spring has sprung!

While many people took this past Easter weekend to relax, hunt for eggs and go to church, I spent 3-5 hours each day Friday-Sunday in my happy place -- my gardens! It was outdoor spring cleaning weekend and now -- two packed full trash bins, six bags of mulch and two trips to the Garden Center at Home Depot later -- my back yard is all beautified and ready for spring... complete with a robin's nest full of pretty blue eggs tucked away under the garage eaves hidden by vines I almost ripped down (but saw just in the nick of time! Phew... don't need that bad karma!)

You wouldn't know by looking at them now, but I cut all this mess off my three jasmine vines, which exploded a few weeks ago when it rained. They are still super full and provide great privacy for my patio. (And smell awesome when they bloom!)

The rain also made my bougainvillas VERY happy finally... I had to put up new rods and wires to train them up the ugly gray cinderblock wall that I hope one day soon they will completely cover.

                                                                                                                                         

All of my roses are at least budding if not already blooming!

I put fresh mulch down for them and trimmed them a bit.

I also planted one new rose bush here (the pretty pink and white one in the lower left) to replace one that died last year, plus another new one in my corner garden, bringing my total to "way too many rose bushes for a person who is easily scratched" ;)

The corner garden with my new solar powered butterfly and peacock lights, one on each side of the rose bush I planted in memory of my sweet Lucky kitty last October. 

I also planted a new purple teacup rose bush here, which is named the "Barbra Streisand Rose"... after my mom's favorite singer.

Look closely and you can see the cute, handmade ceramic dragonfly and butterfly garden stakes I bought on my February trip to Santa Barbara.

And underneath my hummingbird feeder, the purple ceramic hummingbird that reminded me of my Granny and a ladybug :)

And finally, the repotted corner of the patio that was wiped out when it rained three weeks ago due to a REALLY full gutter directly above it. I had my own personal waterfall happening here!

The good part of that bad news was I put a trash can under the waterfall on Days 2 and 3, which was filled up by the time it stopped raining and used this weekend to water down all the fertilizer I placed under my giant orange tree. (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! )

  

missing lucky

It's been a week since I had to say a sad goodbye to my sweet, loving, majestic Lucky boy, and I'm still so sad, especially today because a) it's been exactly a week since he passed and b) because I picked up his ashes tonight. I haven't I've cried as much as I have in the last week in a long, long time. :(

I think part of the reason I'm so sad is because I had to make the decision to say goodbye. And while I know in my head it was the right thing to do so he wouldn't suffer, it still broke my heart. We'd been fighting his failing kidneys for four years, and he'd been such a strong fighter for so long. But after he developed asthma a month ago, and continued to lose weight, I sensed the end was near. Then last Sunday, he started vomiting a lot and his blood tests looked pretty bad when I took him to the vet. Late that night he had another asthma attack, and I knew his little body was failing him. The next morning, I called my dad to go with us to the vet... yet as we drove there, I was still hoping maybe they could just give him a shot for his asthma. But when the vet walked in, he informed me Lucky's white blood cell counts from the day before came back in the "terminal" stage for his kidney disease and I knew that was it.... yet I still made the vet show me the lab report so I could see the results with my own eyes. 

He was the best cat ever for the 15 and a half years I got to be his "person," and I really miss seeing him sitting in the front window when I come home, and his nightly cuddles during TV time. I also miss him keeping the peace / acting as a silent yet all-knowing mediator between me and his crazy sister Lily -- my other cat I adopted just to be Lucky's friend, who hates all people, and who's been living in a donut bed under the dining room table for the last week... with the occasional dash to the litter box or her food bowl in the kitchen. And while that's not that out of the ordinary for her, I can tell she misses Lucky too. 





When my grandma passed away earlier this year, I became acutely aware of certain things that were connected to her, like the cactus plants she'd given me as a little girl. When their pink cactus flowers started blooming this summer, right after her birthday, I felt like those flowers were her way of saying hello to me from one of my "happy places" -- my garden. 

So this weekend, I decided that would be a great way to remember Lucky... by planting something in his memory in my garden. I found this beautiful unique, red and white rose bush, and have planted it in the center of my corner garden. 

It's now Lucky's rose bush, and I will think of him every time it blooms, hopefully with a smile on my face, like the one I get when Granny's cactus flowers bloom. 

a rosy spring

It's definitely spring in my rose garden!

