i repotted topsy turvy the gargantuan succulent that broke it’s last pot by tipping it over…we’ll see how long it stays put this time.
thanks marlene for the sweden book. i’m loving it!
sitting here in the cool air of morning clacking away at the keyboard. sending out a missive into the world.
hello.
the birds delivered a geranium to my overgrown succulent pot. i wondered what it was, but yesterday i crushed an edge of the leaf between my fingers and sniffed. geranium!
corky, if you’re reading this…remember when you brought me the little zebra haworthia in a red pot? he’s grown!
the poor man’s orchids are resting their long stems across this neglected pot. sometime i should pull out all the oak leaves and spruce it up a bit. except.
i probably won’t. not today anyway.
i am a laissez faire gardener. plants fall and tumble where they choose. i just sit on the sidelines and watch them progress through winter spring summer fall.
copo de oro, solandra maxima, chalice vine
yesterday i did take it upon myself to plant a copo de oro (solandra maxima) that i rooted from a cutting i got from lucy, sharron’s daughter, a couple of years ago. it came to me a scraggly stick and somehow it became robust and sprawling. when i pruned it last year i stuck one of the stems in water and forgot about it. after a couple of months it grew roots. after it sat neglected in the water for about 4 months i planted it in one of those throwaway nursery pots i had lying around. it sat in there for another 8 months or so. and yesterday i planted it.
i can’t wait to see how it takes to its new home. it’s next to the pergola in case it decides to sprawl.
while i was at it i pruned the peppermint scented geranium that’s responded well to my lack of attention. i put 4 stems in jars of water on the patio. i will start this elsewhere in the garden. this one came from a beach cottage in summerland i rented some years back. if i come for a visit you really should keep your eyes on me. i clip things.
while i’m at it…let me update my reading. i’m almost finished with this:
a sweet read. cute, but not earth shattering. everything doesn’t need to be though, does it?
i’ve started this and am enjoying rather a lot! from it, i found out about janet flanner who wrote for the new yorker magazine from paris for 50 years. yes, really. so now i’m terribly excited to dive more into her life when i’m finished. or, as things go with me, maybe before i’m done.
From the New Yorker
Her eye never became jaded, her ardor for what was new and alive never diminished, and her language remained restless. She was a stylist who devoted her style, bedazzling and heady in itself, to the subtle task of conveying the spirit of a subtle people…. She was an Indiana optimist perched in a small, cluttered room on the top floor of the Hôtel Continental in Paris, and when she looked down over her adored city she saw, even at the most unlikely moments, reason to hope.
-William Shawn
Your photos are always scrumptious Mary Ann. I just sit and stare and allow them to make me smile ear to ear. Hmmmmmm Without Reservations is on my stack of books so now I just gotta read it and I will have to check out Britt-Marie. One can never have enough books on their stack in my opinion and thanks to Karen will be tromping off to Youtube to check out those videos. 😉 Wishing you the bestest, always!
I loved “Without Reservations” when I read it several years ago. She wrote another book if you want to check it out. It’s called “Educating Alice”
Your photographs are just amazing as are the things you photograph. Love everything you share….envious of your journals!
Well, I’m just going to plop myself down in your garden room/patio, and hang out for awhile. I’ll be very quiet, and you don’t have to entertain me. Unless you want to offer me pie and lemonade. I’ll bring a clipping, say, rose geranium. Well, and maybe a Great Blue Heron feather.
Loving your gardening style. It is a lot like mine. I am in New Hampshire and we’ve been having Southern California weather this summer. Always sunny, no rain, and so my plants are really suffering. But at least there’s not a lot of weeds. Ha-ha. What I really wanted to say is that the book you are reading is wonderful. I loved it. And her other book. (Educating Alice, Adventures of a Curious Woman). This book was more than wonderful for me. When I finished these it made to step out of my comfort zone traveling. But you do that already. So maybe this isn’t so exciting. Have a great week with the little ones.
Mary Ann, your succulents are absolutely…SUCCULENT! You have been so prolific this weekend with your posts, and I have hung on every one. All of the pictures…the book reviews and suggestions..the dreaming of your next trip…the chimps…the sharing of links to other artists and worlds. You are such a delightful and interesting person. The first photo at the top is just exquisite. I love the succulents against the pearly white glass. And what is that flower about to bloom? We are headed swiftly into fall, so it is about time to winterize my pots and put them in cozy places where they will survive the cold weather. I am always astounded at how many of them peek out in the spring.
