Blue Moon

I took the Gnomeslayer out for a playdate this morning, and when we were done we stopped by Lowe's. We were going to put in the new plants and needed to get some new mulch and some manure. While I was looking around I noticed this beauty, 'Blue Moon' Phlox. Looks like these and it smelled nice too. :) It was sunny and around 50, but the wind was blowing hard. We got all of the plants in, and the first mowing of the season done. Have I said yet that I'm glad spring is here?

Welcome Home

I was very happy to find that my delivery from High Country Gardens made it in today. It is *pouring* outside, so no planting this evening or tomorrow. I had to throw on my raincoat to go take the pictures. I can't say enough about how well they package their plants, they all showed up in good shape. And now they are getting a drink before they get planted. :)

New Beginning

We have been getting beautiful sunny weather. I've been busy doing lots of tidying up and evaluating last years plants. Unfortunately it looks like there are going to be a couple of casualties. Neptune is diseased, and looks like its going to have to go. Also, one of my other roses is dead too. I do love me some roses, but I have decided that I'm not replacing any that I lose. I definately don't need anything high maintenance right now. Maybe when I have more time on my hands I will try some more. I've also made the decision that The Mum That Ate Alabama is going to visit the garden in the sky. It is so huge and sprawling that it looks messy and it takes up way too much room. So with those two plants gone it opens up a very large spot in the front yard garden. Since I'm wanting low maintenance, I had to look through the new High Country Gardens catalog that I got in the mail today. Here's what I've decided to get to fill in the spot.

Purple Ozark Beardtongue
Western Wood Lily
Bluebell of Scotland
Sunset Foxglove
Wildflower Salmon Gladiolus

So I lose two plants, and get five in return. While I'll miss Neptune, I get some neat things to fill the hole. :)

An Acquisition, and a Maintenance Task

The Gnomeslayer and I took a field day trip to Across the Pond a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day and I wanted to get her outside. She likes to see the big fish there. Not to get diverted, more on that in a later post. While we were there I found a really cool pot for my bowl lotus. It has been growing in a plain black tub (see below) for the last few years, and I wanted something a little more decorative.

This is actually the first time that I have ever divided one so I was a little nervous. Lotus tubers are very delicate, and if you break off their growing tip they are worthless.

Lotus roots/tubers have to be planted in round containers because if they are in square containers the growing end can get stuck in a corner and break off, killing the plant.

I was able to get eight divisions from the tub, not a bad return on investment. :)

Fun With Photoshop - Part II

My second Photoshop challenge was my sister's baby picture. My mom is not known for taking care of pictures, and this one had a rough time. It used to be framed, then stuck to the glass. Somewhere along the way the glass got broken, and fell off of the top part that wasn't stuck. Then:

• Algae grew along the crack lines
• The colors bled from humdity
• My mom's dogs chewed on the corner
• There were torn spots missing
• It was dirty
• There were specks and spots of undetermined origin on it
• There were spots of mold growing on it

I finally got her to give me some of the pictures so that I could get them scanned before they got totally destroyed. I'm still working on her for the rest, but I was stumped at how to fix this one. I had to lay it on the scanner, broken glass and all to get it scanned in. I think that it turned out good overall, but the problem is that the cracks ran over her nose, eye and mouth. I patched up the eye and mouth by cloning parts of the opposite side, but I'm still not that happy with how the nose turned out. Since the light was coming in from the side, the shadow was off, but you can only spend so much time on these things. I had to do a lot of cloning and blurring to cover up the many problem areas, so it lost a lot of the original detail. I'll be interested to see if I can fix it better after I have my graphics editing class. Did I say yet that I love my Photoshop now? :)