Back in January, when I was pruning and feeding my 25-ish rose bushes, I also laid some fresh soil around each of them for the first time in about 5 years. And can I just say, Miracle Gro does not lie! Their rose soil is amazing! I mixed the Bayer rose food I give them every six months in the fresh soil and it seems like my plants started leafing within a week and buds started to grow shortly thereafter. 

I have one giant red rose bush that always shoots up to around 5-6 feet tall. But this spring, there is another rose bush on the other end of the garden that's giving it a run for its height supremacy. (It hasn't bloomed yet, and I can't remember what color it is, but I'm hoping for pink :)

Overall, everything seems bigger and healthier and the flowers are budding like crazy! Even my little annuals that are in the garden near the roses are thriving vs. dying, which is a miracle considering how hot it's been and how few days I'm allowed to run the sprinklers these days.

I love my garden! It's my happy place :)

happy spring!

Other than remembering to prune and feed my roses back in January, I've totally neglected my gardens the last few months and as a result, all my herbs and many of my potted plants died :( 

So today I got up bright and early (for a Sunday) at 8:30 and spent four hours pruning, re-planting and laying down mulch to pretty-up my backyard. Yay! I cleaned up the rose garden (where the kumquats have begun to fall), planted a bunch of annuals and updated my herb and pepper garden with things I will actually use for cooking. Now all that's left to do is clean the patio furniture and the grill (ick!).

My first fully blooming rose bush of the season!

Rosemary for seasoning (and keeping mosquitos away), Basil for pizza and Cilantro for guacamole :)

Jalepenos for guac and a Bell Pepper because I'm
curious to see if it will actually grow to size...
Oh, and a lavender plant because I don't have enough
bees in the front yard swarming around my giant
lavender plant there :p

Spearmint for mojitos :)

My shelves of impatiens that were wiped out
when someone got too busy to go out and
water them this winter. Oops

New gerber daisies (my faves!) and geraniums
galore because they are hearty (ie: can survive
a week when I forget to water them)

happy 1st day of fall!

(Shhh! Don't tell my rose garden ;)

getting things done: day 4

Today I started off with indoor to-do's because I had a lunch with a friend and I actually got four things accomplished on my list (which is now up to 21 items):
-- Made a hair appointment for next week
-- Made a doctor's appointment for my annual checkup... at the end of friggin' May (I need a new doctor; the availability the last few years is insane and the service hasn't been all that awesome to make up for it.)
-- Officially signed up for my LA Kings playoff ticket activation... and renewed my full season seats for next year. This means I really need the "sabbatical" to end before July when they start charging me. (Although if the Kings blow it in the playoffs -- no whammies, no jinxes -- then my lockout credit will cover me for a while.) And before people start chastising me for spending that crazy cash, please note two things:
1) There's a waiting list for Kings season tickets. And as a long-suffering season ticket holder, I'm not giving up my seats to some bandwagon fan who just discovered that hockey existed 10 months ago! However, I will let them buy 75% of my tickets off the fan ticket exchange site once I choose the 10-15 games I actually want to go to ;)
2) I'm doing the 10-installments payment plan, so after my lockout credit is gone, I will have manageable payments.

Then once I got home from lunch, I accomplished one more full item -- uncovering, cleaning and setting up the patio furniture and grill. Yay!




Then I went back to the bane of my existence, the back of the house by the shed.

I finally got done raking up the leaves, sprayed the walls (and the cracks in them) with massive amounts of bug spray, dropped bug killer pellets all over the ground and behind the shed, and sprayed the entire area with Round Up to kill the grassy weeds' roots. Tomorrow, I will lay the weed blocker and start the fun part -- putting down the stepping stones, decorative rocks and rubber mulch ground cover.

These two photos may look like ugly, empty patches of dirt to you. But they are three days of hard labor to me. There were anywhere from 1-5 inches of leaves + grassy weeds covering these two sides of the shed, not to mention the massive brick pile, most of which is now far away from these areas in the leafy danger zone.

The evil leaves filled up the black can and black bag to the left, and the green bin and 2/3 of the black bin on the right. My gardener is gonna be SOL tomorrow when it comes to disposing of my mowed grass... oh well. Just as long as he doesn't dump them in my recycling bin.

