Sunday, January 15, 2012

An offering to Pantone

'Autumn Flame' daylily blooms in late summer, early fall.

The color gods have decided that Tangerine Tango is THE color of 2012.

May I just say that a "spirited reddish-orange" has been in our garden in for some time. As evidence, here are a few riffs on orange/red that we enjoy.

 'Alabama Jubilee' daylily. This one has just enough ruffle.

Marigolds are easy to grow from seed. 'Safari Orange' is one of the mainstays of our annual garden.

Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty.' After three attempts we found the perfect location for this perennial. Those are tiger lilies behind it.

Gaillardia is another annual that we grow from seed.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Another year, another Seventh Day


We watched last summer as the robins built this nest in the bur oak. We weren't sure it was a good location for a home; it's not very high in the tree, just a bit over my head. But there it was and before long mama robin was spending a lot of time in the nest. We were looking forward to watching them raise their brood. But ...

... then came the squirrels. We watched several times as squirrels raided the nest and the angry robins chased them across the lawn in the woods. We rooted for the robins, but in the space of a few days, we found broken, pale blue shells on the ground.

The nest was abandoned.

Now that the leaves are gone, the nest is even easier to spot. See some of what else we saw on this Seventh Day. (Or go to the sidebar at right.)

Monday, January 2, 2012

Over already? Not quite


The holidays slipped past way too fast. I meant to take a photo of our tomato-cage Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago, but only managed to get it done the other night.

How simple is this? Take a tomato cage, turn it upside down, wire the legs together in a point, wrap it in lights using twist ties at strategic intervals, secure it in a pot, and plug it in. This is sweet enough to light the door for weeks to come.