She Knits By The Seashore

A Happy Easter and Passover to You

We hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday filled with joy and peace, lots of good food and laughter, and armloads of flowers.

Happy June

The Summer Flies shawl is a pleasure to work on, easy directions but enough pattern to be interesting. I've completed one section of butterflies, and am about to start on the second.

 

I meant to post on Memorial Day weekend, and time got away from me. That was my five year blogiversary. Five years! It's amazing how fast the time goes, season after season, and how life has changed during that time for all of us.

I've debated whether or not to continue with this blog, as I can't seem to post as often as I'd like, and knitting progress is slow. But when I think about stopping altogether, it makes me sad, so for now, I'm going to keep going, even if I no longer keep up with my twice a week schedule that I used to have.

My life still feels very unsettled. Because I still have not found full-time work, I've had to take a part-time retail job. I'm grateful for the friendly people I work with there, their flexibility with the schedule, and the pretty clothes. But juggling this in addition to my shelter responsibilities, the Examiner.com articles which take a tremendous amount of time for what I don't get paid, and trying to attend meetings and make connections for a full-time job and/or my writing and editing business, and I am mentally exhausted. Add in trying to exercise regularly and take care of a house, and it gets trickier to try and fit it all in. Do you feel sometimes like you're running in circles, never making any progress? That's about the size of things. I've had a try-everything-and-see-what-works philosophy, but I'm finding that I'm not sure yet what isn't working, only that I can't do everything, and do it well.

Besides knitting and reading, one of the places I find peace this time of year is my garden. It's still very much a work in progress, and I can't buy all the plants yet that I want to include, but the plants I do have are growing fast.

 

Black-seeded simpson lettuce

 

Carrots, on the left, very much an experiment. Heliotrope, on the right, also called Cherry Pie Plant.

 

Nelly Moser clematis, looking bleached out from the sun. This was here when we moved.

 

My first peony in this garden, Karl Rosenfeld. I bought and planted two tubers last year; someone put the wrong variety in the bag, and the other peony looks like it's going to bloom in white!

 

My little backyard garden. The obelisk has a purple clematis that should bloom next month. The lavender flowers on the left are catmint. There are pink roses near the gazing ball, just starting to bloom. I am holding my breath with those, hoping the deer don't bother them. They are the only non-deear resistant plants I'm risking here.

 

 A close-up of the catmint, sea holly, and peony, with the obelisk in the background. I'm still trying to figure out what to plant in front of the sea holly. Either another of those, or the light pink peonies near the obelisk, that ended up in the shade?

This weekend, Chris and I will be celebrating our anniversary. We are taking an overnight trip to Cape Cod, and I hope that the weather will be sunny and I'll have nice photos to share with you when I get back. I want to ride my bike, and hopefully visit the Monomoy wildlife refuge like we did last year. The sandy coast, with the azure blue water, tufts of seagrass, birds, and horseshoe crabs are amazing. What are your weekend plans?

 

 I found this skirt today at the little consignment shop in my town, when I dropped off a skirt of mine to sell. It was meant to be mine. Nothing cheers me up faster than pink and sparkly. 
 

Garden Dreams

Last Saturday, I went with my friend S to our town's annual garden club sale.

 

I bought some geraniums for my planters:

 

 

and some Italian Oregano that might discourage the deer from eating my roses:

 

I also went to my favorite den of garden iniquity and bought a purple jackmanii Clematis.

 

My lettuce seeds have sprouted:

 

And the carrots need transplanting to a larger container:

 

The Karl Rosenfield peonies I planted last year look like they are going to bloom. They're a deep fuschia.

 

The biggest project for this year is underway. We ripped out a row of some old overgrown bushes, and now we need to replace the lawn. The back yard will look much more open, and be a lot easier to take care of.

 

My dream is to have an English perennial border, with enough flowers to cut for bouquets, and enough varieties that will attract butterflies. Since it's only the second year I've been working on the garden at this house, there are still a lot of empty spaces as the plants mature, and I add new ones. A few didn't survive our "snowmageddon" winter, so I'll need to replace them. Eventually, I also want a vegetable patch, but that has to wait until we can build one with a tall wire fence. You can see from the woods in the back that with all the animals who live there, vegetables don't stand a chance otherwise!

