Raindrops on Peonies

Raindrops on... Peonies

...and whiskers on kittens

sing along with me, my interwebbery friends

…how I’ve missed you!

Bright copper kettles

...and warm woolen...

Okay, it’s May… in Maryland… and almost 70 gorgeous degrees F outside (21 C for most of you outside the U.S.) on this sunny Sunday morning, but I do love that song… especially sung by the ever-so-talented Julie Andrews from Nanny-Nun to the quick-witted Poppins… oh, how I dreamt as a child how exceedingly exciting my days could become if only she would float down from the sky onto our doorstep… I digress.

Peonies! I LOVE them!!! They are short-lived when you wait ever-so-patiently for them to unfurl their tightly formed delicate petals into magnificent beauty, but they are SO worth the wait! I just planted these beauties last year, so they are just beginning to fill in this season.

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My most recent bloom, the lovely Sarah Bernhardt makes her entrance!

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This Karl Rosenfield was my first brilliant peony bloom of the season.

Ahhh, yes… there are few things in life better than garden therapy… except maybe cheesecake therapy. I haven’t tried cheesecake-in-the-garden therapy yet… I think I may have struck gold there… Mmmm. And speaking of Yum!… if you want to try a fabulous french toast favorite, you can find the recipe by clicking here. I even photographed it on my peony painted plates! (See what I did there? Sometimes the tangents can lead to wonderful places… wait ’til you try it!) ❤

Heavenly French Toast Casserole

It has been a wild couple of weeks, to say the least. I finally passed my 500 face mask goal and joyfully donated 480 so far! (Insert Happy Dance here! 🙂 ) I’m now working on getting some face masks into my Etsy shop in the upcoming week, so I can earn money for supplies to donate more – the need out there is incredible! So I took a brief break to work on a few other projects and immerse myself in all things Algebra 2 to help my daughter get through her last 3 weeks of high school. All of that, along with a whole lot of Covid-stress in the midst of her ridiculously long 48-day horrific migraine, has been a one-sunrise-at-a-time process. Today we start her on a new round of meds with overflowing prayers that the migraine will finally break. So thank you, Cee, for providing this Flower of the Day topic to give me a bit of a much needed brain-break. Yeah, did I mention the Algebra 2? …it’s been a few years, let’s just say.

To all of you getting back to real life as much as you can… Be safe, stay healthy and say a little prayer for my ‘baby’ girl.

Michelle xo ❤

By the way, to join in the Photo Challenge fun, go to Cee’s Flower of the Day page to get more of the details!

I Can Almost Smell the Roses

My new “Gertrude Jekyll” David Austin rose

I have been looking forward to contributing to Cee’s Flower of the Day Photo Challenge, so I jumped at the chance to add to the Rose galleries…

After landing myself in bed two winters ago with a horrible flu that lasted for weeks, I watched every Monty Don show I could find on cable! I eagerly waited for Spring to go on the hunt for roses, so imagine my delight when I went to a local nursery and found my first David Austin rose bush! I have read that they can sometimes struggle in our unfamiliar ground, but I amended the soil like a pro & mulched her up! Last summer was particularly hot for us, as well, so while this little “Gertrude Jekyll” bush had a rough start, I’m hoping for the best this year. Here in Maryland my rosebushes are just beginning to leaf out, but the few blooms I got last summer were absolutely gorgeous!

Another bush I could not pass up was this HUGE beauty that I saw while I was at Home Depot buying vegetable plants. I have never seen roses this massive before – they were larger than my hand! Once in the ground, the blooms seemed to become more ‘regular sized’, so I’m curious to see what they do this season. Either way they smelled divine and certainly had staying power… I found a photograph of one remaining rose that held on into November! That’s pretty impressive when our temperatures can drop below 30 degrees F here in Zone 7a. So that’s a bit of inspiration for resilience found in nature and inspiration for the day…

Just keep on keeping’ on, Friends! ❤

Sunday Stills: Fantastic Florals

As Spring showers bring my sleepy garden back to life, I have been out excitedly taking pictures of the plants I just put in the ground last season. Today’s Sunday Stills Photo Challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to share some of my new blooms…

This tiny Almond flower is no more than maybe an inch in diameter. It’s one of my favorite bushes in my yard, as one of the first blossoms of the Spring and last year it even put on a repeat show in November! The Flowering Almond symbolizes “Hope”, something we could all use a little more of these days.

Then there is my Flowering Quince… I cannot wait for this beauty to take off and fill out into a gorgeous shrub in front of our house, but for now I will enjoy its early beginnings. Flowering Quince represents “Sincerity” and symbolizes “Love”, both of which were my inspirations for planting them last Spring.

Lastly, are my Lupines. They have not begun to flower yet so this photo is from last Spring, but oh how I love them! Most of my family lives in Canada where my favorite gardens are full of tall purple lupines. I was ecstatic to find this miniature variety in the nursery, so I’m praying they come back since our planting budget is a bit pinched this year. Lupines represent “Happiness, Creativity & Imagination” – Amen to that!