The Center of the Herb Garden

This wisteria and rose canopied arbor is the center of my beloved herb garden--the vines are so dense that it will shelter you in a down pouring rain. I have strung fairy lights under the inside of it and it is a favorite gathering place when family is visiting. In the early evening with candles scattered all around and the fairy lights and the lightning bugs it is a dreamlike atmosphere. The posts are treated but then slabs of raw wood are attached so that it looks more natural. And yes, there are even more arbors but I will save some for later!

The Front Porch Arbor

Another very healthy wisteria vine! For those of you that have had a wisteria vine for years that hasn't bloomed yet please don't give up. Mine took about 5-6 years to bloom and they can take a couple of years longer. It's worth the wait and in the meantime you have a lush, green cover that shades you and that birds love to build in it. The vines are beautiful in themselves. You do have to give frequent haircuts but for the beauty and the fragrance--oh sooo worth it!!!

Arbors Everywhere---This one leads to Bluebird Cottage

This arbor is next to the back yard and leads to our sweet little Bluebird Cottage. I have an obsession for arbors too! Wisteria winds and drapes and tiny white roses climb and cascade. It's a sight to see in the Spring. Cardinals have been the decoration for the Winter--there were 43 sighted from our kitchen window during the snow.

Sweet Little Nest Blanketed in Snow

This old barbed wire fence has been here all of my life. We took part of it down next to the pond because the turtles would get stuck in it and John had to do "turtle rescue" so often! It's pretty to me even in it's old, battered, rusty condition but covered in snow it really shows off. It will be covered in climbing pink fairy roses later in the year.

A friend made this for me.

Peace and Quiet

The Lane that lead to The Rose Garden

Customers always told me how much they enjoyed driving down the lane to the shop. It's lined with overhanging trees and makes you feel like there's something special waiting for you at the end. It made them feel like they were leaving stress and strain behind. It's always made me feel that way also. When I was a child we met the school bus at the end of it and the air was fragrant with honeysuckle and locust. To this day when I smell honeysuckle I am taken back to those times of childhood.

About five years ago I came home after work and found a note on my front door. A lady had taken a wrong turn and ended up driving down our lane. She wrote that she was at a bad time in her life and when she got to the end of this beautiful little lane that she felt more peaceful and serene than she'd felt in ages. She wanted me to know that she had to sit and "absorb" it for a while and hoped that I didn't mind. Of course I didn't mind, I loved it. She put her address on the note, no name, just her address. I wrote her back and told her if she liked the lane she needed to come back and visit the shop. She did about a month later. I walked out to a sweet lady that was weeping. She told me that this place "saved" her. Well, I don't know about that but I know it saves me and I thank the Good Lord and my daddy for it every day.

Surrounded by Beauty

Front row seating for Daylilies.

I am obsessed with day lilies. Now I could be obsessed with just looking at the catalogs that I receive by the dozens and with putting my little stars by the ones I'm thinking about buying. Or I could actually be buying them and planting them in a way out-of-control manner. There, that's the one. The out-of-control one, that's me. My daddy used to say "if six are good a dozens better!" I have evolved that to "too much is never enough!" So by June you will be seeing the results of my obsession. Some of them. There will be more. and more. and many more.

Little Angel with cold feet

The Stone Chair or A Chair with a View

This chair was made and designed for me by one of my dearest friends, Carl. I did offer my feeble help but he was the strength and the brains behind it! It faces the pond and is a lovely throne upon which to recline and reflect. I have sighted all manner of woodland creatures from this perch including pileated woodpeckers and an American woodcock. Chipmunks scamper around as if I'm not even present. Even the skittish squirrels peek around the branches and chatter to me. Many, many Rose Garden designs and displays were dreamed up while relaxing there and I expect many more. [You see, you never really retire from something you love--you just change direction a bit.]

The Herb Garden in Winter

One of my greatest pleasures is my herb garden-- tending it, gathering the scented herbs from it, and just sitting and absorbing it. This old bike welcomes you at one of the entrances. Later little pink fairy roses and yellow jasmine will entwine and cloak it. For now its a lovely sculpture in itself.

