Choice Morsels

I mentioned yesterday we were having a Gingerbread House building contest at our Bible Study Christmas Party last night---which we've never done before---and it turned out fantastic! There were 3 teams building graham cracker art and they really got into it! Lots of creativity. It was Kullin's idea. (The guy who helped us build our landscape wall). While he was at college, it was something he and his fellow engineering students did annually. He said the houses our teams came up with last night were way better then anything built by engineering students! To which Randy said, "I hope none of them ended up  building bridges." Kullin replied, "Well, unfortunately some of  them did." LOL. It very funny. I was one of the judging team. We had one person from every team explain the ideas behind their construction, then we judges retired to another room to make our decision. We picked one as "Best of Show." It had a peaked roof layered with mints...

I have 2 garden pictures for you today plus instructions on how to do your own flower arrangement! First up: a photo of my very tall Hardy Hibiscus! Hardy Hibiscus comes in red, pink and white. It's a very good investment for the garden because it comes back from the root every year as tall, leafy stems that bloom all summer. Multiple stems. Being so tall, Hardy Hibiscus is a good background garden plant, though it looks best against a structure, a fence or needs staking to keep it upright. It also tends to re-seed itself readily, however, here in the deep south, mine don't spread themselves around. They just come up from the same ol' root every year. However, my Mother leaves in Indiana and hers spread themselves by seed everywhere. They will thrive in any soil and prefer full to partial sun, that is more sun then shade. To avoid this you just have to dead-head the finished blossoms. Now my Hibiscus in this photo below are unusually tall---7 to 7 1/2 feet at ...