Wee Stair Master Westie

When westie puppies are little the stairs look like impossible tile buildings that they have to leap onto. This wee puppy jumps, jumps and on the third jump makes it. When our Sir Salty was little we used to carry him up and down the stairs, but if you have a westie you know they are not the carrying type. They would rather walk, jump, run, leap than be carried. So there comes this time when they finally master the stairs on their own and do they enjoy and laugh about it? YES! "Look at me! I am jumping up the stairs all by myself," is what this little westie is laughing about.

This painting is for sale now. To see full painting click Candylei westie painting.

Foxtail Lilies

Six of these boys went into pots in a sandy compost potting mixture. They should reach a height of 6 feet. These towering soft yellow torches, or desert candles as they are also called, definitely grab your attention. Anything with a name desert in it pretty much tells you that they like/NEED sandy soil. Good drainage is a necessity and lots of sunshine. They don't like to be dug up and moved about much either.

Their clumping roots are star shaped and it's like planting gloves. A little unusual, but worth it when the show begins. More tall, yellow spike or torch flowers for the borders.

Speaking of yellow I saw a new yellow peony last week at a nursery for 99.00 They were huge clumps, but the price stopped me straight away. Back to the bargain bin.

Prince of a Man

It has been a sad week. One of our family friends passed away on Monday and we attended his funeral yesterday. He was honest, patient, kind, generous, and God fearing. I don't think he had many regrets.

He had went to the doctor because his eye was weeping for no apparent reason. Many tests revealed it was a small cancerous tumor on his optic nerve. He was scheduled for surgery to remove it and his surgery was considered a success, but one complication led to another. Five weeks after the first surgery he is gone not from cancer but bleeding in the brain which was because of being given blood thinner to dissolve blood clots in his arm caused from a line put in to make it easier to give medications and draw blood from. He never left the hospital or intensive care after the first surgery.

The hardest part was seeing his wife standing next to the casket trying to be strong for her family. Her soulmate gone. Such a large part of her life missing. She stood beside him all their married life and now she stood beside him even in death. Love is strong.

Artsy Hibiscus Flowers and Plants

The Plant nurseries really know how to get our attention at this time of year. In comes all of the tropical plants and standard trees. One look at this baby and you are hooked. We are weakened by months of taupe and browns. I have always loved orange and pink together... whether it be fabric, paint, sorbets (yum) or my face. Just kidding about my face as it's au natural.

If you get a hibiscus they will happily flower for you all summer long...big saucers of color that even colorist painters struggle to mix.

Robert Pattinson's Westie Puppy Dog, Patty

Yes, it's true Twilight star Robert Pattinson has a west highland terrier westie that is adorable. How he misses her since he is in California and, Miss Patty, the female westie, is safely in London with his family. She is away from all of the chasing paparazzi who trail Pattinson now.

A man and his best friend, Patty. We would love to see more pictures of Patty; wouldn't we?


This is our westie (above) Sir Salty, who is standing in line to meet Patty. He would even be happy to email her, I think. He is quite dashing...a little exuberant...and lots of fun!

Designer Chris Madden's Westie Model

Another gorgeous westie, west highland white terrier dog, model for Chris Madden's line at JCPenneys.

Designer Chris Madden and her husband, Kevin, (who have been married over 30 years) have three westies in their home. And yes, their westies get on their couch, too. They believe that family is important...both the human and the furry members.

Madden's trademark line is "Turn Your Home Into A Haven" and they have done that with great design, comfort, and of course, westies!

Joi Choi and Lettuces - SCORE

Today is the first official day of spring, at least on the calendar, and we have been thinking spring for months! Yes, months, I tell you. I found these market packs of baby pak choy, Joi Choi at the nursery. They came home with me. There is a great Chinese Chicken Salad submitted to Gourmet Magazine by Ellen Chao. It rates 4 forks which is the highest rating for a recipe. Recipe here.

The lettuces, mustards, collards and okra were there, too. This is the most beautiful sight for any gardener. Not a rabbit, ground hog or hungry deer in sight and each leaf perfectly formed. I am in love with all of them.

A Westie Dog's Sense (Scents) of Color

A Westie Dog's Nose Knows the right color! Our Sir Salty doggy boy chose the paint chip with the X on it and so did I. When you go out into the sunlight verses indoors the colors change in intensity. It's always good to put them next to something outside in natural light...like our orange clay soil by the barn. The grass is not green yet so the terracotta colors jump out, but when I held them next to the evergreens it was the correct color! How one color can transform a setting is amazing.

