Knity Flowers Desktop Wallpaper

Knity Flowers Desktop Wallpaper Biography
So I'm spending one more night holed up in a hotel room. I get to go home tomorrow, then start seeing patients in the area I live in on Monday. Can't wait to get home and stretch my legs and go for a walk again in the country. It has been getting dark as soon as we are out of class. I am reluctant to go for a walk outside in the dark in a city I am not familiar with. There is a mall close by and I thought about going for a walk there, but I think that might defeat the purpose of walking--at least for me. When I walk it is to renew my energy by being alone and outside. Walking in a mall this time of year would be a big energy drainer for an introvert like me. So hopefully I'll get outside tomorrow evening when I get home and will have some fresh nature photos to share this weekend.
In the meantime, let me share some photos of my garden that I took last Sunday. Once all that snow melted, there were still some green plants. And  while I was taking photos I harvested some vegetables to cook and take with me to eat during this week while I am away from home.
The broccoli raab is still going strong. I picked all the mature buds on Sunday and there are plenty of small buds still forming. If only we get a few more warm days, I might be able to get one more harvest in. I've noticed that the flower buds are getting more and more mild in taste as the weather has gotten colder. This year was my first time growing this vegetable. The spring and summer plantings were complete failures (the plants went to seed while they were still small), but the fall crop has been both tasty and prolific. I will be growing this again next year.The caraflex cabbage plants are still pumping out miniature cabbage heads.  I've lost count of how many little heads I've harvested off these plants, but they have kept us well supplied with tender, sweet cabbage through the fall, and if the weather holds up until I get home, there are still a few more to pick. Caraflex is definitely on my list of vegetables to grow next year. I have been impressed in every way by this sturdy and productive summer cabbage.
Red Russian Kale has long been a standby in my garden. It is easy to grow and the red tint to the leaves and veins is very pretty. In my opinion, it is one of the tenderest and tastiest of all the kales. It is very hardy and I usually harvest it through December, then the plants bounce back in the early spring for fresh greens as soon as the weather warms up.  
And then there are Brussels sprouts. I try growing Brussels sprouts each year, because they are one of my husbands favorite vegetables, but I can never quite get them to mature. The plants grow strong and beautiful and healthy, but the sprouts never get any bigger than a marble. They hold up well in freezing temps, though and I will harvest some when I get home, but  I am always disappointed that they never get plump and large like the ones you see in the grocery store.
I can't remember the name of the Brussels sprouts I planted this spring. ( I will have to look that up when I get home). I always buy seeds for the ones with the shortest days to maturity, though. If any one has any ideas on what I can do in the future to encourage my Brussels sprouts to mature, I would love to hear from you.
Be sure to check out this giveaway hosted by Millie, the matriarch nanny goat at Eden Hills Farm. You have until Saturday December 10th at noon to enter to win your choice of handmade goats milk soap or other skin care products from the newly opened Eden Hills Market. (Go to the tabs directly under the title to see handmade products and the popcorn grown on Eden Hills Farm.) To enter the giveaway all you have to do is leave a comment. It couldn't be easier, so go on over and enter!

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Flowers In Garden Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

