Goldcrest Foxglove Digitalis Orange Perennial

A beautiful discovery for me is this bright gold-orange-perennial foxglove. How would this look with burgundy roses? Or white roses? The name of this one is Goldcrest. We can thank David Tristram of England for breeding it. It's really stunning.  More about David Tristram here.

I love how the leaves are more refined and a little grey green. They are not hairy at all.

My tomato plants are still inside and I am so glad now that they are. Last night there was snow on the hills here! It feels so cold after all of the hot weather we enjoyed and on the west coast they are having 81 in Oregon.  We bundled up today at 38 and rain! The second reason I am glad the tomatoes were tucked away is because two sweet Canada Geese dropped in for a visit and they made a dash through the grass to get to the tilled soil and walked all around looking for sprouts. I've never been thankful for weeds as I was today as I left some around the base of the roses and it kept my campanula sprouts hidden! Thank you weeds for keeping my green babies safe. Canada geese are really elegant though. They don't waddle like ducks. Their necks are curved when they walk like a swan... well at least when they are power walking.

One thing was crossed off my to do list this weekend. Hostas were divided in one bed and relocated. So you see the rain for the last 3 days is just what they need not to get burned. They have such tropical looking leaves in mass and you don't have to dig them up like semi tropicals. Whew! They deliver green all summer!  I would never sniff my nose and say they are too common.

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English Style Cottage Garden at My Fingertips

Pop up gardening book!

I feel like Cinderella when I open it.

From above they are just as pretty!

When you open the pages they spring to life

which is what we are waiting for outside.

Books like this were first made in the 1800's

but this one is fairly recent

I picked it up at Goodwill

It has provided lots of inspiration and dreaming

The soft colors of roses, delphiniums and other

cottage flowers make my heart pitter patter faster

Isn't this just dreamy?

Someone has already cut flowers for me!

No deer or groundhogs in this garden

Just flowers and sunshine.

I've collected a few of these books

from the outside you can't tell

what suprises will justle about when

you open the book.

I am still a kid at heart

With a drawer full of seeds to plant

and some in the refrigerator too!

Connecting with Pink Saturday

and Maleviks Rose Garden

Art of Collecting Seeds

Today was a perfect fall day. There were still some seed treasures to collect outside. As I emptied out the pods on a white sheet of paper (that I would fold into a seed packet) I noticed a semi- doodle of a westie with a little imagination. Some days we have lots of that. I helped move a few seeds here and there...ahhh, our westie showed up!





Our westie boy fell asleep as did my doodle here. Is it called a doodle when you use seeds to draw with? 'Seedle' doesn't sound as cool, you know.




These seeds came from my perennial double-balloon-flower plant which has died back for the winter. The blue flowers rise tall and elegant and dangle like bells. A few months back the seed pods were still green so I left them to cure or dry still on the stems. Today I remembered them and went digging through leaves.




It's pretty clear that I am crazy about westies, art and gardening! Anyone can have a garden. Seeds are everywhere.

Peony Seedlings Grown Outdoors

While walking along the side of our house in the grass I noticed some miniature burgundy red leaves splashed here and there in the green gass along the borders. I let these single pink peonies go to seed in the summer and then come looking for the seedlings early spring. I do collect some seeds, too, but, they are still in a package unplanted. Nature does a fabulous job sprouting your seeds all by itself while we keep warm inside.

I had to go back to the shed and get a shovel to collect the "gold" that I had found. Go deep about 5-inches under the seedlings. The seedlings are only about 2-inches tall now. I premixed some plastic pots (recycled) with compost and loamy soil and sat the whole shovelful on top adding more soil around the edges. These little seedlings don't like to sit in water so I just drizzled a little on sparingly to settle the soil.

You might remember that I mentioned about dreaming of having fields of peonies. Dreams do not fall in your lap. You have to work toward them and I am at least 20 plants closer to that dream.