dahlias – Ahuva’s Blog

What Month/Season is This???

Folks – it’s November 6. In Central NJ. This is NOT the tropics. Yet my tropical flowers – canna lilies and hibiscus – are in bloom. Gorgeous blooms.

I discovered that I have a volunteer tomato plant. There are TWO huge tomatoes on the plant, and 2 smaller ones near the bottom. Either these came from my mulch that I put on the plants in the garden back in May or they came from seeds dropped by birds.

I mentioned previously that the dahlias and cosmos are in glorious bloom, and the Mexican Sunflower is doing its part as well (orange flowers on the left).

The snap dragons figured if everyone else was blooming, they wanted to join the party.

And of course the grape tomatoes needed to prove that they were as capable as everyone else of flowering and fruiting even though we have had several nights down in the 40s.

Yep, I am enjoying it all immensely. But I’m a little afraid that we’re going to pay for this weather in January/February.

Things That Make Me Smile

My dahlias and cosmos refuse to quit even though it’s November –

Lately there is a lot that I find very stressful, both in my personal life and in the world outside my front door. But there are still things and moments that bring joy to my heart and a smile to my lips. So until I find the internal energy to blog about all that’s been happening, here are some snippets of joy. 🙂

The LAST thing I need is another pair of socks but I could not resist these. 🙂

I owe this blog 2 months plus of posts about the renovation of the 2nd floor. For those of you who may not remember/know, we are gutting the entire 2nd floor of our house and rebuilding it from the inside out. Sigh. In 2 phases. Because we needed a bedroom and a bathroom so first they gutted everything but our bedroom and bath. They built a new bathroom, a hall closet, realigned a bedroom wall, added a huge closet, new wood floors, new walls, new electrical, central air, new radiators, all new wood trim – you get the idea. I knew it would be difficult and long, but it’s been even longer than I feared. We are about to start phase 2 – which means we have moved out of our bedroom into one of the finished rooms. Tomorrow starts phase 2 – demolishing our bedroom and the original bathroom (which will stay a bathroom but will be updated). Plus updating the electric, heating, closet and floor in our bedroom. In other words – we’re doing the last 5 months all over again.

Our new beautiful bathroom. Meant to be a spa escape. Shame we’ll have to put up shower doors.

Above is our beautiful new bathroom. My husband and I designed the tiles – a huge blog post in and of itself. We laid out every one of those tiles, labeled them, and boxed them neatly in order. Best laid plans and all of that. 🙂 It’s meant to evoke a sense of escape, luxury and serenity when you enter. Teak cabinet on the wall instead of a typical vanity. The saddle (hah – I learned new words – that’s the piece between the shower and the outside floor), the base of the window, and the base of the recess are all from the same piece of marble. The ceramic pedestal sink, the Italian tiles on the floor, and the shower itself meant to evoke “escape”. There is a bidet toilet seat that can do a zillion things. 🙂 I’m looking for the setting that has it get up and fold the laundry and dust the house. 🙂

It’s almost a shame they will be adding shower doors tomorrow (have to have a fully working bathroom in order to demolish the old bathroom). I suspect that the doors will lessen the impact of the shower tiles. But in the meantime here is a closeup of the recess – note we used the same pebble floor tiles in the recess – the brilliant suggestion of the gentleman doing the actual tiling. Note also my husband’s selection of THE most expensive shower fixture he could find. *grin* It’s 5 foot in length with 4 body jets, an overhead rain, and a hand-held for his poor short wife. 🙂 We opted for the teak stool instead of a built-in stool. There are 8 different tiles. There are 3 large 2″ x 6″: pewter, aquamarine, and eucalyptus. *grin* There are 5 small crackle glaze tiles scattered about. We loved those crackle tiles, but it would have been too much and too expensive to do the whole thing with them. Neither of us wanted a “pattern”, so we ordered enough of each color to scatter them about and break up the big tiles. We love it. It’s everything we wanted. Either our friends and contractors are excellent actors or they all seem to be impressed by it as well. 🙂

My Senses Say It’s September

For about 2 weeks now, however, my ears have been telling me it is mid- to late September. The cicadas are extremely loud and out there every evening. My nose is smelling that cooler slightly moist air that means fall. The air is heavy and still. At night the temperatures are dropping into the low 70s, and once or twice into the high 60s. That is NOT August weather. The sun feels warm on my skin, not searingly hot.

According to the calendar, it is only mid-August. That means it is summer. I’m sure mid-August used to FEEL like summer. Hazy, hot, humid. Time for our week’s vacation down the shore. By now the water will be warm which means more likelihood of jellyfish. (Except THIS year, in keeping with everything else 2020, the water has sea lice. I would rather have jellyfish.)

It sounds and feels like mid-September. It is only the dratted no-see-ums that remind me it is still summer.

5 Hours

This weekend the weather was GLORIOUS! No humidity, low 80s, sunshine – just perfect weather. Beginning on Friday afternoon I began psyching myself for waking early on Saturday to go out and tackle the evergreens in front of the house, which were in desperate need of pruning. I got up a little before 7:30 am, fed the cats, cleaned their litter boxes, and headed out to tackle the pruning. My husband left, came back, left again, came back. When I finally finished all I’d hoped to do, and bagged the evidence, I’d been out there for 5 hours, utilizing 2 different step ladders. Even as I type now, I feel the strain in my muscles. Ouch.