HOW TO BUILD A RAISED FLOWER OR GARDEN

GARDEN, CREATION OF SANCTUARY

Asteria Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper

Asteria Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper Biography
A mild, summerlike and even muggy day today prompted me to take my camera for a walk around the yard and see what's flowering a la Camus--rather than explore flowers today, we're going to look at an assortment of foliage. We have yet to have a frost here on the North Mountain, so the hardwoods aren't changing colour with any great enthusiasm; but since I plant our gardens with an eye to foliage colour and texture as well as a focus on blooms, there's always an interesting chorus of colour happening here. 
Virginia creeper is an overzealous performer in some locales, but here it's easy to manage, festooning the arbour my longsuffering spouse built me several years ago. The arbour is periwinkle blue, which is a striking contrast for just about any garden colour, and the creeper is just starting to turn from green to crimson and later to deep purple. 
I happen to have a passion for purple, whether in foliage or flowers. This Diabolo physocarpus, or ninebark, is a favourite because it's the perfectly behaved shrub. It grows without making a fuss, and not too large. It doesn't die back in winter. Its flowers are lovely, its fruits or seedheads are interesting to look at, and its foliage is stunning all through the season. Here's its a backdrop for Centaurea macrocephalus, the large-headed yellow knapweed, also nicely going to seed. 
Did I mention I have a passion for purple? Also for barberries, of which I have four different species at present. We think this is simply Berberis thunbergii 'Atropurpurea' although I could be mistaken. It has a lovely globular shape, stays under two feet tall without any pruning from me, and keeps its deep dark colour all season. Because it was cloudy when I took this photo, I lightened it in iPhoto and you can't really appreciate how deeply purple it really is. But I especially like when some of its leaves have a green tinge, and when the yellow flowers appear in spring. 
Still on the purple kick, but we've moved on to Miscanthus sinensis var. purpurescens, or Purple Japanese Silver Grass, aka Purple Flame grass. It's just now coming into its own in Scotts Bay, starting to turn some spectacular colours, and it hasn't even opened its flowerheads yet. I like this grass so much, I think I have two clumps of it (another in a different locale isn't quite as developed yet but is starting to show purple.). The flame grasses or silver grasses make me instantly happy because of their tidy growth habit and striking flowerheads, and of course they look great well into winter. 
The label on this sedum was incorrectly spelled, but I believe it's S. sieboldii. I love the bluegreen foliage with its rosy pink tips, and while it's just starting to flower, I think its buds are equally attractive, especially resting on the rock beside a silver-grey leaf from a wooley sunflower. 
This is your basic garden variety green Japanese Barberry, surely one of the great fall foliage fireworks stars. I can't even describe half the colours in the leaves, and the shocking red berries just add to the festivities. The plant's growth habit suggests a firework explosion too. Truly a delightful plant, and it's been extremely wellbehaved--what seedlings it produced were eagerly accepted by a nursery owning friend of mine. 
I KNOW that this plant causes some gardeners muchos problems. Here, however, it isn't likely to ever be invasive. Chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata) turns my crank for several reasons: the heartshaped foliage in its shades of cream, red, green and yellow is not only beautiful, it's also fragrant when rubbed or crushed. The best description I've heard is that it smells like orange marmalade, which I happen to agree with. It's late emerging here, and although I finally have it returning reliably, it's not likely to ever run amok because it's so slowgrowing. In warmer climates, it's perhaps more problematic. I think in such cases it would work well in container plantings. Has anyone tried that? 
We're doin' the purple thing again! Meet Japanese Parsley, Cryptotaenia japonica, also known as Japanese Honeywort. Because I had long ago forgotten its common name (and somehow, retained Cryptotaenia in my noggin), I had also forgotten that this is an edible plant. I haven't tried it, but since it selfseeds fairly well and I have a host of young plants popping up, I'll venture sampling it in a few days when I'm finally free of my internal ailments. But obviously, since I haven't eaten it before this, I purchased the plant because I loved its rich colour and unique foliage. The flowers are miniscule, but with foliage this great who cares?
I mentioned Fen's Ruby in my earlier post extolling the virtues of Euphorbias. Today the plant decided to present me with a few new flowers and bracts, and still more new growth. I love the cool blue-green foliage and its bronze undertones, and plan to divide and move this plant to other locations come spring.

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Foliage Flower Leaf Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