The herb garden boasts it's own little family of chipmunks--Merlin and Alchemy are the parents, Treasure and Nugget are the babies or at least they were babies last year. The herb garden is the location of one of the little tenant houses from the Poor Farm Past. Gentle spirits must help because everything planted in it thrives. I can't wait for you to see it in all it's glory. I truly believe it is a healing atmosphere--perhaps because of the medicinal herbs planted.

Serenity

The Rose Garden girls got these chairs for me. I adore them. [the chairs And the girls!!] They have been moved to various areas of the yard and gardens. Right now they await for me and a cup of morning coffee out by Bluebird Cottage which is the renovated brooder house of my childhood. We didn't have chickens long. We had them for the eggs. Mother didn't care for chickens and my first cocker spaniel, Tippy, cultivated a nose and a taste for eggs. She usually got them before we did. So since we weren't getting the eggs anyway, the chickens had to go.

I love Majolica {I love almost any Italian pottery} and have collected a few pieces. This is my absolute favorite. This vase epitomizes a flower garden for me. It has lived several places in my house--it's longest residence was on the dining table but now it resides in the kitchen on top of an old buffet. Sometimes I think I will re do it but then I look at it and realize that there is simply no reason to do so! Besides, it looks like my garden--wild and quite undisciplined!

The Old Poor Farm

This farm is indeed the old county poor farm. Daddy purchased it from the County because it joined Granddaddy's property and made the farm bigger. It had been a work farm where the indigents came to live and work until they got back on their feet again. Many probably lived out their lives here. After all they didn't have all the "government help" that is now available. Supposedly there are more than 2,000 unmarked graves on the property but I have never seen evidence of them. There is an old family cemetery in one of the wooded areas with a few old gravestones left. It's a serene little spot with a pond next to it that we call "Hidden Pond". The stones date back into the 1800's. Do I think the property is "haunted"? No. Do I think that there may a few kind spirits lingering? Maybe. This property has always had a positive, uplifting feeling to me. [And we all know that positive breeds positive, negative breeds negative.] Customers that came on a regular basis to the shop always said as soon as they started down the lane they felt a welcoming sense, a warmth so to speak. Even newcomers would comment on the serenity, the "aura". I loved that. I remember as a child several of the little houses still existing and I use the term "house" loosely. By that time they were the skeletal remains of the originals. We had our clubhouse in one of them that still had a couple of rooms intact. We had an old quart jar on the beamed window sill we collected our dues in, I think we had about fifteen cents in it. I don't actually remember tearing any of them down, I think they just finally decomposed and became part of the earth. So yes, this farm does have some history and romance about it. [and I do so love romance!] And though I said that I don't think of it as "haunted" I did say that a few sweet spirits might still linger. Who knows? We did have a few incidences that were "unexplained" in the room of the shop we called "the parlor". More on that later--for now I must go and dump the ice out of the foster dogs buckets, get them water, and warm them up with some heated chicken broth.

Winter Wonderland

What a snug little house for one of our feathered friends.

Wrens built in it for the last couple of years.

Of course wrens build Everywhere--Always in the Spring basket on our front door. We just use the back door.

Beautiful Bone Structure

I love trees and shrubs that have knobby branches and beautiful structure. This tulip magnolia is a particular favorite of the birds. It usually has three or more nests in it during the Spring and Summer months.

When it blooms it will be cloaked with large purple flowers, a Southern Lady all dressed in her

finery with baby birds flying out beneath her skirts!

This is the entrance to my Farmer McGregor's Vegetable Garden. I wanted a pretty vegetable garden and my brothers-in-law, Sam and Dan, did this for me. [Don't you wish they were Your brothers-in-law?] During the growing season there will be climbing roses and lilies blooming and masses of productive vegetable plants on the other side. At least that's the plan. Last year I was able to put up pickled asparagus, pickled okra, salsas, [I did regular tomato salsa and peach salsa requested by our niece, Diana.], pickles [have to practice on them], green pepper jelly, and squash relish. Oh, and my mother's sweet pepper relish. And fig and peach marmalade and peach honey but the little fruit trees are elsewhere. So you see I am a bit obsessed. Told you.

