More Rain Optimizing...

I know I've blogged about my rain garden in the past, and probably have even posted a picture of this Lupine before, but it's so cool I'm going to post it again.

It's the first color in the rain garden in the summer. It's lovely. And this year, it's got purple flowers to go along with the pink. Very interesting. I may have to investigate why.

Last year, this plant got me a spot on the Friends School Plant Sale blog. The picture here is that same plant... and I'm going to send the Plant Sale people another picture and see if they know why it's purple. I'm thinking perhaps it's a cultivar that's reverting???

Rain Barrel - Finally!

I have been wanting to install rain barrels for a few years, and we finally did! They are not the fancy kind from gardeners.com, but they are recycled food barrels. No idea what originally came in them!

It was not a difficult task, but we are not very handy around here, so it was a bit of a project. It seemed a bit odd to be sawing off perfectly good gutters... but it was for a good cause. John tackled the project and even wrote about it.

Now, we just need some RAIN to test them out!!

Lucky

Well, a mere week or so after being made aware that there are giveaways at Goodreads, guess what...I won one! Thanks J and J, for telling me about this! Not only that, it was something that I had seen a while ago and had thought might be a good candidate for A's reading list as well as mine. Now it's out in paperback, and I'm getting a free copy! The Dragon's Eye is the first of the Erec Rex YA series.

Summer Book Club

JJ and I saw a flyer for a summer book club for 4th and 5th graders at the library this summer. Soooo exciting! He's digging into "No Talking" by Andrew Clements tonight - for a June 16 book club. The rest of the summer includes City of Ember, Gone-Away Lake, Chasing Vermeer and one other. Good to see the book club thing has passed on to the next generation!

Gold Iris

Here are my gold irises. Not sure you can see this well, but I'll post it anyway.

Grass that looks dead in this picture is a gorgeous miscanthus that has tall, wispy plumes starting in about August and last all winter....

For more plant pics, see the Hobbled Runner. That darn Blackberry camera makes it so easy to take and post pictures. Warning -- you'll have to scroll down past all the dog updates to find plant pictures!

My first picture!

I decided I couldn't be the only one who didn't know how to upload a picture into our blog text.

Voila!

This just popped open the other day. It's my maroon-ish bearded iris, which oddly enough, is right next to a yellow one (yet to open), making Gopher colors for S!! I just wish the blooms lasted longer, I always enjoy them so much.

The peonies won't be much longer. The buds are looking rather full and there are ants marching all over them.

Bulbs are blooming and too many plants!

OK, they've been blooming for a couple of weeks, but I just got this picture, thanks to the Hobbled Runner. Cute little miniature grape hyacinth surrounds by tulips and daffodils, which you can't see.

Spent the weekend volunteering at the Friends School Plant Sale. I cashiered for 4.5 hours. I no longer have the stamina for that! More fun was doing inventory after the sale closed. I spent almost 9 hours over three days counting plants... every thing from Indian grass, various monardas and astilbe, to swamp milkweed and more. I learned a ton! I didn't really need any more plants for my yard, as Hobbled Runner would attest to, but geez, you can't work around them for that long and not find something new to try! So, now I have about 13 flats of plants waiting.... ugh. What am I going to do??? I'll post pictures!