There is one very cool thing about having woods in the backyard (in addition to the privacy). Sometimes nature provides you with little surprises like this:

 

 

Jack-in-the-pulpit. They're not the prettiest flowers, but I have very fond memories of them growing in the woods next to my grandmother's house when I was growing up. My dad and I used to take walks there, and there were so many woodland flowers that I rarely see anymore. When I found these in my own backyard, it was a little gift that made my day!

What flowers make you a little sentimental? If you garden, what is your dream garden?

Potted Garden Tour

Since I will be in Cape Cod this weekend, I'll share some photos from the Potted Garden Tour that I took last weekend. There were 14 sites set up around a neighboring town where local landscapers and nurseries donated pots or other arrangements to beautify the villages that make up the town. I also photographed flowers and gardens that are more permanent, just because they were pretty.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next photo is of a secret garden belonging to a lovely old Colonial in the center of town. I want to follow that garden path and see what hides around the corner!

 

This next photo is of a store further up the street.

 

 

 

 

 

Some roses are rambling on a fence near the marina.

  

The next few photos of the tour are of bonsai in a Zen garden at a local spa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day, Chris came with me to find a few that I'd missed. Wouldn't you know the first one was a potted bicycle?! He spotted the flat tire right away.

 

 

 

The last garden was tucked away on a side street near the river; I had been looking for pots but this was a more permanent exhibit.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the Potted Garden Tour, and have a great weekend!
 

WIP -- Garden edition

In a previous post, I showed a picture of the overgrown garden in our backyard. It's still very much a work in progress, but at least now all the weeds are gone, and I have some flowering plants to share with you.

 

I use grass clippings to keep the weeds down, the unemployed woman's mulch. It's free, very green/sustainable, and I have not had a problem with weed seeds. It doesn't look as neat and tidy as some of the other mulch options, but it works. When the plants grow larger, you won't see it.

The cages (wishful thinking!) have peony rhizomes underneath, which, after two months, are just beginning to sprout buds for leaves. I didn't realize they'd take so long to leaf out; next time I'll buy the plants instead.

 

 

Here is a closeup of the area around the gazing ball. Last Friday, I treated myself to two Pink Blush Knock Out landscape roses, some nepeta/cat mint, and two sea thrift. I used to grow antique roses and David Austin roses at our old house, but frankly, couldn't keep up with the blackspot, aphids, and Japanese beetle damage, so I caved and bought the easy-care variety this time around. Hopefully they'll continue to look as nice as they do now past June!

I can't seem to get the remaining photos centered, so bear with me!

 

A close-up of the sea thrift. Apparently rabbits really like it, because as you can see from the photo above with the gazing ball, the left plant has no blooms anymore! Hopefully more blossoms will come up later in the summer.

On the deck, my windowboxes are lush with lettuce almost ready to put in salads. Chris is mowing in the background.

Here is a Nelly Moser clematis that the previous owners planted. I bought purple clematis roots which are planted at the base of the obelisk in the main garden, but The President has not yet graced me with his presence. Or even stems and leaves.

My wicker planter has pink geraniums, and a light pink double impatiens plant that looks like a mini-rose bush. I love the alyssum, which looks like lace.

 

The cats want so much to help, but they are not allowed outside. If you look closely through the screen, you can see all three of them!

 

While the plants (and daisy seeds) are getting established, I'm working on clearing out other areas of the yard, including the juniper/evergreen bushes you see to the left of the garden in the first photo. Some of the belgian blocks need to be re-set, but I like the moss on them and will keep that. I'm not quite sure what to do about where the garden and lawn meet the woods, though. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to share!

I love Claude Monet's quote, "More than anything, I must have flowers, always, always." Our garden is far from Giverny, but with some time and lots of hard work, it will be its own sanctuary.

Renewal

It may be one of life's biggest cliches, but it's certainly one of the most powerful: spring = renewal. When the sun comes out and the temperatures warm up, windows are washed, closets and cabinets are de-cluttered, and winter coats are stored to make room for shorts and bathing suits. Bikes are tuned up, grills and decks and pools are cleaned. But nowhere is renewal more evident than in the garden.

When we moved into this house nearly three years ago, I was burned out on gardening. Our former neighbors had done some renovating that threatened the garden at my old house (our back yards opened on to each other, and heavy equipment would come through), and I was unwilling to put any more time or money into plants that were likely to be destroyed. I was losing the battle for the roses to aphids and blackspot. When we arrived here, we had unpacking and painting and a sick kitty to tend. What little garden had been established by a previous owner was left to fend for itself.