Now I have this color on some of my shoes and clothes, too, since I have been painting the outside of the studio. Our dog boy has managed to stay paint-free. That is not to be confused with color-free since he loves to roll about.

I need to hurry and finish painting the exterior so I can finish the landscaping on the other side of the building. What fun!

A Westie Dog Boxwood Topiary Garden

We have made westie (west highland white terrier) dog cards, westie paintings, westie aprons, westie cupcakes and now I am making a westie out of boxwood. A living green westie. All of my boxwood cuttings are useful and I don't want any to go to waste. How about making a squirrel, too, just a bit ahead of the westie and the ball? Maybe some boxwood chickens scratching in my long borders? Imagination drives my clippers.

This is a section of a painting I did awhile back of the idea and now I am actually planting one.

Once a dog lover/gardener had some overgrown boxwoods and she had her scottie with her and looked down and thought "A ha. A scottie shape would be perfect." And it was after she had finished with her shears. She has a very large boxwood Scottie lying down and it is darling! A highlight in her garden. Mine is going to be much smaller since I am starting out with cuttings in a large clay pot.

Tantalizing Topiary Tree Gardening

Near the United States Capitol is this small topiary garden. The trees are perfectly manicured. This is such a restful place for your eyes to rest in the dreary gray days of winter. We definitely need more evergreens in our public gardens. My favorite evergreens are those trimmed into fanciful spirals, lollipops and pompoms, and yes, animals and birds.

I went window shopping recently. Well, it's actually better than window shopping because you get to touch, feel and smell the wonderful scents of pine, cedars and spruces. Of course, boxwood has it's own unique scent.

All of these topiaries look great mixed in with other shrubs and perennials. My list of things I want grows longer and longer each nursery we visit.

This weeping norway spruce is a beautiful speciman tree. I think the price was $49.00 which is reasonable. All of these topiary trees look their best 365 days a year.

The french and italian gardeners knew how to mix beautiful scroll designs out with boxwood for the perfect window view. Any day you glanced through the many windows of the chateau it was a gorgeous sight. Whether you were the lord, lady, child or humble servant everyone enjoyed the same glorious view. Yes, some things are equal. Even dwarf English boxwood topiary hedges around rose gardens cover the stark bare legs of roses in winter. We all can have the same privilege at home if we use design and evergreens hand in hand.

What country gets credit for starting topiary shapes? Such a debate. Italy, France, England, Japan or China?

If pictures of gardens inspire you and you have some time to view many different gardens with just a click, and it's free, go to Britains Finest Topiary Gardens.

With that I am off outside with my clippers to take more boxwood cuttings before they send out buds and to trim my cedars, pines, and other unspellable topiaries.

Tip Top Nasturiums

The colors are wild on these annual nasturiums. So deep, rich and velvety. These are being sown in pots now. They will also add some splash to a hanging basket. This mahogany color will look great flowing over the peachy, terracotta pots. The leaves are a mixture of teal, gray and green. They are magnificent standing on their own merit. And...this deserves a drum roll...They can take alot of heat in the summer and still look crisp and fresh. Thank you.

I think the color is going to be so very close to the floribunda rose called, Hot Cocoa.

Scottie and Westie Dogs Around Town

This card was for sale at the fabric store in town. You never know where these scottie, scottish terrier, and westie, west highland terrier, dogs will show up...besides in our hearts. We have a big spot for them there.

Landscaping Plan: The Topiary Studio Garden

I am jumping for joy over this little square garden in front of my studio. This studio was originally built as a milk house where the milk was kept cool 'til the milk truck came and picked it up daily. It has housed many things since it was a milk house, but now it is going to be officially beautiful inside and out.

This quick study is of the south side where I brought over a large red maple tree from our previous garden and planted a diamond boxwood hedge holding in the hostas around it. Two gray-green topiary trees hold court on each side like garden guards.

Now the most exciting part is that the original gray walls are going to be painted terracotta! Wow. The color combination has me enthralled. Yes, I chose it, but it's still exciting.

My new trial plant color combinations for this year are soft yellow and red wine/plum. I rarely see this anywhere. Am I the only who plays with colors over and over? (Surely you must too.) So now I'm adding a soft yellow climbing rose (to play off the plum color of the maple) and also a climbing hydrangea, respectively, on each corner. Yes, I am a foliage person, but this satisfies the need for floriferous, frothy, fragrance! The rose that is. Let the petals fall against the dark soil. It's a beautiful contrast, too. The hydrangea is flouncy, frothy, vigorous and lacy!

Tell me what your new color combinations are for this spring, summer and fall.

