late July. They are now in full bloom and really pretty. It is like a touch of spring.






Here is a close up of the blooms. Aren't they colorful? I am hoping that I will be able to collect some seeds and grow these again next year. I really do like them.






I made this sphere early in summer out of Hypertufa. I used a basketball, a sap bucket, and a cut down butter bowl as molds for each of the pieces. It was a lot of fun to make and I think it turned out fabulous! I hope to someday have moss growing on it.
Hypertufa is a mix of portland cement, sand, and peat moss. It is the modern, inexpensive version of the cut, light weight stone that old England used to make troughs. If you tried to buy some of those troughs now, they are very expensive. Hypertufa is a wonderful thing that can be molded into just about anything. You are only limited by your imagination. There is lots of info on the net about it. Here are a couple links that I have used to learn about it.

http://www.efildoog-nz.com/hypertufa.htm

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_containers_outdoor/article/0,1785,HGTV_3561_4834334,00.html

http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/extras/53birdbath-video.php

I will talk more about Hypertufa and show some of my other creations in a later post.

I hope you enjoyed this today. I am off to work on my chair!

Fabric...

Well, here is the fabric that I picked to cover the chair in. I am not brave enough to try a pattern yet! I worry that I won't match it up correctly or will attach it crooked and be very obvious.
So I have picked safely, although I did have a great time looking at everything. I am going to do the seat in the blue and the rest in the chocolate brown. I am also thinking of doing the piping in the opposite colors, blue on brown and brown on blue.
These are both medium weight fabrics. I don't always pick an upholstery weight fabric, because I really don't want it to last forever. I can only stand looking at the same colors for so long and having two boys in the house...well, it wouldn't last forever anyway. I will probably be ready for something new in 5 years or so and it will need it.
Hopefully in the next couple of days I can get started on putting it together. I am excited! I have a lot of fun and get a lot of satisfaction redoing a chair.

End of summer...

Well, unfortunately, it really is here. The end of summer. I have been taking cuttings of Perilla and Impatiens and putting into water. The Perilla has quickly grown a mass of roots in the bottle I put it in. I dug up and potted my Poinsettia. It has really grown a lot this summer, but was beginning to suffer from the heat. We are having cooler temps right now and it really loves that. I potted up a variety of sedums and planted those into a hypertufa planter that I made. It too will be coming inside within a few weeks.

I still have many, many things to dig up and repot, an Amarylis, which I think has a couple of babies attached now, several Geraniums, an Orchid, and an African Violet. There may be more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

I still have day lilies to plant. I haven't any idea what variety they are. I found these sitting in a wheel barrow marked free along a back road nearby (I couldn't pass up free plants!). I have lots of stuff that I still want to dig up and relocate.

I also still have plants setting seed that I want to collect. Among them are Amaranthus,
Castor Bean, and
4:00's.
I have a half whiskey barrel that I want to plant some lettuce and spinach in real soon. We are having perfect temps for those to grow.

We are still enjoying a few things blooming. Sweet Autumn Clematis mingling with the Amaranthus. There is also one lone Jackmanii Clematis bloom mixed in with those also. Pink mix Cosmos is still going strong, as are the Moss Roses. Balsam plants are just beginning to put on a colorful show. I sowed these seeds late, the end of July, and it looks like spring in that area! I think I will sow more annual seeds later in the season next year. What a nice surprise to have that second flush of new flowers.
I have one Aster that is still blooming well. It is not in a prime viewing location though, so it will be moved also. There is also Plumbago (the perfect color), some Canna's, a few blue & salmon colored Flax, Muscari, Great Lobelia, and mini-Hosta's.
Purple Mist Shrub is still absolutely beautiful. What a wonderful surprise when I found this shrub crowded in the middle of some Red Buds. I moved it into a more open, sunnier location and I think (I hope) that next year it will be even better.

There is still a lot of outdoor work to be done before it gets too cold. Leaves will be dropping soon and in one area, they all fall at the same time. It is quite spectacular to see, all the leaves coming down in waves, so thick that you can't see past them. These will all need collected and hopefully shredded to put into the flower beds. There is wood that needs to be cut, so we can enjoy the fireplace (my favorite place in the winter!). Branches to be broken down into kindling.

I still want to gather flat rocks to continue some pathways and also some bricks to line some beds.

There is still a water trough that needs emptied and water plants to be stored.

So many things, but they are all items that will make next years gardening even bigger, better, and have more profuse flowers. At least, that is the idea, the hope, the reason for gardening...

My craft...

Well, I don't have a specific craft that I do. I am more of a Jill-of-all-trades! I like to try them all! I keep waiting to come across that magical one that calls to me and begs me to continue to do it over and over again, but I haven't found it yet.
I have tried many named things; stained glass, reupholstering, hypertufa, painting, bowling ball art, amongst others. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of these projects. Some can only be done with specific weather (hypertufa can only be done when night temps are above 50 degrees-that's only about 5 months of the year, here). Some require expensive equipment to do at home and some I have found that I lack the skill to do it very well!

I do have quite a chair collection. Reupholstering them has probably been the one thing that I have done frequently over the years. I get a kick out of getting some crappy chair at the flea market and making it look new. Now people give me a chance to take their cast off chairs before sending them to Goodwill or the dump. It is rare for me to turn a chair down and even have a few in the barn waiting for me to get to work on them.

Here are a couple pictures of the current chair that I am working on. I got this from my mother-in-law and it may be hard to believe, but it is going to be a beautiful comfy chair when I am through with it!










This is the point I am at with it right now:

I am at a stand still until I go and find the perfect fabric for it. I don't have a specific color/pattern yet. I wait and see what jumps out at me. There is so many wonderful fabrics and I like to look at them like art before making a decision. I will keep you posted on its progres...

New for me!

Hi All!
I am super new to blogging and it was quite by accident that this was started! But now that it is, I may as well continue on with it!

As you may have guessed from the title, I am interested in both gardening and also creating/reusing junk! One man's trash is a woman's treasure...

I hope you will enjoy this blog, or at the least find something amusing or interesting about it. Maybe even learn something new or give you some ideas.

Thanks!