And now, because I made you look at dirt and trash cans so I can feel a sense of accomplishment, here's a pretty picture of my first blooming red rose of the season that opened up overnight. This isn't even from the soon-to-be 6+-feet-tall plant that grows the ginormous red roses, but this one is pretty close to ginormous. Happy to see my pruning and feeding three months ago is paying off :)

everything's coming up roses!

The first of my large roses have started to bloom! And shockingly -- considering how many boring white roses I have -- all of those that have bloomed thus far are pretty colors.. pink, pink and white, and peach. Once my ginormous red roses bloom (they're just starting to bud now), it will officially be spring to me!

sunday funday: descanso gardens

Spring is here and to celebrate (and also get a hiking workout in) I visited Descanso Gardens for a Sunday Funday with three of my friends, two of whom are Descanso members. (This is an important factoid because it meant that we got to avoid the reeeeaaaaaaaallllly loooooooooong line of non-members winding around the parking lot and go straight inside via the members-only entrance. Hint, hint. Membership has its privileges. You're welcome :) 

The gardens are huge and actually include orchards, streams and ponds, making the area a real escape into nature from the cities and suburbia that surround it. There are thousands of plants in the botanical collection, that is accredited by the American Association of Museums. And you could walk around for hours and still not see everything.

But what you will definitely see are camellias... lots and lots of camellias! Descanso has North America's largest camellia collection, which used to supply the florist industry with all the flowers they needed for 1950s-era corsages ;) However, those thousands of camellias were just about the only flowers I did NOT take a photo of because I just have to look out my back door to see them. Yep, this trip helped me finally figure out something I've been wondering about for four years and five months: the big red flowers constantly falling into my rose garden from my neighbor's yard are... camellias.

Here are all of the flowers (and streams and houses and lizards... oh my!) that I DID take photos of. 

Enjoy and Happy Spring! 

Tulips of just about every color are in bloom as you first walk into the gardens. 

I, of course, was drawn to the purple section of the tulip garden :)

A lovely stream and mini-waterfall is also near the front of the gardens as you walk in. The gardens also have multiple ponds with giant koi fish, ducks and geese. There is even a "bird observation" area with info on all the local birds provided and posted by a local Girl Scout troop.

 Cherry blossom trees were in beautiful bloom and smelled amazing!

Different colors and breeds of lilacs, each with a distinctly different smell, are in the Lilac Garden.

This "LIZARD!" was just hanging out in the sun outside the Boddy House near the top of the hill. He was one of the chubbier lizards I've seen on my nature hikes and sat there posing for photos for like five minutes ;)

The historic Boddy House lies at the top of the steepest part of your trek around the gardens and orchards. It has a beautiful view and a fabulous catering kitchen. And the garage of the house has been converted into an art gallery featuring mostly floral pieces.

A lone poppy in the California Garden section, which also featured cactus and other heat-tolerant vegetation.

Loved this poem on a plaque near the Rose Pavilion, which explains why I love my garden. 

It's great therapy :) 

happy spring!

Today is the official first day of spring (even though last week felt much more spring-like than overcast today does). And, right on schedule, my rose garden is getting ready for a beautiful spring and summer.

Each of my 20+ rose bushes are now full of pretty red-turning-green leaves, and two of them even have flower buds at the top getting ready to bloom in a week or two. Yay!

garden therapy

According to my gardening guru (aka Mom), January is the month when you are supposed to prune and feed your roses in order to achieve the most beautiful flowers come spring. 

So Tuesday, I took advantage of the unusually warm weather and pruned all 24 (yes 24) of the rose bushes beautifying my backyard. It took a while, but I love gardening, and it was a gorgeous day to be outside. (Plus, gardening is a great workout... as evidenced by the pain in my hamstrings yesterday from all the kneeling and squatting :P)

If you don't have a gardening guru mom to teach you how to care for your garden, here are some quick tips I learned from mine the first Spring I was in my house... back when I only had 18 rose bushes :)

First, you need to make sure you're properly equipped...

Tools -- I use both pruning shears (the small pink things at left) for small, thin stems and branch cutters (the long-armed silver tool) for thicker branches on the stronger bushes. Make sure they are sharpened, as dull blades will damage your roses.

