Friday, May 06, 2011

Favourite Things Friday

It's Favourite Things Friday again. Time to show off something that rocks your socks, floats your boat and makes you smile. Feel free to play along by writing your own post and linking up !

Much has been said on this blog at various times about my gardening prowess or lack thereof. I just can't seem to warm to the idea of planting things and consistently remembering to keep them alive. I'm not sure whether that's because we have such a large garden area and I simply don't know where to start or whether through bitter experience  I know I  just have naturally black thumbs.

This week I actually wore long sleeves every single day so I'm guessing that means autumn is officially here with winter due to arrive in a few short weeks. This  heralds the start of "I'm not venturing into the garden again until September " season so I was toddling round the garden this week (You may have noticed I use the term garden rather loosely ) for a last hurrah until Spring. During this jaunt , the thought occurred to me that I have kept various things alive quite successfully over the past year or so. This made me happy because I convinced myself that perhaps I'm not so much a crap gardener as a disinterested one. 

Pop this music on in the background and enjoy the things I'm managing to keep alive because these green things are my favourite things this week .






I love hydrangeas and managed to grow these from brown sticks of nothing. 


I have no idea what the things in the back of these tubs are but they used to belong to my grandmother. I think they're impossible to kill no matter how much you neglect them.


My agapanthas got nursed and coddled through  the heat of summer and I'm hoping they'll grow big and strong over winter.


My parsley and rosemary are getting bigger every day . They are now at the useable stage and I'm so encouraged by this success I'm off to buy some mint. Let's hope the cats leave it alone this time. My cats are obsessed with killing every mint plant I have ever bought.


I brought this lawn back from the brink of extinction after not being able to water it properly for about  4 years. I'm pretty darn proud of myself.


This thing  was about a foot high when I bought it.


I have a ton of lilies in buckets all over the place. One of these days I may just get around to planting them in the ground.


And for my next trick watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat  plant and keep these frangipani's alive through the frosts of winter!



I hope your Friday is full of favourites!







19 comments:

  1. Your lawn looks beautiful

    It still makes me pause when you write about fall starting and winter coming while we are just now shedding out winter woolies and looking forward to the feel of silk and cotton on our skin

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  2. No time to comment or read kids lunches to make will be back tonight after shopping trip.

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  3. I think you have done very well in the gardening stakes(sorry about the pun)Everything looks very lush and well tended. My garden is full of toughies too. First drought and then torrential rain. Thank goodness there were lots of survivors. Hydrangeas....sounds very hard core gardening to me!!!
    LOve the Bee Gees!

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  4. Wow, your lawn looks fantastic, and i think those plants in the back of the pots are mother in law tongues?


    Glad your finger is still in one piece! Have a great weekend!

    x

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  5. Your grass looks great, as does all the other green stuff. Maybe you you have a brown thunb?

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  6. I hope you are proud of yourself Missy, because I am here to tell you that there are no plants that are impossible to kill! You have done so well. You might just be able to call yourself a gardender one day. I have had moments when I was a gardener. These days I'm not sure. I think you have to actually go into the garden to be able to call yourself that. Hasn't happened here at this house yet.

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  7. Your thumb is greener that we all thought! You have done a good job with your plants and your lawn is beautiful!

    There are certain plants that I can grow easily and some that vex me.

    I, too, love hydrangea (not sure if I just spelled that right)

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  8. I don't know my angry-panthers from my fringey-panties, but I do know you've got one green thumb, sista! Good for you for keeping 'em stayin' alive.

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  9. Ha Staying Alive, lmao!
    I think you have done pretty well in keeping most of your plants alive. I didn't see any dead plants on my visit so unless you were hiding them, I think you are better at gardening than you think.
    I agree with Melissa, they look like Mother In Law Tongues! !!!!!!
    Hope your pinky is pink.

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  10. I thought you said you didn't garden .. everything looks great. and it's fall there, right?

    Thanks for sharing the pics and the song .. love those Brothers Gibb (aren't they Australian?)..

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  11. Well looks like you only have to set your mind to something and things work. You are a truely great person - you ARE a gardener and just didn´t know about it. Good job. Your lawn looks awesome. We haven´t had any countable rain for the last two months (extremly unsual for Germany) and my lawn is greyish-brown.
    I forgot all about the fact that you guys are having autum...bummer - I should have made a long sleeve shirt...

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  12. Here we are again! Lovely greetings from *cold* germany!

    Anja

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  13. LOL I loved the song and I think I should take it for a mantra for my garden! I am not any better than you. I have Jade plants on the front porch because they are almost impossible to kill. My gardenia and lillies are near the water trough where I mix up the horse food so even if I forget to water them they will get some moisture from me leaving the hose running between mixing feeds. I do have bonsai on the shelves on the porch and they are only alive because the shelves hold all out shoes and I notice them every day when I get my shoes on to go out!

    I have resigned myself to the fact that gardening is not my forte :-)

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  14. Don't know able coddling aggies there like weeds aren't they. My pop had heaps in his garden which chopped them up with a spade and left them in the back yard for a week wrapped in newspaper and then planted them and they didn't die. So I don't think you can kill them, unless you have a fancy variety them I think you can kill. Been to the Bazaar and bought a heap of screen printed fabric, but the lady with the screen printed kids tights wasn't there so squid got zip this time because I would buy her a $60 softy that I recon I could whip up in half and hour.

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  15. Great job on all of the green plants! Gives me inspiration for this upcoming season... If only the weeds weren't so easy to grow!

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  16. I'd say your thumb is quite green! Great looking plants all.

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  17. Staying Alive is my carving up the dancefloor song: you can't not dance to it.

    I'm not a gardening person. Had a topiary elephant once, but that's about it.

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  18. I was too busy mope-ing about to comment on Friday, which is really a shame because I love it when you post about one of my favorite hobbies -- gardening. I love to see what grows where you live that we don't have here and what grows there that we do, like the hydrangeas. Yours are really beautiful. Mine is a dead brown stick. I think I've narrowed it down to too much water, so all the rain we're getting lately isn't helping, I'm sure. I also have a tree like the one you have on your patio, only mine is just little and lives inside. Your lawn is beautiful and I really enjoyed the tour of your yard. Good luck with the frangipanis and thanks for the Bee Gee's tune. We had that record growing up (yes, the actual record).

    xo -E

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Thanks for taking the time to leave some comment love. Drop by and visit again sometime.