Scenes from the deck, Part 6

I bought two colors of fuchsias, both have two-color blooms.


The fuchsias that were bigger when I got them are in full bloom.


The ones that were smaller are just coming into bud.


The saxifraga. I looked it up online, and "saxifraga" means "stone breaker." The plants grow naturally in the cracks of stones. They are alpine plants. There is a Saxifrage Society consisting mostly of Europeans (looks like majority Brits, with some Dutch and Scandinavians).

Scenes from the deck, Part 5

I think my pansies may have cross-bred to make this purpley-yellow bloom.


By the pond is a frog! He's made of metal, maybe iron.


Now we're on the shady side of the deck. Don't you love how the stairs and railings make shade/sun stripes?


Walking closer, a little iron table, and on it . . .


. . . a white bowl full of small stones, with a white bird on the edge.

Scenes from the deck, Part 4

Looking up, you can see the geraniums I planted for the top deck. Mom and Dad should have some flowers, too.


A tea rose on the table and two more pots of lavender (a different breed than the English and French, but more like the English) in front of the table. Sadly, today I discovered nasty bugs on the tea rose. Whenever I have roses, they always get infested.


Among the heliotrope lurks . . . another fleur de lis!


The celebration rose is reliable to just bloom and not make a fuss.


And I did find the perfect plant for this little terra cotta pot with the fleur de lis on it. I forget the plant's name, but it is a succulent, with the fat, water-filled leaves, and it has a pretty bloom. I bought it at Haggen, and I picked the biggest, healthiest one with a color flower I liked. Then as I was driving out of the parking lot I had to brake quickly, and the pot fell forward and half the plant broke off. Fortunately, it is recovering just fine.

Scenes from the deck, Part 3

Looking back the way we came.


Plants in the middle include peppermint and French lavender.


The more English lavender in front of the herb barrel.


The thyme is blooming these tiny white blossoms.

Scenes from the deck, Part 2

The verbena I planted this year is a bright red. Last year I had purple. Last year's must have seeded, and one little purple "volunteer" showed up among the red.


The honeysuckle blossoms are in the bud.


Close up of the cross. I think it gives a European, old French kind of feel.

Scenes from the deck, Part 1

Okay, so you come down the stairs on the east side of the house and come around the corner, and here it is!


At the east end, close to the house, is the contorted filbert with verbena around it, and two pots of lavender in front of it.


Then the honeysuckle on the trellis, with purple petunias in front of it, and two pots of lavender.


And above the trellis, this metal cross.

Bird story, part two

Well, later in the afternoon, I was indoors and sure enough I saw through the window a robin land in one of the hanging planters. He just sat in the middle like it was his own private swinging bachelor pad. (Get it? Swinging.)

I didn't get a picture of him actually in the planter, but I have picture of him and the planter he was in. Also a slightly closer one of him. I took them from in my living room through the window. The screen makes the pictures less clear.

Bird story

I don't have a picture of it, but this morning I saw a hummingbird. He (or she) was not at the feeder I put up but was attracted to the fuchsia blooms that have recently opened.




I took pictures of the blooms (two of the four have bloomed), then I took pictures of the broken leaves in one of the pots. Last year, when a robin was building a nest under the deck roof, he kept landing in my potted plants and breaking them.

He who must be fed

Well, a blog without puppy pictures is like a day without sunshine.

Here he is last weekend, when he was starting to get a little shaggy.


Last weekend as well.


He had a haircut Monday, and here he is today.


Cute, huh?

The fleur-de-lis motif

This is the object that started it all. I bought this lamp last year already, at True Value Hardware in the Fairway center. I thought it was pretty and rustic, and I like the old European feel to a fleur-de-lis. It was actually the symbol of the monarchs of France. The English royalty use it too, because they used to claim a right to rule France.

(In the time of Henry II, they did rule most of it. The English monarchs were also the Dukes of Normandy, and then Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was the heiress of about half of what is now France. I think their youngest son King John, aka "Evil Prince John," feckless younger brother of Richard the Lionhearted, lost it all. Henry V briefly won back a lot of it, but in spite of lots of wars with France they never got a firm grip on it again.)


I found this pretty little clay pot with a fleur-de-lis on it at the Barkley Haggen grocery store in Bellingham. I need to find the perfect little plant to go in it. I got the little table with metal legs and a slate table surface at Grandiflora in Lynden.


If you look carefully, you will see that there is also a fleur-de-lis in the decorations on this paving "stone." I got this at Timekeepers in the Fairway shopping center in Lynden. You can't tell from the picture, I guess, but it's in the barrel planter that has the honeysuckle and petunias.


Now I can't remember where I got this fleur-de-lis. I bought it this spring. It could have been at Haggen, or Hi Hoe Nursery, or Bakerview Nursery.


And this gazing ball-metal structure has a fleur-de-lis at the top. I got this at Timekeepers, too.


Nice, huh?

Pretty stones

I put some little stones in the dishes at the base of these two pots.




Nice, huh?

Out on the deck

Step outside my door and look to the right, at the shady side of the deck.


Then look left, at the sunny side.


Nice, huh?

Pansies, the sweetest flower in the world

Tea roses

Beautiful begonias

Bloomen

Celebration rose.

Marigolds.

Honeysuckle and petunias.

Verbena around the contorted filbert.

Baaaa

Yesterday when I came home from work, I saw a sight I don't see every day. I turned into the street before mine and there were two teenage girls each with a sheep on a leash. I was so intrigued that after turning into my cul-de-sac, I pulled over and got out of my car to go talk to them. The sheep were an FFA project and lived nearby. I told them that a couple times recently I had thought I heard sheep, but I figured I must be hearing wrong. They were taking the sheep to the park to get them used to people. I asked if they were planning to show them, like at the Fair, and they were. I asked if they would sell their wool, but they said these sheep were for meat and their wool was not so great.

I was interested to realize that you can raise sheep in city limits. I told them how my neighbor boy has chickens, and that you can have chickens within city limits, but not roosters. They were mildly interested in that. So I bade them good-bye, and I went back to my car and they and their sheep continued on to the park.