A MILLION MILES AWAY

AUTUMN SHARON WOODS

Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper

Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper Biography
Yesterday I was procrastinating my way through breakfast, which is to say I was reading the paper while trying to eat. Something about double doses of antibiotics (still fighting with the diverticular aliens in me innards) just puts me off most things other than soup and sherbet, neither of which are recommended breakfast foods. I settled for half a pear, half a banana and some yoghourt, and was pushing that around in its dish when something caught my eye in the ‘living’ section of the paper. 
Purple, apparently, is very hot this year in fashion. Well, shucky darn. For some of us, who tend to make fun of fashion and who dance to our own music, purple is ALWAYS in. It’s one of those polarizing colours that people seem to either love or hate. Count me in the ‘love’ category. I trace it back to childhood and wanting most desperately to have my room painted lavender and also wanting a purple satin bedspread. I got the walls, (remarkably, in several of the houses we lived in as we moved around the Atlantic provinces with my pilot Dad) but the bedspread was another matter. I don’t remember having any clothing that was purple—in any shade, from lavender or mauve to deep purple—until sometime in my teens, but hey, it was the seventies and we were all wearin’ purple jeans, purple love beads, purple vests, weren’t we? Okay, that was definitely a digression from gardening, but it might slightly explain my ongoing love for purple in the garden. I also love amethysts, my favourite fragrance is lavender, and while there are no purple walls or floors or furnishings in the house, the gel pad I rest my wrists on while typing is definitely purple, and there are purple accents throughout my office, from the fused glass mobile of the purple starfish to my purple exercise ball to the hatbox covered with hyacinths…okay, you get the picture. 
Purple is associated with royalty, but while I respect and honour our Queen, I’m not particularly a monarchist. The colour has also meant wealth and power because in days gone by, only the most expensive of dyes could be used to create fabrics in shades of purple. I read somewhere that there are surveys showing that up to 75 percent of children pre-adolescent children prefer the colour purple over all others (gee, does that mean I was just an average child?) How many shades of purple can you name? Lavender, mauve, grape, lilac, burgundy, violet, aubergine, orchid, magenta, amethyst, fuchsia…interesting, isn’t it, how many of the descriptive names echo those of flowers? Some tend more towards blue, others towards grey; some towards pink, others towards red. Perhaps you prefer those with bluer tones than those with hints of red in their depths. You might like the deep purple of an iris but shun the magenta—muddy magenta, as Eleanor Perenyi sniffed in one of her essays, is just far too common and shouldn’t be in a well-bred garden. While I delight in Mrs. Perenyi’s ‘Green Thoughts’ (which we’re going to be discussing in the Garden Blogger’s Book Club) I lean more towards the late, beloved Christopher Lloyd, who embraced magenta and all other shades of purple. He did write, in Colour for Adventurous Gardeners, that he is wary of deep purple in the garden, saying that “if they are to show up, you need to be close to them and with sunlight behind you.” Or else you might need to have a LOT of it to make a strong statement. The Warsaw Nike clematis that stretches ten feet into the air on the east wall of our barn has no sunlight behind it, but it is such a striking wall of deep purple that you can’t help but notice it.Or consider this hydrangea that brought me to a stop in the middle of a street, last autumn in downtown Yarmouth. The entire shrub—actually it was three or four shrubs—were covered in masses of deep purple mophead flowers. I have no idea if it was a combination of soil acidity and weather—this was in late October—or if a trip to Yarmouth in a week or two will show the same results this year. All I know is that I look back at those photos and am instantly happy with that huge wash of royal colour. And of magenta, Lloyd says, “Don’t feel you have to be subtle in your use of magenta. It is apt to be brash but we are talking about flowers, after all, and their delicacy goes counter to brashness.” If you’ve rejoiced in the delicate frills of a magenta fringed orchid, or been gleeful over that ‘Sour Grapes’ penstemon, you understand exactly what Christo meant. Or look at the star in the Grandpa Ott morning Glory, and see purple meet magenta in a jubilant flood of richness. Some may find purple, especially its deeper hues, to be a somber colour; and indeed, it has been used as a sign of mourning in some cultures. But to me, anything purple has joy in it, whether it’s the bronzy-purple leaves of a beech or the velvet falls of a bearded iris. Perhaps the happiest flower of all—and one I don’t have a photo of right now—is the simple, humble, pansy or Johnny jump up. I don’t care if they’re common as dandelions; I see a pansy in any colour, and I feel happier; I see one in shades of purple, and cares are blown away on the autumn wind. Which is actually WHY I don’t have a good photo of a pansy with which to conclude—although like others we’re enjoying a mostly mild and delightful October, we are having wind most days with great zeal…and today the Johnny-jump-ups were too busy jumping to stand still and have their portrait captured. 
Pansies and Johnnys remind me of my maternal grandmother, who had these, and lupines, and poppies, in her long-ago garden of my childhood. And it was three tiny, deepest purple Johnnys, blooming bravely in the little greenhouse attached to the barn—in a bitterly cold February—that prompted me to declare my love for this place and for us to purchase our home. So the Johnnys grow free-range all around our gardens, smiling their deep purple secret smiles at us. We smile back at them, sharing the joy that we felt on that frigid February day when we found the place where we needed to be. 
Instead of a Johnny-jump-up, I leave you with flowers on a butterfly bush—not purple as you would expect, but honeycomb gold. Because purples will really pop with gold, lime green or orange near them, and gold also may help to cleanse your colour palate if you’ve been overwashed with an excess of purple.