Protective Gear -- Your most important must-have is a good pair of rose pruning gloves. The "mud" gauntlet gloves here are my third and thickest pair so far. The hands are leather and the arm covering "gauntlet" is suede. They are awesome because they protect my oh-so-delicate skin from both thick rose thorns and an angry, toothy cat who doesn't like medicine shoved down her throat.

When you've got your gloves on and your shears and cutters at hand, you're ready to prune. In the winter, it's best to prune the bushes down to just the main thick stems (those thicker than a pencil) that are still green on the outside and cream on the inside. This gets rid of any potential dying or diseased leaves or stems on the plant that formed over the summer and fall blooming season. By doing this, your plant will grow back healthier in the spring. 

It's also a good idea to remove any dead branches completely, and cut back any branches that are touching each other to prevent fungus from growing between them. 

Finally, this is also your opportunity to "shape" your rose bush. Don't like that there is a wonky branch growing crooked off to the left that makes the plant look totally lopsided? Trim it back and if you're lucky it will grow in a different direction next time ;) 

When pruning branches, always make a slanted cut. Look for either "lines" on the branches where new growth shot off or a bud sticking out and make your cut just above that.

The red triangle on the stem above is a new bud.
So I made my cut just above it.

Since I seriously prune all the plants back in winter to promote fresh growth, my roses -- which started off between three-to-seven feet tall -- all end up between one-to-four feet tall when I'm done. They also look sad and painfully dangerous thanks to all the very visible thorns.

But they won't stay that way for long, because I also take this January pruning time to fertilize/feed each plant. I don't think you have to feed your roses in January (most people say start in spring before the first buds start to grow and then feed them again two months later), but I do. Extra nutrients can't hurt... and it keeps nasty bugs away. I always use Bayer Rose & Flower Care, readily available at Lowe's and Home Depot.

You need 1 capful of food per rose bush.
Sprinkle it in a circle around the base of the plant.
Work the granules into the soil.
Water.
Repeat in 8 weeks. 

Come late March/early April, new leaves will start appearing on the plants, like the dark ones here, that then turn green. And soon after that, flowers will bud and bloom.

I can't wait -- free flowers all over my house are the best!

everything's coming up roses!

It's Day #2 of 2013 and I'm already doing a new thing! 

My friend Diana and I decided to go see the 2013 Tournament of Roses Parade Floats in Pasadena today because a) we've never done it before and b) we've both got a lot of time on our hands ;)

It was both amazing and exhausting! There were a LOT of floats in that parade yesterday -- it took us two and a half hours to see them all. And there were a lot of people trying to get up-close-and-personal with them, taking photos, walking in front of other people's photos, etc. But seeing them up close was incredible! The detail is just crazy. And it was super fun to see some of the natural materials they used to decorate the floats...

Artichoke hearts covering the foot of a giant teddy bear... (Shriner's Hospital Float)














Hearts made of cranberries... (Odd Fellows & Rebekahs float "Elevated Adventure")

Granny Smith apples and purple cabbages adding color to The Cat In The Hat's Garden... (Kaiser Permanente Float "Oh, The Healthy Things You Can Do")

Entire fruits and vegetables decorating a mixer and whole garlics strung together as a rope... (Trader Joe's Float "Recipe for Adventure!")

Red beans, peas, green onion stalks and flowers creating a quilt for cute puppies... (Beverly Hills Pet Care's float "Follow the Stars... Adopt a Pet") 

And watermelon rinds carved into little turtle shells (lower right) (City of Burbank's float "Deep Sea Adventures")

I took more than 300 photos and there are 90ish of them on Facebook, so if you really love flowers and are my Facebook friend go check out a ton of gorgeous photos there.

But for those that don't have that kind of time, here are my personal Top 10 Favorite Floats I saw today, in no particular order. Not surprisingly, they are all either heavily focused on animals, food, houses, gardens or have lots of purple on them. All that was missing was a hockey float :)

Odd Fellows & Rebekahs "Elevated Adventure"

Kaiser Permanente's "Oh, the Healthy Things You Can Do"

The Nurses' Float "A Healing Place" (Notice the trendy owls ;)

Beverly Hills Pet Care's "Follow the Stars... Adopt a Pet"

Cal Poly's "Tuxedo Air"

La Canada Flintridge's "Dino-Soar"

Downey's "Dew Drop By"

Burbank's "Deep Sea Adventures"

HGTV's "All Roads Lead Home"

Trader Joe's "Recipe for Adventure!"