She's about to... 69! Spring has sprung!

under the brugmansia Rhapsody616 is giving away cutting of a white brug for postage if you all are interested. Today is the last day.

good to read all your posts.. miss you all and love you.. nothing new to show here, I am only down to about three brugs, and they aren't doing anything right now, all the prennials are pretty and we have florida weather right now.. working seems to keep me busy.. stay healthy and keep growing prettys for me,,
love, Debra

Hi Debra have missed you so good to hear from you.
Heard Wichita had hail and strong storms hope you are all tucked in and safe.

we are... we have dodged another bullett I keep waiting for another repeat of 1992
baseball hail stomped us here back then..

Hiya Debra. Been missing you.

Hey Debra, so glad your posting again. Glad to hear your OK from the storms. My brugs Re not doing anything this year! They have not grown much in height, and not buds or blooms. Guess it is just too hot? Sure hope they will do something this fall?

Lets hope so LK, Mine aren't really doing anything either, I think it is the heat, and this fall we will be seeing some blooms I think.
(((hugs Amanda)))) and all..

I only have one brug left and it isn't doing anything.

Hi all, good to see you all here and hope you are all well and happy.
Mandy, love your avatar, better than the bird on head. I wish you could come especially when the Lily's are blooming. Well, I'll take you anytime you can come.
We are having a big yard sale Oct. 4th & 5th. Would love you joining us.
Debra good to see you and hope you will have more pretty blooms for us soon.
My Brugs are growing and some are blooming and others are "about to" but all are much later than last year and I'm afraid that as soon as some of them start blooming, it will be time for me to cut them down to get cuttings for next Spring. The yellows are later than the pinks.
I've never tried Iris from seed but think it's something I might try next year. Can't this year, already cut mine off at the knees.

Faye, your brugs are beautiful!

Oh my those are amazing Faye. Ok I am going to have to get mine repotted....geehz.

Im jelly of yours, Faye, but glad to see those beautys..

Ladies I will be cutting mine down in the Fall and will be glad to send all the cuttings you want for postage.

I might take you up on that Faye! Thanks!

Oh Faye I would love that. That is so nice of you. Please keep me in mind.

Just remind me please and they are yours.
Have a blessed day.

here is my yard, you can spot my brugs in there somewhere..the back side of the house is almost done, the rain has kept the workers away..

I still have a "ghost" column going down the middle of my page here, so it is making me not want to come on DG much, too hard to see and click.. so while I am here, I will show you what I have going so far in my few hours of outside time..
which, if I would have been smart, would have been today off work, I woke up weeping and the outside time would have been good for me.. but, oh well.. life goes on, as my sister would tell me..
looking out the back door for a few minutes does wonders for me..it didn't rain today, just a bit tonight, but we have had this much rain about twice a week for thre weeks now..I have all kinds of trays and grow pots of stuff, lots of things to keep my mind occupied..the patio green walls are coming along better than I expected..
I use the sunflowers to make additonal arches for vines to climb and bloom on..SO I LASSO THEM DOWN A BIT EACH NIGHT.. oopsie, so dark I can barely see to type..this north side wall is made up of poles, fence , string, wire, curly ribbon, lions wool yarn, and who names it, I use it.. I have found the mesh bags that tangerines and such come in make good climbing patches, can't wait for the psiion vines, the baby woodrose, the setosa , and a few other tropical vines go crazy on the sunflower and eupatorium walls..

joyce, u had mentioned collectin iris seed, and I have several up from the seeds I collected at the old cematary in winfield, one outing years ago, with the grand son and my youngest daughter.. anyway, here are more shots of my wild and crazy yard gardens.. out back..had to cut down stuff about a month ago, now it is back up, cut down the 4ft tall 4 oclocks along the back house garden beds, since the workers need to stomp all over things.. the house eating blooming english ivy is off the north side of the house, it looks so barren, but my rain barrells are set up now so that is ok..when the guy gets the corner dug up to fix the big crack in the foundation there, I can re-plant the stuff that was there.. except I am putting the rose bush I pulled out of the front, to be with the American Eagle that is on the north wall at that corner.. and then some moon flowers with the four oclocks..

some how I clicked to post and got this link to my back yard project.. wow that was long ago.. http://davesgarden.com/tools/blog/
I guess this all should be on that page, eh??
sorry...
anyway, inspite of all that has gone on in my life lately, I have had lots of beautiful blooming flowers this whole spring and summer, and have had tomatoes and peppers and squash already, and for the past two years could not get a tomatoe to stay alive here..
around the patio.

