Day 14 ~ Flowers

Here's is long view of my rose.

As many of you know, I volunteer as a gardener for the grounds of my church in downtown Colorado Springs. I get my fix of flowers by performing a service to my fellow parishioners and experience the joy of watching the blooms come in their appointed time. I have planted over a dozen roses, countless Spring blooming bulbs, pruned all the roses every Spring, dead-headed, watered, planted annuals and weeded. I don't have much of an opportunity to create a garden at my home as my HOA frowns up me digging up the water wasting, to no benefit sod. That, and there is no outside water source available to the owners/renters as the HOA really, really don't want ANYONE washing cars in the parking lots... That said, I have a garden in containers that are currently producing carrots, radishes, chives, oregano, rosemary, lettuce, tomatoes and hopefully potatoes. There are also a rose, an Easter Lily, daffodils, grape hyacinths, nasturtiums, yarrow, violets and a morning glory. Most of my flowers are Spring bloomers but for the yarrow, nasturtium and the morning glory. My lovely rose is, I believe, an Elizabeth Taylor and it is on it's FIFTH bloom of the season. The deer haven't dined on it as yet, thank you so very much. Here's a close~up of a rain be~dewed single rose.

Lovelies of Winter - Minnesota Style

Saved - Garden Lovelies

Chocolate Iris and Dianthus from the McWilliams Parish house garden. We, the Grace Gardeners are trying to save as many heritage plants as possible from the garden in preparation for the restoration work about to begin there. We were awarded a grant to repair the facade and the work commences shortly. Hopefully the heritage roses can be rescued as well.

Spoon Story & the Peonies About to Take Off

Here a link to the Spoon Story . It describes my experience better than I can. I still do what I can, when I can in spite of all. Thanks for the linky, Diana. She's also written about peonies today.

I spent a lovely day today. Knit club with Sheila and Shirley and the rest of the ladies. We did not have a "real" meeting as all the officers were elsewhere.


Some of the Knit club members..















Here's the Hairpin Lace Afghan.

We primarily did show and tell. Shirley showed us how to do hairpin lace. I haven't seen hairpin done in years, but apparently it is making a comeback like all the forms of needlecraft.

Progress on Fawkes Socks.




Then I paid forward a million gajillion mercies and kindnesses by giving Sheila a ride to the hospital to get blood work done.

After that, I drop Sheila back to home and went onto my LYS, Knitter's Kove and walked into CHAOS. They are re-arranging the whole store! Most of the stock was in BIG plastic sacks. I wanted some Brown Sheep Bulky, not on the shelves yet. Yikes, wonder what bag it's in, should I come back later? Saw a label for Bulky Brown Sheep peeking out of a bag and dug in and believe it or no, found the yarn I was looking for. WOOT! Hit the register and was out of there as there was too much chaos...

Off to the church to water the garden. Sun behind the clouds so it was not too hot. Communed with the birds bathing in the bath, looked at the robin's nest in the tree by the door. WRESTLED with the mighty black and green hose... Someone needs to learn how to coil a hose away, the nozzle was on the bottom of the coils (5, maybe 6 hoses strung together), what's up with that? Since the peonies are about to go full force in bloom, I couldn't stay upset for long. It smelled like Heaven and I was happy to just BE.

Of course, watering and the St. Francis Fountain burbling tend to trigger a certain response, so I was off to the Parish Office to use the Ladies. Marti, the Parish Secretary pointed me the way. I had never been in McWilliam House where the offices are, before. It's a Victorian and the wood work in the dining room is amazing!. I will get pictures of it at a later date. Father John, who retired on Sunday was there as well as a number of other members of the Parish. What a joy to see the church and it's grounds coming alive again. I even got the gift of hearing our magnificent organ being played as someone was there practicing on it.


This is one of the clematis vines tucked at the back of the bed. I took the picture through the lovely wrought iron fence topped with fleur-de-lis.










I don't ever recall seeing irises with these light green and white leaves before but they are a interesting addition to the shades of green in the garden. I want to find out more about them.

Mother's Day Wishes to You

I read any number of blogs and was reminded by more than a few of the fact that Mother's Day was nearly upon us. It got me to thinking about my Mother and the gift of creativity that she gave me. I learned most of my favorite past times at her knee. She taught me to sew and quilt, to draw and paint, the basics of knitting and needlepoint (Da was a big help here as we are both cack-handed) and she encouraged me in the pursuit my heart's desire art-wise. There were no boxes that we had to punch our way out of...

Sunday will be Mother's Day. I have no Mum or Grandmums or even a sister to wish well of the day as they have all gone before me. I, therefore send regards of the day to you.

Our family for whatever reason, was not much on sending flowers for occasions, special or otherwise. I'm still not entirely sure why that it. There is no one left to ask the question of, though. Be that as it may, until my mother passed away I always saw to it that a corsage of red and white carnations was delivered to her if I couldn't bring it myself.

When she started working the Sunday brunches at The Black Banana in Philadelphia, I would have the corsage of red and white carnations waiting in the cooler for her to wear while she was working on the line. Her co-workers thought it was a lovely little salute and she was always surprised when they were there as she gathered her ingredients for the day. Mum loved working the brunches as she thought it was a fun break on her day off from her own store, By Hand.

Now the color of the carnations has significance. Carnations are among the most popular cut flowers, used in floral arrangements, corsages, and boutonnieres. In Europe the carnation was formerly used as a treatment for fevers. It was also used to spice wine and ale during Elizabethan times, as a substitute for the more expensive clove.

In 1907, Miss Anna Jarvis selected the pink carnation as the symbol for Mother's Day. So, like the Day itself, it was Miss Jarvis who made carnations a part of Mother's Day. She introduced and supplied the carnations at the first Mother's Day service conducted in Grafton, West Virginia. The carnation was chosen because of her mother's fondness for them.

Maybe, at first, they were not exactly picked up on an emblematic sense. But they were immediately accepted as appropriate for the occasion. It was the inherent quality of sweetness, purity and endurance that made the carnations so popular on Mother's Day.


Later, white carnations, with their sweet fragrance, came to be regarded as the flower meant for those who have missed their mothers. Missed, either because of death, or, because of staying at a distance. It was the red carnations which in the course of time became the symbol of wishing a living mother, Love. Perhaps, red, the color of blood and heart, was thought to be more suited to represent life and love.

I happen to be a fan of carnations. I like their scent as it is spicy and doesn't get cloying with prolonged exposure to it. Their ruffly petals are fun to observe as well. I also really like the natural variations as opposed to the forced colours they do for special occasions, like St Patrick's Day or the 4th of July. Doing that to flowers just seems silly to me.