It is a cold, bleak January day. The gas logs are blazing and candles are sending off sweet aromas and I am being seduced. Yep, seduced by the first seed catalogs to arrive this year in the mail. Besides being a floral designer and a rescuer of dogs, I am a gardener. I love it, I crave it, I revel in playing in the dirt. Flowers, vegetables, fruits, you name it I want to grow it. It's a sickness, it is, an addiction but so be it! And the names that the seed and nursery people come up with to entice you---Sugar Pearls apricot. Ruby Red chard. Envy carrots.Bodacious [yes, Bodacious!] corn. So can you understand? I'm putty in their hands! I hate to shell peas, I hate to pick green beans, but the urge to plant them I just can Not resist! So this hot-house flower has spent most of the day piled up on the couch with Coco and Truffles and 8 [yes, 8!!] seed and plant catalogs putting little black check marks next to all manner of luscious descriptions. Last year I tried my hand at canning--successful for the most part. We have been enjoying the results of my efforts over the winter. One of the favorites as been Sweet Pepper Relish, my mother's recipe. I've always thought the only reason to eat black-eyed peas or greens was to have her relish on top of it. It's also delicious on barbecue or paninis. Here it is and it's so easy:

1 doz. small onions, chopped
1 doz. red and green sweet bell peppers, chopped
1 Tbsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 pt. vinegar
1 pt. water
extra boiling water
Cover chopped onions and peppers with boiling water and let stand for 10 minutes, then drain.
Mix vinegar, salt, sugar, and water; bring to boil for about 5 minutes. Add peppers and onions. Pour in hot sterilized jars and seal.

Try it. You will feel so smart and those little jars are just so darned cute!

My husband and our three children with fur. The black cockers are sisters, Coco and Truffles, and Honey we adopted from C.A.R.E. Honey was taken into the pound with her six puppies because of neglect. The owners didn't want them and decided to just starve them to death. Sarah got them all. Another foster mom had Honey and could Not keep her contained. I [thinking I'm so smart] said that anyone could contain a dog if they tried hard enough. Wrong. Should have named her Houdini. Honey Houdini Weedman. That's right. Since we couldn't keep her kenneled, fenced, Or on a lead we just adopted her. So she's our Honey Girl, the ambassador. She meets and greets all the new fostered dogs and lets them know that she is the head honcho. Oh, and don't worry--all her puppies got adopted too!

Happy New Year, 2011

So I can't say my life is boring [my husband just wishes for ONE boring day with me, I imagine.] and a Lot has happened in the two years that I decided to semi-retire. I had far more personal time when I was running a shop 24/7. After all I had a wonderful staff that was irreplacable. They made my life so much easier. The dogs aren't as considerate! Easy is not in their vocabulary or their barking, per say. In fact we adopted Honey the Houdini dog because of that. We couldn't stand the thought of adopting her out to someone that wouldn't search high and low for her if she went missing and don't think that we don't panic everyday when she lopes off with that grin on her face. John and I both have gone to Walmart numerous times to get her. It's located right over the berm and I think she takes smoking breaks with the employees. She also loves the lumber yard at Home Depot. They give her hot dogs. Here she'll come running with a whole one and she holds it in her mouth like a cigar. [learned that during the smoking break, I imagine.] The nearby horse pasture is a favorite hangout of hers--she'll come home that greenish/black horse manure color and just reek. I have to sneak up on her with shampoo, she Hates baths, even sponge baths. A skunk got her not too long ago and she was pink for days from the tomato juice bath. But she hates cold weather and rain and has spent a lot of time on the couch this winter AND she has never had an accident in the house. [you know, the bathroom kind]. So all in all she is quite an exceptional dog, at least we think so. She loves everyone and everyone loves her. My husband and my family are hoping I don't adopt another dog every year. [They think I'm going to be a dog hoarder.] Happy New Year! C.A.R.E. is hoping for a wonderful year of adoptions!