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper

  

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

 Different Roses Desktop Flower Wallpaper  

 

HOW TO PLANT A FLOWER GARDEN

HOW TO GARDEN, ARRANGING A FLOWER BED

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper Biography
It was one of those perfect autumn days here in beautiful upper Scotts Bay, Nova Scotia. The wind wasn't blowing excessively and the sun was warm, and it seemed like a good time to go outside and putter in the garden a bit. My puttering included cutting off stalks of some perennials and spent annuals, pulling some weeds, planting my Blue Nootka false cypress, and getting ready to plant bulbs. 
I'm not quite as hard-core a bulb-buyer as some of my blogging comrades, but usually I end up putting in a couple of hundred bulbs of various species and varieties. They are, after all, a true blessing when they start to emerge in spring. We're just about at the end of our tethers, having dealt with snow or rain and other nasties, cold weather, dreary weather, short days and long nights, defrosting cars, icy roads, no flowering things outdoors...and then suddenly, one day we look out and there's a crocus or a snowdrop or an aconite popping up. And suddenly, we realize that we're going to make it through the winter after all. 
Because we have some drainage issues in much of the garden, I haven't had any success in the past with winter aconite. Thus the first bulbs to come calling in our garden are the graceful, cheery snowdrops. Maybe they aren't all that colourful, being snow-white with those little chevrons of green. But they're alive and flourishing and so welcome; and seeing them, I know that others will follow. 
Snowdrops are slow to multiply in our gardens, perhaps because I've inadvertantly dug them up by accident. The doubles are doing well, though they were a bit overwhelmed by having a big dump of snow land on them this spring just after they got up and started blooming in earnest. I'm told they're fragrant, but I never pick them and never get my nose down that close to the ground to check this for sure. 
In the book Dear Friend and Gardener, letters written between Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd, our two correspondents are regularly waxing eloquent about various species and cultivars of snowdrops. When I first read this book I was surprised at the varieties they talked about, because here, I think we can get two types: single and double. But in England, and perhaps elsewhere, there are many more choices. There was an article this spring, I think in Horticulture magazine, about snowdrops, and I did appreciate some of the subtle differences. That's one of the things I like about snowdrops, their subtle and graceful nature.
These little beauties are well named, being called Glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa). We need to plant more of them because they are only along the southern side of the house, and I love their china blue flowers facing skyward. I have some of the pink cultivar as well, and while they're pleasant, they don't do it for me like the true-blues do. Over a period of time, they have colonized and are making a nice wash of colour, but I don't often see them at local nurseries, and since I haven't ordered bulbs by mail for some years, I have to take what I can get locally. 
I refer to these sorts of bulbs as 'small wonders.' They aren't huge or flashy, but rather quiet punctuations of colour nestled close to the ground. They're easy to put in using a dibber, of which I have several models. One I particularly like handmade, turned hardwood that was beautifully sanded and polished, then stained and varnished. It's almost too lovely to use in the garden, but it has been used as a model in various photographs. Another is wooden with a steel tip, ideal for poking through grass so that we'll have a flurry of flowers in the lawn before it greens. But if you do naturalize with bulbs in your lawn, remember you have to avoid mowing the grass for a few weeks after the bulbs are past, to allow the foliage time to ripen, which creates food for next year's blooms. 
Whether you call these scilla or squill, they are great for satisfying that craving for blue flowers that so many of us have. Where the glory-of-the-snow turn their faces to the sun, scilla are more shy, with nodding flowers in a deeper shade of blue, I'd call it gentian, myself. These also naturalize, and you often see them planted together with various yellow daffodils or narcissus, which makes a nice contrast. 