I have been in repose, and breaking from routine. I had to put my beloved horse down a couple of weeks ago and it really crushed everything in me. Creativity has gone bye bye, and I am just wandering around like a motherless child. I really haven’t broken down yet, and I know it is coming. My barn is empty for the first time in 14 years. I spent as much time in the barn as the house, so it is so strange trying to get a new reality. To get pass time until creativity comes back, I have been reading a lot and watching Sasquatch videos on YouTube. Not kidding. I don’t even know if I believe in Bigfoot, but it is doing the trick of distracting me. Sasquatch peeps are some very interesting characters, lemme tell ya! I also love watching videos of this beautiful young couple from Austalia who are sailing the world. They are so young and So brave and fearless, and I wish I had had the imagination to do that when I was young. But would I have? Probably not. If you type in La Vagabond on YouTube you should find them. She is lovely and he is so handsome, and I admire them so much.
In the meantime I turned 63, and my two daughters took me on a gondola ride in the mountains and a picnic on a river. It was so refreshing, even of only for a day. Pics of the views on my Instagram acct. My brother is coming from Montana in a couple of days and we will visit Pike Place Market and eat lots of yummy food.
Thank you, Mary Ann for your posts that are like little drops of sunshine in my days. You have no idea how much I love them! Bless your heart! Have a good day back with your little ones this week. I think four is too early for school too. Life is too short as it is.
I spelled it wrong. Here is a sample episode of Elayna and Riley aboard La Vagabonde. I have seen every episode now. Elayna also sings and plays guitar.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yv_yDoC7FWE
okay thanks. now you’ve got me hooked. just watched episode 1. FABULOUS!!!
i want to be on that boat.
HAH! Gotcha! Those wild and crazy kids. This is my all time favorite episode. I smile and laugh all the way through. Watch to the very end. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ddaXT8C-hjc
Like you, I have found that a garden can give gifts. In a fit of frustration, I crushed and threw my zinnia heads onto rough hard dirt…everywhere…mostly just to get rid of the envelope they had been stored in over the winter. A few days later…thousands of seedlings!!! This unearned garden (they require work and diligence, right?) has been the greatest gift this summer. There are the flowers…hundreds of them…many, many bouquets to share…and then, there are all the butterflies…so many. A good memory for when the snows come.
You would have been spot on in the Victorian era. People always pinched cuttings of whatever they wanted, especially if it was new and different. Why not? As long as the plant isn’t pinched to death, which is almost never the case.
beautiful gate and I like the speakeasy. On my childhood playhouse my sister and I had a similar door. Lest you think we were rich , quite the opposite. The playhouse was a converted chicken coop.
I totally love your posts: your wee cottage on the hill, your kitty babies, your neglected plants, your weird wanderings, your fab watercolors, your inventive cuisine and libations, your curious taste in reading, and your delicious sense of humor. I want to be like you in my next life! AT1
What a coincidence! I picked up a book from my boss who was cleaning out a bookshelf – and it was Without Reservations! I’m so enjoying it. And ditto the plan to learn about Janet Flanner when I finish.
Without Reservations is probably one of my all time favorite books. I don’t get to travel much so this kind of writing really satisfies that part of me……..
Hi Mary Ann … Your garden is always so inspiring to me …
I’m one of those people who other people are afraid to give plants to …
very unlike my grandmother who had a green thumb … talked to her plants who
loved her … and could grow anything …
Anyway … I was at the nursery the other day and there was the saddest looking plant
with no care or water and only one leaf left on its poor being … it didn’t even have
a name tag … just a big yellow sticker … SALE … poor thing …
but I recognized its one leaf from your pictures of your beloved “epiphylum” …
So I decided to give it some sort of chance … better than no chance I thought …
I brought it home and gave it a nice place to sit … and gave it water … and
lo and behold … IT’S GROWING!!! … (Shock of shocks!!)
So now it needs a new pot … and since epiphylums love you and shower you
with blooms … I thought I’d ask you what might be the best kind of soil for these lovelies??
I’m soo excited to see it bloom (HOPEFULLY!!) and see what kind of beautiful flower it wears …
THANKS Mary Ann!!
thrilling gardening life!
get some cactus mix and keep it in a relatively small/narrow pot. i favor the tall deep kind. keep it out of the sun or the leaves turn reddish.
love your story of the rescue
THANK YOU Mary Ann!! THANK YOU SOO MUCH!! Maybe now there’s hope for her!! 🙂
OHHhhh epiphylum is waving to you Mary Ann!! THANK YOU Mary Ann!! she says … 🙂 … (Kindred spirits you are) 🙂
Catching up on your blog posts. Re: Sept 3 —-Prek, what fun! I taught it for several years…and loved it. Sounds like you’re doing all the right things; Legos and painting, singing and blocks, story time and counting bears. Have fun with the tinys.
Concordia, Kansas! that’s where my grandma and grandpa met (roller skating) and married before moving out west.
I plant constantly and encourage sprawl. Husband prunes and worries about the house (and us) being overtaken by plants. Together we seem to do alright.
Always love seeing the garden at Moss Cottage.
Passing on the Copa de Oro story?
I call my gardening/plant-growing style “benign neglect”. It works much like yours.