Photogenic Westie Puppy Dogs

These little west highland terrier puppies are adorable. Our Sir Salty looked just like this when we got him except his one ear was fully up and the other almost up. It went up on it's own a week later. I found these cards in our grocery store for sale. A great excuse to send someone a westie note.

Gardening: My Bold, Brillant, Frothy Garden Plants

After seeing browns, tans, grays and wheat colors all winter it is time for some dazzling, splashes of color. I painted one section of my garden from memory the other day and it doesn't look like this at all yet because it's still winter outside. Like a hibernating bear my garden will wake up and jump out to be seen and stay out of it's way, please. It might push you aside.

On the far, top left is the orange trumphet flower vine. These can be beautifully trained into standards. I feel these plants aren't used enough in gardens. Are they too simple? What is it? They have deep green, glossy foliage for extra garden points and very exotic, tubular flowers.

To the right of the trumphet vine is a plum colored ninebark tree. Second option could be a smoke bush or sand cherry tree. Same glorious color foliage. Below the ninebark is the soft yellow torch flower and purple lupines. Same shape flowers just different colors and it makes this section look like two different cheerleading teams performing together. Another option for the torch lily, but same soft yellow color, is to have moonshine yarrow with flat flowers.

Moving down to the rosy plum lebaron dahlia which blooms til frost. It needs staking as the flowers are large and heavy. The orange is a brilliant double daylily (from an old neighbor) flowing down into a soft yellow pool of lady's mantle. To the left of the orange dayliles are hardy Johnson blue hardy geraniums with their rather lacy foliage gracing the edges.

On the right side directly above the orange daylilies are Wyoming cannas for it's plum/brown foliage and red president cannas standing guard in the back. I cut the orange flowers off of the Wyoming cannas until the daylilies have stopped blooming. Then I let them put their orange blossoms out. To the right of the red cannas is a dark purple clematis.

Each section of the long border has the same colors, but in different plant and leaf combinations. Example for the dark purple clematis I use the same color in the black knight butterfly bush. The possibilities are exciting and never ending.

I do love foliage, but there is an old-fashioned part of me that loves the blousy, overflowing with flowers border, too. In this long section I try to maintain a balance between the two. Interesting foliage and buckets of flowers.

Green Westie Dog

The snow hit, but we didn't get the 11-inches as predicted. It was enough for Sir Salty to be happy. Enough snow to close schools. Enough snow for sledding. Enough snow to need hot chocolate.

Our west highland terrier is not fond of clothes. We think he looks so handsome in his green gardening sweater, ready for St. Patrick's Day. He tried many times to roll out of it in the snow without any luck. Then he tried to reach down and bite it and pull it off. It is pretty loose as it's a large. The sweater came off when we went back in the house and he gave a pleasing shake, shake, shake.

We were down at the creek in this photo where we get the light, sandy soil with silt in it for potting up cuttings and tubers. It great conditioner for our heavy clay.

Gardening Visit with Rare Wollemi Pine Tree

Thanks to David Noble and his mountain repeling and backpacking, or bushwalking as the Australians call it, in the Wollemi National Park that led to his discovery of the Wollemi Pine trees. I got to visit with some up close recently at the USBG (United States Botanic Garden) in Washington d.c. These trees have been through many ice ages scientists say and were only found in the Blue Mountains growing on damp ledges hidden in a rainforest gorge in the Wollemi National Park in Australia.

David worked for the park and was a wildlife and park services officer. He thought this an unusual tree and brought a branch back to his colleagues to identify it. One person thought it looked like some type of fern.

A closer look shows how one could think they were ferns. In fact to me if you took one branch off away from the tree it looks similar to a sago palm frond. Different from other pines it grows these chocolate like blisters all along it lower trunk. Scientists determined it was like finding a living green dinosaur and gave it a new genus. It was named Wollemia nobilis. Wollemia, after the park where it was found and nobilis, after David Noble.

Just hearing how he had to repel down a canyon behind a frozen waterfall and came upon these trees makes you want to visit the exact location, but maybe in warmer conditions...okay and not repeling down the face of a cliff. The park is huge and maybe there are more botanical discoveries yet to be made in it?

The word wollemi means to "watch out" or "keep your eyes open."

National Geographic was selling small trees for 99.00 and some of the money goes to conserving and growing them. It would definitely be a great gift for the person who has everything. It is being propograted by select nurseries in a small number of countries now.

On another note...Outside USBG there were two gardeners cleaning up here and there the already immaculate gardens. One was cutting back the wisteria and kindly gave me some seeds to add to my traveling collection. There is a story behind every plant and shrub in one's garden and mine have a few.