Beautiful gardens Debra! When I click on that link, it goes to my DG garden blog? I love how you use the sunflowers for the vines!

Ok, I have 'finished' my potting bench and want to share it with my friends. I want to put something in front of the potting bench to walk on and next year put a roof on it of some sort. The patio umbrella really works great cause you can move it around. I am pretty proud of it. I did everything myself, it is far from perfect but I put alot of thought, sweat, and smashed fingers in it...rofl.

Here is where I started a floor furnace grate, and a sink (I found in the dump). DH gave me an old work bench he didn't use and that got me going. Took me a year to figure out what I thought I wanted to do. I cut hole in the work bench and put furnace grate in it. Then I built the sink bench and then cut the top out it and put the sink in.

Then I sit them together and decided to butt them up to the garden shed. At first I wanted to put it under the pergola, but decided it would be handier next to garden shed where I store most of my "stuff".

That is awesome! You did a wonderful job!

Then I decided I needed shelves and storage. If you look close the shelves are adjustable. The shelves are just sitting on wooden blocks, so if I want to change the height I just cut new pieces of wood. I built shelves under and between the two benches which attaches to the benches together. Then I decided I can't stand to see all the 'stuff' under the bench and decide to build doors. Decided I would put screen in the center and then I thought I would paint a design on the screen like flowers or something and then paint the whole bench white and grey.

The last pic is what it looks like now and I was using it today and so far so good. I have plastic tubs under the benchs, course under grate is a plastic tub that holds potting soil. The other side holds different kinds of soil, orchid, african violet. Little middle door has 3-clear shoe box size containers and they hold all kinds of stuff. Under the sink are two more plastic containers. I got those under the bed storage containers and slid them under the shelves and they sit on the ground. Sure took alot longer to do than I would of expected.

Thank you Linda Kay I am happy with it. The doors were a challenge cause I had never made doors before.

Good Lord, that's awesome!!!

The finished product, pic with the umbrella, looks like it came out of better homes and gardens. Love this. I'm severely impressed. Particularly if it involved smashed fingers. :)

Thank you Amanda, hammer + nails = smashed fingers...rofl.
Amanda what is your buddy there, is that a bearded dragon? Wish I could enlarge everybodies photos ;(

Wish made me think Linda Kay what is that beautiful shrub you are standing by in your pic?

That was my very first angel trumpet a few years ago!

WOW! I love that finished bench! That came out so nice! Great job Joyce!

Amanda, please tell us what that lizard is? How many pets do you have?

Now that you said that Linda Kay I can see the blooms hanging down, I thought it was some kind of hibiscus and that little white area in the photo was the stamin or something....geehz I should of known it was a brug, cause I know how much you like them! It is beautiful and those leaves are amazing, bet the blooms were beautiful. Thanks again on the potting bench.

Yeah Amanda how many babies do you have? and a better question is what kind of babies...rofl.

At one time we had 6 dogs (all dumped), 2 cats (all dumped), two parrots, 3 geese, 2 ducks, and a pet starling....(ok don't knock the starling, did you know they could talk?)...rofl. Good thing I live out in the middle of no where... ;) The vet was so nice to us because he knew they were all dogs that had been dumped. Good thing cause pets sure can be expensive. Now we are down to 3 dogs, 2 cats, 6 ducks, and 14 chickens, oh yeah the fish in the pond. Now that I look at our current list, good grief no wonder I am so broke! LOL

This is Rita, my lovely green iguana. She is about 8 years old and approximately 40" long from nose to tail. She weighs between 8 and 10 pounds at any given point in the year. Winter is breeding season and she stops eating, lives off fat stored in her tail (!) and makes me crazy, well, crazier.

