Hold the presses! Thousands of garden gnomes have disappeared in Austria. Who knows where they'll reappear? Could perhaps some of those Central American children trying to get into the paradise of Texas illegally really be little German-speaking men? Wait till the Tea Party types hear about this!
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You may have seen chimney flue linersthey're the color of clay flower pots but thicker & are rounded-off squares. You may see them discarded or you can buy them at builders' supply stores. They make great open-ended flower pots to place around the yard. Just fill them with compost or soil and plant away. Because they're taller they make good garden accents, tho' they do drain quickly. Herbs which like it dry do fine and flowers that don't need constant watering. By the way, they don't freeze and crack open like thinner clay pots.
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If you peruse the New York Times' occasional style magazine, you may have seen the article about the Tuscan garden created by the Italian fashion designer Federico Forquet and his longtime partner, Matteo Spinola, in Cetona, Italy, in the midst of rolling hills and oak forests. Over 40 years theyand now Forquet alonemade an enormous enclosed garden filled with Floentine iris, laurel hedges, climbing roses, olive trees and p from ergolas. A whole book would scarcely do the place justice. ( Has anyone ever thought of doing a coffee table book of the gardens of same-sex couples? One can hardly open up a gardening magazine any more, now that editorial staffs have gotten over embarrassment about sexuality, without coming upon a feature article about a lesbigay couple and what they've done with their estate/yard/terrace/balcony garden. I'd buy it. )
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Feeling rather sorry for myself I had to repair the damage in my waterfall/pond that someone ( or something, like a raccoonyes, we have the critters in Lake View! ) got in the water ( perhaps to catch the goldfish ) and upset and uprooted one of the water lilies I have planted in buckets sitting on milk crates in the pond. ( They are taken out in winter and put in the basement in plastic bags. I had 'em for years. )
I had to turn off the waterfall, find something like a bathing suit ( this body & I do not go to the beach anymore ), buy a bag of dirt, get in the GREEN waterthe waterfall aerates the pond but because of the lilies and floating plants ( water hyacinths ) and my goldfish I don't put anything in the water to kill algaebecause, duh, poison kills lots of other things. ( In fact I don't use poisons anywhere in the yard since I like bees, butterflies and birds. Should I say that if you use Roundup anywhere or any place, you have failed the Ecology 101 final test? )
So I gathered up the spilled bucket while standing in the water, repotted the poor lily, cleaned the pond filter ( since I was already there ), turned the waterfall back on and trudged upstairs looking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I threw all my clothes out on the deck and took a long hot shower and ( even though I'm usually a non-drinker ) had a beer!
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Walked around the nature preserve at the lake and Irving Park Road. Some of the gold native impatiens ( jewelweed ) were seeding and some seeded right into my hands. I may have gold ones next to my pink and yellow ones next year. ( Impatiens' seeds are in pods that explode if you touch them so if you stand in the right place seeds will "jump" into your hands without illegally picking the flowers. )
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Because I repotted some of my hanging house plants ( spider plants and wandering Jews ) with homemade compost and because my compost heap has morning glory vines over it, my compost is full of morning glory seeds. Consequently, morning glories have sprouted in the baskets and are climbing and blooming up the ropes suspending the plants. What serendipity!
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I didn't realize how good my block's parkways looked. Some neighbors and I have been on a long-time crusade to plant all our parkways but, of course, you can never see them all, street-side. Till now. The whole block's 100-year-old water mains are being replaced ( only in the street, thank the powers that be ). No parking on either side for a month. So I took lots of pics and, since I'm a nitpicker, saw only 10 or so places that need to be "adjusted." But it looks good.