Welcome to the first week of February! It's supposed to be 31 degrees tonight, so after cleaning up the front walk beds, I went around covering various things that either are blooming, about to bloom or that have sensitive leaf buds, like my hydrangea's. I picked all the yellow daffodils and brought them inside for a cheerful vase on my counter. For Garden Pic Wednesday this week I have an excellent photo of a pine tree flower! You didn't know pine trees flower? Well, you'll have to stop back for a look! Today's Good Eating Recipe is a family favorite my Mother used to make often for us as kids: Old Fashioned Cinnamon Raisin Bread Pudding! What Old Fashioned Cinnamon Raisin Bread Pudding Looks Like This is just your basic wholesome old fashioned bread pudding made with just eggs, bread, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, sugar & raisins! No sauces to make. Just simple bread pudding. We'd eat it hot with a little evaporated milk poured over the top....
This is front yard boarder the lays along my property line with my neighbor. It's looked this pretty until just yesterday, when it got a little cold over night that put a dent in the Mexican Heather and some of the white Vinca, but the Marigolds persist. (Those are their solar flamingo lights, which look pretty at night.) And this is a shot of my front bed by the mailbox: That pretty light green plant with the magenta blossoms is a 4'Oclock called "Limelight." This is a fresh growth that sprang up in late September, I think. Here in Florida, 4'Clocks are perennial. There are actually 3 of them in this bed; this one is the largest.
I've spent the past two days clearing out a spot for my new Night Blooming Jasmine topiary. I wanted the use the area behind the rain garden, which has been a jungle of leaf build-up, native daylilies, flag iris, spider plants (houseplant type), glad greenery and Chocolate elephants ears. The elephant years weren't thriving, so I dug all those up to move. I mowed and clipped everything else to the ground, giving me space to plant the new topiary. It's the only sunny location I had left to plant it. I replanted 4 of the Chocolate Elephant ears around it's base, then transplanted a bunch of Ajuga ground cover in the area as well. Everything else will grow back by fall, probably. (The Chocolate Elephant ears turn a rich burgundy color.) We'll see how it does. This is Florida. Soggy is pretty much our middle name. Here's my supply of Ajuga: It's on the north corner of my house among ferns with a Hybr...
My Gerber Daisies were going strong up until Christmas---when we had a hard freeze for 3 days. So this photo is from Dec, sometime before Christmas. It's not uncommon to have a hard freeze or two on the Florida Panhandle, but rarely does the thermometer dip much below 28 or 29F--which generally just kills the various annual flowers. But over Christmas, it was around 22F for 3 days and frost-burnt all the Mexican Heather, the Amaryllis leaves, my Plumbago shrub, my Butterfly Bush--even my Winter Jasmine shrub---all things I haven't seen get frost-bit, had their leaves all turned brown. Even so, they are still alive, since roots weren't frozen and most, if not all, should regenerate. I was able to save my clumps of Calendula daisies & bachelor buttons only because I covered them with plastic and a double layer of towels. So those are fine. Other things weathered the extra cold without issue: the sorrel, the green onions, the parsley, the thyme, the lettuce in the vegg...
The Mama Kat blog writing topic today is, "Write a post that ends with the words, "thought so." Have you ever had a customer service job? You know the kind where unhappy customers call to tell you why they're unhappy? I used to work at a flower shop. The fun part of the job was making the flower arrangements; the customer service was not-so-fun. Getting their woes over the phone was the worst! Customers would speak to me as if I were the devil who had on purpose messed their stuff up. A case in point was a certain gentleman who called late one afternoon. I happened to be the one who answered the phone. Now, I just arranged flowers; I didn't have anything to do with the accounting or billing end. One of the services our flower shop provided people was an in-house billing account, so they could "charge" their purchase and be billed by mail later. This was especially convenient for many people who liked to set up their orders in ...
Comments
Stoppin' by from MamaKat's
Post a Comment
Thanks for leaving a comment!