Choice Morsels

Today's yard task was trimming up my other Gardenia shrub. It's in the center of my front yard. I keep it trimmed in a large globe shape. It's as old as the house, but still healthy as a horse. Has large 3 inch flowers. I cut off about 16 inches around it, then clipped off a good number of joints to encourage fresh growth this year. I only do that every other year. Hopefully, I got to it earlier enough this year, it will have plenty of time to set for a good show of flowers next May. Today's Garden Pic is my Oakland Holly:  It's Had a Growth Spurt! It's been growing about 5 inches a year up to now---this year it shot this 2 foot spire! I was quite surprised. The nice thing about Oakland Holly's is they generally maintain a Christmas tree shape on their own, so I expect it will spend a little time filling in the difference. Bred for the South, they're classed as a small tree, topping out at around 15 ft. Also they're self-pollinating.  You can ...

After several days of gray cold gloom, I was quite happy to see sunny days again today and yesterday! I actually went outside today. I wanted to water my containers and some of the newly bulb planted areas in front bed with Miracle-gro. Also the garden veggies. Broccoli is just starting to head. I walk around and see so much growth---everything that blooms in the spring is poling up it's greenery right now to energize from the winter sun: Dutch Iris, Easter Lilies & Daffodils greens so far. Today's Garden Pic is my Oakland Holly all decorated up for Christmas! It's about 4 feet tall now. I had a box of unused plastic ornaments and bought two strings of 50 light battery lights. Those are genius.  No worries running extension wires to power anything. Once turned on, an auto-timer runs it a few hours nightly. This Holly was bred for the Southern climate. It's self-pollinating. The berries are edible for birds. It doesn't grow overly tall.

Today, photos of our outdoor and indoor Christmas trees decorated for the season! Outside: Our Oakland Holly Tree It's first year for getting decorated!This is it's 3rd Christmas. Just the right size to slip a set of bush lights over! I figure we'll enjoy decorating it as long as it's a reachable height. Inside: Festive Frazier Fir There's just something magical about looking at a tree full of brightly colored lights, in the dark, and listening to the soft sounds of Christmas music.  It makes me relive so many happy childhood memories! Many of the ornaments on the tree are antique now, being 50 years old, considering I've had a couple of them, since I was 10.  I have still have a set of glass ornaments my sister, Jane, sent Hubby and I, when we were first married, making them around 35. All five, still good as new, grace the tree every year, then get stored in their original box.

I've been making bread about once a week with my relatively new bread-maker and today decided to make some old-fashioned cinnamon & raisin swirl bread. That's basically like making a giant cinnamon roll. It's doing it 2nd rise now, then I'll bake it. Today's Garden Pic is Holly Flowers! This is an Oakland Holly tree and it's going to be loaded with berries! The berries are edible for birds! The tree is about 4 feet high. It's a holly tree of shorter suited to the South, slow-growing, grower, self-pollinating and naturally holds a triangular symmetry without hedging.  All perfect in my book! This week was also Valentine's Day and Hubby got me a HILARIOUS card! I laughed out-loud when I read it. I took pictures and here it is: Outside says, "This Valentine will bring tears to your eyes..." Inside says, "I farted in it! Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day." And he gave me a Mounds bar--my most favorite ...

Couple months ago, this Oakland Holy was in a pot; now it's in the ground.  It's just in front of where the Cedar tree we had cut down previously was. The stump grinder guy from the tree cutting company very kindly used his machine to dig a hole for me just for the Holly. It seems happy enough. It's blooming. I guess it has berries year round.  I saw these Dwarf Iris at the Commissary last week and just had to have them.   They were only $3 for the pot and it has 6 bulbs in it. What a great deal! I intend to plant them among my miniature Daffodils in the the back bed, where they can naturalize that area together. Last, I have a collage photo of my most recent project: repainting my range hood! I just finished painting it today and it came out beautifully. The exhaust fan itself is in excellent condition. Even the bulb is the original from 27 years ago, because I use it so seldom. It's just the exterior that looked crummy. It got crummy look...