She may develop eggs but they are not fertile. She has only once laid eggs, in 2011, when she pushed out ~55 eggs. This only one week after her annual exam when her vet (incompetent!?) said she would not lay eggs at all. The follow up visit and xrays (which he should have taken in the first place) were on the house. We went to my fish doctor (yes, I have a fish doctor) at NC State last spring. It was worth the extra travel and distance to be sure to have a qualified doctor see my girl. To properly classify, the veterinary category is aquatic and/or exotic. He is also in charge of the sea turtle rescue program which makes him a hero in my book, among other reasons. ;)

LK: the lizard, two giant fish, the four cats, and two dogs at present.

And Alice, my PITA maidenhair fern. :D

Wow 55 eggs, ok that is a face that you might say only a Mommy could love! rofl.

Where I work we have an cockatoo and one time she laid an egg. Up until then they didn't know if she was a boy or girl. At first her owner wouldn't believe me that I found an egg in her wood chips...rofl. It really took a lot out of her tho, she was in rough condition for awhile.

Well, you all have me beet for pets, we have one German shepherd, and one double yellow headed African parrot. If we had the space, I would have more!
This is Luna playing in the weeds.
Paco sharing my coffee...
And my brugs...

Paco!!!!

There's always room for one more. God, I loved my mom's conure. A lady here in Greensboro who breeds birds even gave me a female for him to hang out with. When he died I didn't have the heart to keep her alone, but it broke my heart again to give her back. I think it was for the best.

Here's what Rita looked like the day after she stopped laying eggs:

Can anyone help me with a maidenhair fern?

She's quite demanding and I'm at my wit' s end.

Sorry. I don't know anything about them.

rofl....so hard at that pic of Rita...rofl...probably wasn't funny at the time but I can identify...rofl. Sadly when we had the geese something got all but one of them and the poor goose was sooo lonely, that we found someone who had some baby geese and we gave her to them. The goose was soooo happy, you could just tell. I had a little convertible at the time and we put down a shower curtain with an old towel. We sit the goose between us and down the hiway we went. She just sit there going for a ride, can't imagine what people thought....rofl.

Oh Linda Kay thank you for posting the pics, that brug is beautiful! At one time we had an orange wing amazon, african grey, and a conure. Birds are just so sweet. Ours had us trained to say the least, when the phone would ring they would get part of a cookie, otherwise you couldn't talk on the phone. You know a german shephard is a dog that no one ever dumped now that I think about it. Otherwise we had little ones, short ones, labs, you name it, but no shephards. They are so pretty.

Rita is indeed lovely. We had a male named Puff the Magic Dragon(Our pets seem to end up with funny names, mini dachshund is Oscar the Minor Weiner). Our birds were Paco, Blue Front Amazon and Kiwi, Citron Cockatoo I raised from just a few weeks old. Paco fought with my hubby all the time because he thought Kiwi was his and didn't want hubby to touch. My mom had an African Grey named P.I.T.A. and he definitely was.

Had to laugh about P.I.T.A, took a second...rofl.

I would love to have an African grey, but birds will grow to be as old as we are, and I am afraid to get one at this age!
I used to house sit for a lady that had 22 birds of all kinds. She had this one all white cockatoo, that was so beautiful. The first time I saw Casper, I asked her if I could pet him. She said no one pets him he is so mean. I asked if I could try, and she warned me that his beak is very strong. Well, I stood there for a few minutes, and talked to him, I then slowly opened the cage, and reached in to pet him, and he put his leg out for me to grab, and I did. I held him for the longest time, and cuddled up to him. She was so in shock that I was able to do that. I asked her if she holds any of her birds, and she said oh no, they are all too mean! Well, before the day was done, I was able to hold all but one blue macaw. That blue macaw would bite you the laugh about it! I really enjoyed house sitting for that lady! But oh the noise they could make! WOW!

22 birds could have a decibel level higher than a tornado siren...rofl.
Only two people can handle the cockatoo here at work. My boss and myself, otherwise she gets her bluff on them. I don't let her on my shoulder but on my arm or lap. If she gets on your shoulder she has figured out if you try to take her to the cage, she will get ahold of your ear and the closer you get to the cage a little more pressure she applies...rofl. The only way to get her off safefully when she is doing that is to take her to the safe, she loves little dark nooks.... He says he is leaving her to the person he likes the least...rofl.