Vertical Garden Wall

This is the finished vertical garden wall I talked about over the summer. It was displayed at the Breaking the Static pop up art gallery that I helped create with my art collective.  I am pretty proud of this piece as it was the first vertical garden and I made and created a big stir of excitement. It also brought a lot of life into this dead abandoned space which we transformed successfully and beautifully into an amazing art event for our community.

The wall is now at my home but is for sale. It is 4 ' x 5 ' planted with succulents and vines and is surrounded by a brass painted frame.

A few more pieces to showcase from the show but, I think it might be time to stop blogging, take a shower and go VOTE!

vertical garden wall

 I am building a 4 x 5 foot garden wall for the art exhibit. Lots of succulents, moss and vines. It's been a interesting and fun experience. I painted chair rail this week bronze to make a frame for it. The next challenge will be finding or building something to keep it upright. I work on this everyday in the Quonset- a greenhouse behind Town Hall. Being a member of our garden club allowed me this privilege to work there. I'm excited to show this piece and I think it would be an amazing piece  (quite the showstopper) in a  store, corporation or restaurant.

corsage

A corsage made with the prettiest rose in my garden.

floral design- a tabletop arrangement

wildflower garden

Siberian Wallflower

                                                                       Catchfly

                                                                     Blue Flax

                           
                                                              Sweet William

The wildflowers in my front garden are starting to bloom again from the seed mix I planted last year. So exciting to see some of the new varieties like the Sweet William which is a biennial.
               

garden flowers

Black eyed Susan, phlox, nasturtium, zinnia, cosmos, chamomile, wildflowers

wildflower meadow

This Spring I planted a wildflower meadow on the front slope of my house that had previously been a strawberry patch. I still have strawberries on the other side. I bought a Northeast Wildflower Mix and lately it's been bursting with flowers and I'm so pleased with it. So far the blooms have included cornflower, baby's breath, red poppy, wild cosmos and plains coreopsis. Everything in the mix is listed here with annuals and perennials.

Happy 4th of July!

new york botanical gardens

Yesterday at New York Botanical Gardens.

roses

These roses are my absolute favorite in the garden right now.

spring has sprung: scilla

Spring has finally started in the Northeast. Could we be any happier? My daughter pulled out the beach chairs on Sunday and then decided to make lemonade from scratch..on her own mind you while I was upstairs-eek! and later she put on her bathing suit and ran in the sprinkler - it was 68 degrees!

In my yard the daffodils bloomed, the hellebores started opening and this dainty little flower which is so tiny and low to the ground you can barely notice it blue- indigo- violet. It's most certainly a fairy flower.

scenes from the front garden

The garden is growing beautiful and lush. The slow Spring and perfect summer days filled with a good amount of sunshine and rain in the evenings has been helping everything along.

The returning crops this year: blackberries (ripening), gooseberries, red and white currants, grapes(ripening), cherries, apples (ripening), peaches (ripening), strawberries (though much less then originally were here due to their lifespan), chives, lemon balm, lavender and mint. We lost our rhubarb and continue to lose strawberries. We have been trying to replace the strawberry plants over the past two years (about 30-40 a year) slowly but there were so many it's hard to get it back to where it once was.

Planted this year: blueberries,lots of basil, mojito mint, chocolate mint, rainbow chard, kale, eggplant, tomatoes: (mexico midget, chocolate cherry , pink berkely tie dye, indigo apple and red zebra,) purple cauliflower, beets, sugar baby watermelon, sleeping beauty melon, tomatillo, a variety of sweet peas, tri color garden beans, zinnia, lettuces: (red romaine, arugula, spinach, radicchio, rocky top mix, mesculun, green oak leaf), bachelor's buttons, cosmos, nasturtium, radish, sugar ann and dwarf gray snap pea, borage, leek, fairy meadow seeds, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, garlic, peppers: (shepherd frying, thai hot, chocolate beauty), marigolds, snapdragon, chamomile, oregano, sweet woodruff, zucchini, cucumber, yellow button flower and rumex. I am sure I forgot a few things but, this gives you a pretty good idea of what's growing. As I harvest I plant new seeds and plants.
My daughter is in love with berries and has fallen hard for the gooseberries and eats them right off the bush before I can do anything with them ;)
I made some currant jam and lavender shortbread recently and am really loving garlic scape pesto.

Happy Bastille Day France!

durand hedden herb garden and a quilt project

On Tuesdays the children and I water and play over at an herb garden behind a historical home in my town. We like to volunteer here in the summer and it is a special place for them to learn, play in the creek, walk over a tiny bridge and make little bouquets. The beds are really beautiful here and I will be sure to take more photos of it over the coming weeks and perhaps introduce you to some new herbs.

Believe me, I know I owe you a post about my garden this year and I promise to get to it soon.

I am close to finishing this quilt top using the snowball block and all solids. This quilt is more modern and graphic then I normally make and I liked pairing up the colors and seeing how bright it pops against the white.

sweet peas

The sweet peas planted from seed 5 months ago on a freezing cold winter day have been blossoming. They are so beautiful. I can't wait to see what other varieties will appear.

welcome summer

A new cushion cover in the Liberty print, hot pink wiltshire for the couch.

Fresh flowers for bouquets from the garden.

Welcome summer!

cherry blossom festival

If you like photos of gardens and flowers you can scroll through a selection of images I took at Brooklyn Botanic Gardens over the weekend. I have to make a trip to see the cherry blossoms every year. I have seen them in Brooklyn, NY, Washington DC and Newark, NJ over the past few years. It's always one of the best days of the year! Not many of the trees actually were in bloom in Brooklyn so if you are planning a trip there will be still be plenty to see and the roses are always a nice treat in June.