Tea Parties

One of our family traditions has become inviting very special guests to dine on one of our porches.  

When my daughter was 9, we invited her friends for a tea party with their dolls.  Those memories have always been very special. 







I was excited last summer when my granddaughter asked to have her 9th birthday on the front porch.

My granddaughter and I have always had very special times in the garden, and I was blessed to be part of this special event.  My daughter provided the food, I provided the antique dishes and the porch.  The little girls responded by dressing up and bringing their dolls and stuffed animals to join them.  

The menu consisted of hot chocolate with strawberry flavored marshmallows, strawberry and cream cheese sandwiches, fruit cups, and blueberry punch with sparkles around the edge of the antique jam jars.  (Also used at my daughter' birthday party all those years before!

It was a perfect September day.  Another of our family traditions has been to play croquet at summer family gatherings.  Most of the little girls had never played before but were so very quick to learn!

A place to nap

Many people comment when they visit my garden, that I have lots of places to sit and rest.  Those of you who garden know that having a beautiful garden does not mean sitting still...and the few minutes I do, the garden calls to me and I have to leave my chair and start pulling a weed or deadheading.

However, I learned years ago that it has often been important for visitors to my home and garden to have a place to be still, rest, and reflect.  When I was first married, guests would often wander away to look at something and I would be startled to find them napping in a chair on the couch, on the porch swing, or on the chaise in the garden.

I often invite guests who are feeling stress in their lives.  To sit on the porch to have coffee and talk.  And soon they are napping.  When mentioning it to a friend, she said I made it OK.  That the house was a calm, restful place, away from the world where you could find comfort in the coffee brewing, the smell of fresh baked goods or something in the crock pot.  And the rule I have against gossip .  What is spoken in the garden stays in the garden.

A peaceful place to be still... and nap.

Waiting for spring

The Door to the Garden Shed

Waiting for Spring

It is the time of year when the seed catalogs and the rose catalogs start to arrive.  I start dreaming of what I will plant this year.   I love to stoke up the wood burning stove in the garden shed, put the tea kettle on to boil, cuddle up in a wicker rocker and go through my collection of garden books for ideas.

I am blessed that my husband built me this incredible garden shed.  We have been re-purposing for years.  My friends would often just shake their heads at what we were dragging home.  However, my dear husband and I would spend early Saturday mornings over breakfast dreaming of what these odds and ends could be.  This beautiful garden shed is just one example.

When my granddaughter (four at the time) walked in the door, her first comment was "Grandpa must love you so much cause he built in everything you love!"  That is so true.  This door, found in a barn by a friend who brought it to me stating "I found the door for your garden shed" is just one example of the blessings contained in this tiny 12 x 16 building.   My son and I spent several weekends stripping the dozens of layers of paint off to discover the spoon carvings below.  

A friend is a remodeler by trade and many of the components we use on our projects would otherwise land in the dump.  The shed has a set of sliding doors and two sliding windows formerly in someone else's home.  The sliders are covered by a set of sliding wood doors previously on an old barn which provides winter protection and shade in the summer.  

The antique wood burning stove was a find on an anniversary weekend spent antiquing.  I haven't totally perfected the art of baking bread and pies in it - so I really respect women of past era's for their ability to wake up early enough to heat the stove to a temperature that will bake evenly.  However, it is great fun to try and I get better every time.

This is my porch garden last year in early June right after a few days of heavy rain.  The reason for all the tiny seedlings and the droopy peonies...the porch rails are another re purposed item, having a past life on someone's deck.  The Jackmani Clematis are to commemorate my grandparents who always had a magnificent specimen by their back door.  The roses are likewise very important to me...more in a coming post about them, but the tiny pink are a Canadian Explorer called Joie de Vivre.  The peonies are a particular favorite of mine.  A future post will show a picture of me at 1 in the middle of my grandmothers peony border.  And then the staple of the late summer garden, when all the bright blooms are tired, hostas and day lilies.  

What are you dreaming of for your garden?

Thoughts as I work

As a passionate gardener, I use gardening as a way to get my thoughts in order and work through the ups and downs of my life.

My husband often says that you can tell the mood I am in by how high the weeds fly.

I am blessed to share my life with someone who shares my excitement over using our limited resources and treasures found along our travels to make our home and yard a personal expression of our creativity.

Over the next few weeks, I will share pictures of some of our creations, beginning with my garden shed.  

Our neighbors have told us that they can't wait to see what rolls in the yard, knowing that a new project is in the works.  We are blessed to have several friends who work in construction and many items that we have in and around our home are recycled from the projects they have worked on.

For instance, my garden shed is a combination of materials from several buildings that were torn down, windows that were part of remodeling projects, an antique wood cookstove that my husband and I found in an antique shop, shelves found at a garage sale, and paneling taken out of our kitchen.  

I look forward to sharing ideas and photos of some of our projects and hope that we can inspire each other.

My Fairy Garden - designed for my grandchildren.  Herbs, wisteria, snapdragons, roses, and a repurposed picket fence.  More about that later.   That is a single rosebush in the background....