Fast forward three years later, and the untamed woods behind our home has crept into the garden, one root at a time. Big bamboo-like weeds, which you can see in the background of the photo below, had overtaken the stone garden that a former owner landscaped. They, and a particularly vicious vine, had overrun the garden, tearing landscape fabric and strangling the evergreen bushes and other plants once residing peacefully in their spaces. How like life sometimes. 

When I walked in the backyard to monitor the flooding from last week, I noticed that even the most hardy evergreens were now dead. Thorny canes were sprouting and those bamboo-like weeds were again beginning to spread, their green shoots now eager to disrupt the foundation wall by wedging themselves in between the stones. It was time to take control, and start over.

 
Click to enlarge. The gazing ball and obelisk came with me from our old house.

For two days, I have been digging, clipping, and ripping all of these weeds out. The picture above was taken between days one and two, when the tall, dead bamboo stalks were removed, but not yet the vines or dead bushes. The landscape fabric still has to be torn out, since it's obviously not keeping the weeds down. The stones have to be reset. At night I have been poring over garden catalogs, flipping through my old gardening books, and sketching out ideas. Poppy seeds, like those from the poppy plants in my old garden, are being tended in a seed tray in my creative room. I have already quoted to them from John Keats' poem To Sleep: "ere thy poppy throws/around my bed its lulling charities" just like old times. I'm kind of geeky like that. I can't wait for them to sprout.

I don't know yet what my garden will be. In part it is a memorial garden for our beloved Charlie. It may also be an evening garden, though I don't think I'll limit myself to white blossoms. I hope to include butterfly friendly plants, and herbs too. Old friends like the poppies will hopefully thrive, but I hope that new friends like daisies and sage will join me in welcoming a new summer and a new beginning.

Consider the lilies...

Here are July's purple flowers:

Hidcote lavender, with sedum behind it.

Balloon flower. The buds are unusual; they "burst" into a pretty bell shape. They do need staking or some sort of support.

...and peeking behind the balloonflowers...

Pink Lilies!

Rainy Day Blues

Here at the seashore, it's been raining almost every weekend since Memorial Day, and this one is no exception. If it keeps up, I might have to change the name of my blog to "She Knits in the Living Room."

The one good thing about rainy days is that they're perfect for catching up on knitting projects:

I finished the cat blanket early, and will send it off to Basil and Abner next week. I'm also making more progress on the lace, and might even cast on for a new project tomorrow!

Although I'm not a member of Project Spectrum (I didn't have my blog until recently; I'm hoping they'll do PS a second time so I can start from the beginning), I love looking at all the photos of blue knitted items and blue objects that everyone is posting. Since I have a blue knitted item above, I'll add some blue flowers too, in honor of June:

Here's hoping for a dry Sunday for everyone, and lots more knitting progress!

Inch by Inch, Row by Row

Knitting is like gardening, a slow methodical process, with (hopefully) a beautiful reward. Both have the ability to frustrate us like crazy, but also nurture our souls.

This post is for my dear friend H, The Knittin' Kitten, Lynne, Kristen, Rebekah, and other knitting bloggers who have been sharing their beautiful garden/nature photos with their readers. Your photos have inspired me and made me smile, and I hope mine will do the same for you.

First up, some knitting progress:

The Lace Dream Stole is about 18" now. A long way to go yet!

The Kitty Blanket is 5"-6" longer now that I've added a second skein.

Now the garden. Poppies, before the rain came:

  These are Coral Reef poppies, grown from seed by Thompson's. They keep spreading each year, and this year I had more blooms than ever! Whenever I see them, I think of the line from Keats' poem, To Sleep: "ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities..." It's the only line I remember, but the language, like the flower, is so pretty. I like the idea of flowers lulling us into peacefulness (we will not think about the poppies' other use here!).

  Reine Victoria bourbon roses

Eglantyne roses (David Austin)

Louise Odier, a bourbon rose

Queen Elizabeth roses with Hidcote lavender

Monkshood

My garden has a pink and purple theme. It looks best this time of year. Next up are the lilies, and then things will quiet down in the main garden, except for some purple alyssum. My apologies if you now have the Inch by Inch song stuck in your head, as I do!