One of my favourite springflowering bulbs is the checkered fritillary, also sometimes called snakeshead lily (Fritillaria meleagris). These have always delighted me because of the unique checkered pattern in their flowers, (except in the white ones which are just plain snowy white but also delightful. I have to call them checkered rather than snakeshead as my longsuffering spouse has an intense dislike of snakes and doesn't even like to hear a plant called by that description. Besides, they're far too pretty to be named after a reptile (even though *I* like snakes just fine!). This photo was taken at a friend's garden, as I only planted Crown Imperial Fritillaria once; it flowered the first year but didn't return, and I haven't gotten around to finding a better place for it. But I so love the rich green foliage and those brilliant scarlet-orange flowers, so this tells me I have to smarten up and try planting a few of them in the area that's being turned into a rock garden--it has the best drainage, and also gets good sun but shelter. Now of course, can I find bulbs this late in the game, that's the next question? Do you plant alliums? I find they're very much underutilized, and that's a great pity because they're so expressively unique, with a whole range of flower colours from green to purple to pure white to true blue. I'm putting in a pile of Allium cristophii (Star of Persia) as well as additional Sicilian honeybells (Nectaroscordum siculum) and some giant purple alliums, and whatever else I find when I go back to the nursery for more bulbs. Leocojum, or snowflake, come in several types; this is the late-spring flowering variety, and I like them as much as I do snowdrops, perhaps because they do remind me of snowdrops but are much larger and come at a different time. More are going in this fall because I only planted a few maybe three or four years ago, and I think several have been lost by overzealous gardeners mistaking them for grass. It happens, sometimes. I've done that with alliums in the past too. Oh well, to garden is to err, and to err is to be human...isn't that how the saying goes? Now we're going from the subtle spring stalwarts to the brash, brilliant and jubilation-inducing colours of the tulips. For the most part, I treat tulips as annuals, adding new ones each fall. Triumph and Darwin tulips will come back for me, and sometimes the Fosterianas will too, but others tend to dwindle away rather quickly. Species tulips also do just fine for me, providing I remember where they're planted and don't go trying to put something new in the same spot. We have a nice large clump of T. tarda, but also some T. batalini and other species, and this little darling, T. hageri 'Little Beauty.' And isn't it a beauty? Fringed tulips are delightfully different, and I plan to repeat planting them, preferably in a rich colour like this. I'm not a fan of yellow, white or other pastel tulips, at least not in our garden--I like them fine in other places, and for sure they're marvelous planted out in huge drifts like they do in Ottawa during the tulip festival in May. That festival, very well known in Canada as well as other parts of the world, celebrates the long friendship between the Netherlands and Canada. During WWII, several members of the Dutch Royal family took shelter in Canada for several years. Princess Juliana gave birth to a daughter while in Ottawa, and the maternity ward in the hospital was temporarily declared Dutch territory so that the child could be said to have been born in Dutch territory. After the war was over, the government of the Netherlands sent 100,000 tulips to Ottawa as a gesture of appreciation, and that was the start of the yearly tulip festival. What a great way to celebrate a friendship between two countries. I think of that every time I put a tulip in the ground. This is Carnival of Nice, a nice enough tulip, although I often see it planted with Monsella, a red-and-yellow double which doesn't do it for me. I like Carnival, but putting it with Monsella wouldn't be my prime choice for colour combinations, because I see too many gardens with red and yellow tulips lined up like little soldiers, and that's one of those gardening peeves that might work for some but isn't going to happen in our garden. However, this on its own is very striking, and would also work nicely with a deep wine or red or pure white tulip. Or whatever else makes you happy, right? Now, THIS is my idea of a perfectly exciting, jubilant, exquisite tulip. It's Apricot parrot, and I first saw it at Ouestville Perennials several years ago. It was love at first sight, too. Last year I put in a dozen of these glorious bulbs, and they put on a marvelous show this spring. I especially like how the apricot colour changes to a rose as the flower ages, and the petals look like the dress of a flamenco dancer. Absolutely perfect. 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

Zeinth Rose Desktop Flower Wallpaper 

 

HOW TO PLANTING

HOW TO PLANTING BEEDS