If it doesn’t rain soon my garden will not come up! What a lot of work and expense for probably nothing. Friends from Illinois stopped on their way to Colorado so we ordered our favorite pizza from Casey’s. What we got was nothing even recognizable – so disappointing. I went in today to complain only to find out it was a young man’s second day on the job and the fellow training him went home instead. They made it right but it was a big disappointment.
I attended Lucy’s birthday party and then Mollie came here this afternoon – it got pretty hot really so now I’m spending lots of time watering plants.
This beauty just opened tonight – I’ll get one more photo in the morning and then it will be done for another year. Sad.
The plant, night blooming cereus, is not an attractive plant – I have to be so thrilled with the 24 hour bloom that I take care of it for the next 364 days.
Photos from readers:
Tomorrow is Dirty Dozen Day!
Love love love the reader’s quilts! Thank you everyone for sending!
That is a beautiful flower. I’ve never seen one like it. It’s dry here in SW Iowa too. Hubby has been watering the garden.
Jeanine (Iowa) and Sue H. (Illinois) you have inspired me with two new ideas for scrap quilts. This is my year to make scrappy quilts/projects to diminish my stash. Of course, that only works if I don’t buy new material. Ha Ha!
Mary, thanks for providing the forum for inspiration!
Janet – I get lots of inspiration from readers as well! My to-do list gets longer all the time!!
Hi Mary, another wonderful show of flowers, l love peonies, quilts and pets!l can send you some of the rain we are getting in New Zealand Mary,winter is here, heater is on.Take care everyone, best wishes from Sandy
Sandy – now this is what I love about hearing from all of you – what it’s like at your house. Sandy is at the start of winter while we’re at the start of summer. I always remember hearing about grilling at Christmas.
Teresa in Indiana, I love your star quilt. What is the name of the pattern? Thank you!
Hope you get some much needed rain for your garden! It’s HOT and dry here in Michigan also!
Sue H….I love your blue and yellow stars. All the quilts are great.
It’s very windy here, too, but not hot. In fact, the wind is right off the Pacific Ocean and cold. Well, at least, not as warm as I would like it. I am still planting my starts here and there, but seeing the end to it. It’s so odd to me that we have to water our gardens here all the time, yet it isn’t hot like most of you know it to be in summer. But, some of you don’t have to water because you get rain in summer. We don’t. It’s our dry season but it isn’t hot. Just windy. We do have lots of Rhododendrons and azaleas in bloom right now. So much color right now.
Had to laugh at the blue bottle tree. Not what I was expecting, but fun. Love the quilts and Jeanine’s charity quilt is particularly appealing to me.
We are dry here and I do the rounds of watering the garden every 3 days. Sigh. Flower beds and foundation plantings get watered once or twice a week. I am the watering queen. (I would rather I was queen of something exciting!)
Beautiful flower,Mary. Peonies are pretty too. The bottle tree is interesting. Wouldn’t have to water it. Had to drink a lot of wine. LOL!!!
Garden is coming up slowly. Raspberries are starting to bloom. Have had to water. Surprising how dry it is after all the rain we had in early May.
Great quilts and post today. On the bright side, I really believe I could actually grow a blue bottle tree. Many other things are just too challenging for me. Mary the cereus plant would be too frustrating for me. Southern Minnesota is just plain hot again. They keep talking about rain but nothing so far. The woodticks are out in great quantities so my husband had one attached. When I pulled it off there was some meat attached so I thought it was good but not so much as he has a red spot about 3″ wide. We went to the doctor and he was given an antibiotic. This is only June 1. It could be way worse so I am counting our blessings and marching forward. Have a great day everyone.
Janet – Keeper attracts ticks and he’s on tick meds!!! I have never seen so many ticks around here. What’s with that? I had one on my neck the other night but it came off easily so I wasn’t worried. But…..
The cereus plant is a challenge – I have two HUGE plants that I can’t even carry!
Great pictures today. Love all the quilt ideas. Is that a house on top of the cupboard of screens? It looks very interesting.
Marie – yes, it’s a house!
I agree with several who said inspiration galore with these scrap quilts! Good job everyone and I love a quilt with stars so that was so interesting from Teresa. I just this morning saw my drawer of 2” squares chock full so need to make a charity quilt somehow soon. And I have a bucket of scraps still waiting to be cut up into useable pieces. So many leaders and Enders now going on for me.
Glad I only have to use a watering can to go around and water some flowers and herb plants as no rain here for 12 days now and not expecting any time soon. Guess I made the right decision to utilize the many local farm markets for veges this summer as it’s only 2 of us and I don’t want to can any longer. I use my wide mouth pint jars for overnight oatmeal now.
Hi Mary, I’’m back!😀😀. Yippee. It took a while, but the blog is now coming to email.😀
I love all of the quilts,too. Kathy, the blues in yours are so pretty—neat quilt!
It is so much fun to see the Night Blooming Cereus again. What a stunning bloom. It is worth the wait. We are very dry here in Central Ohio, too. I hope your garden makes it, Mary. I loved ours when we had it, but now it is Farmer’s Markets.
Diane – I’m so glad your email is working again!! Did you show your green thumbed hubby the cereus bloom? Maybe I could send him a start?
Oh, for the beauty of the cereus and other cactus and succlents. They require very little attention and maybe a bit of water and then! The most beautiful flower in the world opens. What fun and you can’t get enough of it’s beauty. Gives us hope. A life of routine stuff and then a minute of beauty!!
Monday I got my petunias planted and 3 hours later 20-30 minutes of very heavy rain, wind and hail hit. They were really pruned, but will survive. I like to plant very short, bushy plants as they grow up with the wind.
Didn’t you know that while you are busy trying to use your scraps that the rest are busy multiplying and you end up with more than you started?? Still’s fun. I love scrappy’s. And Gramma said we can’t waste them.
Happy June. Take care. Betty in Rapid City
Betty – I wish we had some of your rain. Yes, the bloom is breathtaking but so short lived – 24 hours maybe. Can’t wait to sew later today – I haven’t had time for so long now but the screens are now on, leftovers for supper and it’s not too hot!
Love the flower. Bet you wish it would last more than one day. The color is so pretty. Hope Ernie is okay. You have lost too many animals lately. Very warm here in CT the next couple days. Good day to stay inside. Smoke from fires in Nova Scotia far to the north of us, but air flow is bringing it over us. Not too bad here but some towns have real low visibility. Bad air quality too. Should be better by weekend. Cool front coming should blow it out to sea.
Our next door neighbor has two bottle trees. The one in the front yard has different colored bottles on it. The backyard bottle tree is all blue. They are both so pretty and add color to his yard all year long.
I have a couple of those plants. A few years ago one of them had about 20 buds on it. They were so heavy that they bent and creased the leaves. I haven’t had any blossoms since. You are right. The plants aren’t very attractive.