Khaleesi’s Garden: Month No. 1

So the new garden is, for the most part, doing splendidly – I say “for the most part” because it could use a serious dose of weeding! This weekend looks good, so weeding all the gardens is tops on my priority list.

I’ve also had some bunny trouble (they’re lucky they’re so cute!). First they decided to behead Lord Voldemort, hence the green strawberry basket covering the rest of the coleus…of course, then they moved on and decimated one of my Dragon’s Blood sedum (Really?? A sedum?? Come on guys!).

Hopefully the appearance of a herd of dragons will bring them to their senses, right?

I still have one more piece of metal to get out – the unicorn – and then I just have to sit back and keep up with the weeding (in between raindrops, so the season seems to be going!).

Here are a few new images from last weekend.

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com.

Khaleesi’s Garden: A Targaryen Needs Her Dragons…

Daenerys Targaryen may very well be my favorite television character since the maddening and moody Fox Mulder. Much like Mulder, she is both maddening and moody, but she has reason to be – she is the Mother of Dragons, after all.

Our favorite Khaleesi hatched her three dragons into the World of Ice and Fire and, like most mothers, had little luck controlling her growing “children.” I pray that I won’t have that problem in Khaleesi’s Garden – see, my dragons are made of metal…

standing and resting dragons

I curse Plow & Hearth some days – and QVC too, for they now carry P&H, making it much too easy for me to buy things. The first dragon I picked up was from the Q, the standing dragon. I then discovered on the P&H website a resting dragon, and of course, I needed a third, so that one – I’ll call him Balerion, after the Black Dread – came from a P&H sister site, Wind & Weather. Of course, the Q then debuted P&H’s baby dragon, who was just so stinkin’ cute I had to have him.

"Balerion" and Baby Dragon

So now I have four dragons, currently waiting for the ground to thaw and a new garden to be built, ready to join a number of other sci-fi and fantasy-related plants and ornaments.

Is it wrong that I’m scouring the internet for instructions to make dragons’ eggs?

photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com

2014: The Year of the Hummingbird

I personally think the hummingbird is one of God’s most amazing creations: so small, so quick, so mesmerizing. As a grower of what looks like a field of red cannas (it’s probably around a 20’ by 6’ garden in front of my office window), I get hummingbirds every year – I’ve named them (the same ones?) Harriett and Harry. They absolutely loooove those cannas – they’re there multiple times a day for 10-15 minutes at a time.

left - BJ's, right - Kohl's

This year more than ever I seem to be wanting everything hummingbirds. It started with a necklace I saw last fall in a BJ’s ad – Mom didn’t find it for Christmas, but she did find it in time for my birthday a few weeks later. This was later joined by a purple hummingbird necklace I found at Kohl’s.

Plow and Hearth

QVC then got in the act with a Plow and Hearth hummingbird wind spinner – that’s out by one of the veggie gardens. Aldi, which has some cool garden stuff this year, had a wrought iron hummingbird shepherd’s hook that made its way into the garden by my air conditioner. Even the local Dollar Tree store got in the act with these little plant stakes.

Aldi

Dollar Tree

Then Mom found me this beauty, which will likely make its way onto one of my Christmas trees (yes, I said “one of”…) this year.

Rontina's Hallmark

And finally, after spotting this cool wrought iron hummingbird stake on the Garden Walk Buffalo bus tour I took in July, I had to pick up my own when I found it at the Glen Park Art Festival.

Original found on Garden Walk Buffalo tour

Of, course, those all pale in comparison to the real thing. It seems like the minute my cannas bloomed, they were on them! I’ve also seen Harriett flittering around my red geraniums on my patio (keep that in my memory bank for next year!).

Harriett - 2013

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com.

Bowling Balls, Wrought Iron and Tree Houses: Buffalo-Style Garden Art

One of the coolest things about attending garden walks and tours during the National Garden Festival in the Buffalo-Niagara area is checking out the garden art: sculptures, metal art, pottery pieces, paintings, even things you wouldn’t expect in a garden. We even have a Buffalo-Style Garden Art Sale in the opening weeks of the Festival.

Here are a few of my favorite art pieces from this year’s National Garden Festival (I visited gardens involved in five garden walks this year):

Metal hummingbird – I loooooooved this piece when I saw it – so much so that I looked for it at the Glen Park Art Festival a few days later…now it’s mine!

Bowling ball totem pole – yep, a bunch of bowling balls topped with a bunch of pins…our gardeners are creative!

Colorful homes – even the homes are pieces of art! Vibrant colors like these can be seem throughout the area of Garden Walk Buffalo.

Fun signs – this one was at the home of Art of Gardening blogger Jim Charlier.

Tree houses – this tree house was awesome! The homeowners also had a number of cool garden art pieces, like ants made from golf balls and a peacock of colorful bottles.

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com