Choice Morsels

At our Bible Study up on the Air Force base last night, the trivia question for our group was: "if you could invent an app, what would it be?" All the answers were clever, but my favorite was:   "A Stun Gun App to turn your phone into a stun-gun." One of the other guys wittily replied, "Now, that's one pocket call you wouldn't enjoy very much." Zap! We laughed and laughed. Today's Garden Pics are a stroll through my garden peering at various pieces of "garden art" tucked here and there: First, the ceramic kitty in my front pot: Too bad those petunias later died. They succumb to mildew sometimes. Next, the shoe themed display in the bed opposite my front door: That's German Thyme. And finally, a couple of my Hen and Chicks In Teacups displays: The large teacup pot is my most recent addition. It used to hold my Christmas Cactus, but wasn't big enough. The Christmas  Cactus was re-potted...

Today's Mama Kat topic is:   "Something I bought this month that I love." I really love the various pieces of "garden art" I have scattered throughout my various flower beds and pots.. About 3 years ago I happened upon a blue and white ceramic cat at a thrift shop that I just absolutely fell in love with. I had to have him and he became the central star of my large front pot garden. He wintered over fine out there before, but this year it was unusually cold and I didn't realize my little ceramic cat had a solid clay face. Temps here in northwest Florida dropped to 16 degrees and my treasured ceramic cat's face blew off! His ear, too. I just loved him too much to discard and super-glued him back together, kept him in the garage until spring, then put him back in his special spot.  Even so, I felt I should keep my eyes peeled for a replacement,  though I didn't expect a ceramic cat suited to yard art that's neither larger nor smaller then ...

Today's outside task was spraying down the exterior vinyl siding with bleach/soap. Years ago I saved a Green Sweep bottle, which is a type of liquid weed & feed, because the empty bottle has a long, strong spray that's fantastic for this job. It's not quite power-spraying. I rely on the bleach and strong Florida sun to do most of the work.   Yesterday, I worked on mowing and edging beds. I edged the bed along the retaining wall, then moved to the back rear bed where I pulled up the black vinyl edging. A friend helped us put that in and did so, arranging it into a tight "S" curve, which sounds like a good idea until you try to mow . The curves are just too short for the mower to fit and finally, after years of putting up with it, I've decided to pulling up all that black edging. It's much easier to just keep the beds well mulched and edged periodically with a spade. There's Canna's in that bed that are supposed to be along the neighbors ...

What is garden art, you wonder? It the art of re-purposing pretty or interesting items, whether  something found a yard sale or something right in your basement, into useful or decorative purpose in your landscape. You can search terms like "garden junk" or "garden art" and find lots of photos of clever ideas people have. My husband and I both always have our eyes peeled for that "just right" find!   Today's photos are of my own newest garden art editions! First: A pair of metal flowers my husband found at the Airmen's Attic on base (which is like a thrift shop).They are designed to hang, so I didn't know where to put them. That was last summer. This year I finally decided upon the perfect spot: the trellis's in front of the house!  This is only the second year I've had the trellis's in this location for my shrub rose (that would rather climb then be a shrub--go figure). You can see the rose branches along the bottom of t...