Blooming in My Garden This Week

 

A bed of these two-toned purple irises have been blooming in my yard for as long as I can remember. I know they should be divided every seven years or so, and I will definitely try to do that this fall. 

 

The orange poppies originally came from my aunt's garden. I thought for sure that last night's rain would cause the paper thin, fragile petals to fall, but they survived and their gorgeous blooms will last a few more days. I shot a number of poppy photos, but this one was my favorite.  These images were taken with my Tamron 100mm macro lens. As you can see, I love photographing flowers. :-) 

 Please click on any photo to see a larger image.

A few months ago, I signed up for Netflix because I wanted to watch The Crown. I loved it at first, but my interested waned after a while as the members of the royal family in this series are not portrayed in some cases in a very favorable manner. I did find a program on the royal family, however, which I really enjoyed, the BBC documentary, Elizabeth at 90:A Family Tribute.  If you are watching The Crown, it showed Queen Elizabeth often using a movie camera on her travels. Elizabeth at 90:A Family Tribute presents actual royal "home" movies. It is narrated by Prince Charles and what makes it special is that it shows various members of the royal family including Queen Elizabeth viewing and commenting on the movies. One section shows Prince William and Prince Harry laughing at the antics of their father as a young boy. My favorite scenes featured the daughter of Princess Margaret viewing her mother as a very little girl dancing and playing with her sister the future queen. The expressions of sweet delight on Lady Sarah's face are wonderful as she repeatedly remarks that she had never ever seen those images of her mother. It is an hour documentary which you would  enjoy.

Speaking of gardening, if you have Netflix, I have another recommendation, "Big Dreams, Small Spaces."  I saw this program mentioned on a blog that I follow so I checked it out and I'm glad that I did. It features horticulturist Monty Don who travels all over England helping folks create the garden of their dreams. It's amazing to see how ambitious some of their plans are. He guides, encourages, and sometimes helps them design more realistic plans. If you enjoy gardening, you would enjoy this Netflix program. It is very relaxing and enjoyable to watch, and I have picked up quite a few gardening tips. Lord knows what Monty Don would say about my topsy turvy, jumbled large garden!  By the way, have you ever heard of putting a mud head in your garden? I had never heard of mud heads and neither had Monty Don, but if you watch the series you'll see one determined lady create one in her large garden. :-)

It's been a busy week so far. On Tuesday, the Crosstown Quilt Guild had a lively and fun speaker, Beth Helfter of EvaPaige Quilt Designs   who presented a trunk show and talk entitled, "Give It a Scrap Slap." Yesterday, I met friends for lunch and then last night met another group of friends at a local restaurant to celebrate a friend's birthday . . . one of those BIG ones that ends in a zero. :-) All in all it was a fun busy day!!!

In My Garden This Week

 

     I shot these photo yesterday knowing that rain was forecast for today.  Poppies do not hold up well in the rain, so I wanted to capture them as soon as they opened. Isn't the color glorious!  Next it was on to the blue flag irises.

     Emma came over to check out what I was doing sitting cross legged on the grass.

     This is what I was doing.

     On the side of the garage, I planted more snapdragons. Some of last year's plants are now in bloom. Why snapdragons you might ask? When I was about six or seven, my cousin gave me a box of her Honeybunch series which I loved.  In what I think was the first book in the series, Honeybunch Plants a Garden, the little girl planted snapdragons. I remember asking my Aunt Alice, a wonderful gardener, what snapdragons looked like. She brought me into her garden where she had a large section of them. I loved them then, and I have planted them ever since.

     FInally, over the weekend I put together ten hanging pots plus two pots for the deck. My color scheme this summer is pink, white, and purple. 

     

     Thanks for stopping by to see what's blooming in my garden this week. In case you are interested, these photos were all taken with my Canon PowerShot SD960 - Digital Elph, a truly wonderful little camera.