On the other hand, although my body feels battered and bruised, the hedge and garden are looking extremely fine, in my opinion (does anyone else’s opinion matter for this???). I even tackled the willow bush along the driveway so that I can pull my car further up without fearing for the paint job. No pictures of that so you’ll have to take my word for it. Would I lie to you, honey? Now would I say something that wasn’t true? *grin*

I spent several hours on the hedge alone – getting the front, top, back and sides. I usually try to do this in the spring, before the flowers are growing, so that it’s easier to clean up the cuttings. I had to keep moving the large step ladder around the dahlias, trying not to damage them. I did at one point lose my balance anyway (on the ground, NOT on the ladder, go figure) and ended up falling on one of the dahlias. 😦 Thankfully I only damaged a piece of it, not the whole plant. There will still be flowers. I don’t use an electric hedge clipper. I use manual loppers and take my time to step back a distance and see what I’ve been doing. My goal is to take the top down sufficiently far to allow air and light to come into the front sun room under the awning, without losing the privacy we get from the hedge. I’d estimate I took off at least 8 inches from the top. I also pruned the little golden arborvitae a bit – took a bit off the top and the side by the golden rod.

I also trim the front and sides to give room to the other bushes and flowers there. The one side was reaching out to the andromeda bush and the other side was into the potted plants along the front walk. Perhaps the ‘ickiest’ part of the pruning is the back – clearing a path between the hedge and the house. That’s where the spiders hang out. Ick. Yes, yes, I KNOW they eat bugs. But I don’t like them or their webs touching me. *shudder* I go through first with a broom to clear anything like that before I start cutting. I had a lot of encouragement from the butterflies. Both the black swallowtail and the monarch butterflies were flitting about.

bush before — Before – hedge over the bottom of the awning.

Once I finally got the hedge under control, and took a few cuts at the forsythia on the corner of the sun room, I worked on the willow bush along the driveway. I’d hacked it back in the winter when we were due for a huge wet snowfall. I learned in the past that huge, wet snowfalls cause the willow to bend all the way into the driveway and until we clear that bush, we can’t move the cars. It’s been a wet spring and the willow has flourished. I also trimmed up the pots along the front walk, and weeded them, and removed the ones that were done for the year. I was doing my best “energizer bunny” imitation. 🙂 I am delighted that FINALLY the canna lilies in the front pots are blooming. Sure took them long enough. I still see very little evidence that the ones in the other pot will flower. 😦

behind the hedge — Behind the hedge and weeded container pots

After all of the pruning is done, then comes cleanup. Had I seen any evidence of the teenage boy who supposedly lives next door, I’d have tried to hire him to do get the debris into the big brown lawn bags. But as is usual this summer, there was no sign of life there, so I bagged 4 brown bags full of debris. Ouch. Anyway, I think it’s looking fine now, and there is air and light in the sun room. You can see the metal heron between the bushes. Even the metal & rocks art sculpture can be seen. Pruning the rhododendron and tying up the forsythia will have to wait til fall. I’m not sure my muscles will recover before then. 🙂
canna lilies

Here They Come!

IMG_0274 (1) It’s happening!!! It’s really happening! Spring is on its way here! I have 3 bags of bulbs sitting in the front hall. Alert to my sister: 15 of the gladiolas are for YOU! Maybe if you’re REALLY nice I’ll let you have a few of the 9 canna lilies also. But I really love my cannas. I’m NOT sharing the dahlias – get your own. *grin*

Just 2 weeks ago there was snow on the ground and the little green shoots were being brave and pushing through. Now there is gorgeous sunshine and the snow is gone and everyone has room to stretch and grow.

All together now: PHOTOSYNTHESIZE!!!

Back to the Garden

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It’s really hot out there today. “Real feels” between 105-110. That means that I need to be running the a/c, and I am staying inside. I always feel so imprisoned with the windows closed. Even though I am in my (beach-y) sun room, looking out at plants, including potted palms, I feel locked-up. To combat my cabin-fever I went out at lunch to visit the plants. It was a short visit, because while they seem to be doing fine, I could feel the heat burning through my clothes. It’s REALLY hot.

The dahlias seem to be thriving on our burning-hot now pouring-rain now burning-hot weather. Also the mandevilla and the succulents. According to the internet several of the succulents are supposed to flower, but only the Tiny Tangerine Bulbine Frutescens seems to have gotten the notice. I had no idea that the Rick-Rack Orchid cactus could grow to be a hanging plant. I wonder if it feels cramped in my pot between the ever-encroaching sedum and the octopus aloe? I may try to take a cutting and plant it somewhere else. There will be a lot of light in the breakfast room now. And a huge, high beam that could hold hanging planters. I think in the past I may have had lampranthus deltoides and had them flower, but I could be remembering some other succulent with little pink flowers.

Last year I brought in that huge red planter with the succulents. The pot weighs a ton, and only 1 of the plants survived the winter and the cats (the sedum, of course). I wasn’t planning to bring the pot in again this year because of the weight, the cats and changed floor plan. I may have to rethink that or I may need to transplant all of the succulents into smaller pots and bring them in. I really like this batch. I would love to see the octopus aloe flower. Of course the question is always – are these poisonous/fatal if ingested by cats? Trying to protect plants from BC is not a simple task.

I was thinking of bringing one or more of the potted palms inside for the winter. I have 3 of them, and I’d like to try to have at least one winter over. I’d need to find a place with a lot of light (the breakfast room) and minimal cat access. Not many places like that in my house. I did a search just now and it appears that the palms are safe for the cats, so I guess if I don’t mind dirt hitting the floor, or some chewed up leaves (and residual cat ‘deposits’), this may be a plan. 🙂 I’d need to figure out a good water-containing base, however, as I have a tendency to over-water.
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