Christmas and the garden

Another wonderful Walter family Christmas had by all of us. Despite work schedules and a house full of now almost adult males it was still fun, exciting and a lot of laughs. Too much food, too many presents - scratch that presents are fun!

In all I had 12 sunflowers in full bloom for Christmas, along with plenty of roses. So pretty I enjoy my time in the garden so much now. One of John's gifts to me was 13 packets of assorted seeds and a new pair of garden gloves. I am already planning the additions to the garden.

My garden is almost finished

Remember the disaster we started with?                                

 Look at it now. Final stage is new lawn.

And here is the latest installment of the sunflower.

Soon to be joined by friends.

It is a tall sunflower

...it is just taking a long time to open LOL. Can't blame it with the heat we are having at the moment. Here it is with Shane 181.3cm tall standing as close as possible to it.

and a close up of the bloom, so close to opening. I'll measure the diameter once it opens.

Impatient for sunflowers :)

Come on already sunflower!!

My Garden - Hurry up Sunflowers!!

A load of sunflowers ready to bloom, the tallest one is my height 173cm tall.

The other big thrill in the garden at the moment - my pumpkins.

My Tree Skirt is ready for Christmas

YAY!! I finished it. Alma Lynne's  "Alma's Country Kringles".

Gardening, Christmas, Sewing mess, Oh My!!!

Seems lots of things are under way at the same time around here. With me confined by a moon boot John has been busy outside extending the garden bed and putting a path down to the mail box.

The green plastic will be the fence around the extended garden bed. Low enough for me to step over and high enough to keep the dog out. So in front of my vegetable garden I will have another flower bed. Plenty more room for roses.

I decided to pull out and organise all of my projects a few weeks ago now. Piles of 'mess' will become quilts, cushions, wall hangings and framed stitched pieces. I even managed to sew up one QS quilt top from fabrics that my mother gave me.

And finally Christmas at our house. This year I have 2 ornament trees and our main tree - which is decorated mainly by stitched ornaments and things the boys have made over the years.

Watching my garden grow

Remember when I first posted.

Then it started to look like a garden.

Look at it now.

A little stitchy finish

This is a kit from Displaymates, I am trying to finish up all my little things that have been accumulating over the years.

Roses of many colours

John took photos of the roses today, despite the heat they are doing really well. One of the pink rose bushes has 43 blooms.

I also have white roses, yellow roses a red rose and another pale pink rose. The miniature roses have stopped flowering for now and the Black Beauty roses are just starting to bud.

The red, as John calls them or dark pink as I call them are almost ready to open.

Why?

Do my photos move themselves after I publish the post? The photos in the previous post were all set out side by side and it drives me crazy!!!

Miscellaneous Stuff

The gorgeous flowers John gave me for our wedding anniversary, the roses in our garden and some stitchy stuff. Once again in random order as I have yet to work out how the pictures show up one way in my draft and another in the published post LOL. Oh and a picture of Shane ready for casual day/dress ups at school.

Flowers and vegetables, Yay!

All the hard work is paying off. Here somewhere (since my photos move after I preview and post) you should see the growth of the vegetable garden, the yellow roses, irises and a pinky/peachy rose ready to bloom and my potted vegetables waiting to grow big enough for the garden.

What was I thinking?

When I decided to renovate the back yard LOL. Here is what it looks like after my first effort.

The plan is to dig up all of the grass, pave from the house to the mail box, along the border of the flower garden. Replace the clothesline with a retractable one. Replace the grass with nice lawn and pave alongside the driveway to even things out and reduce the amount of lawn to water and mow.

Flowers in my garden

The first time the irises have bloomed in years. I forgot they were yellow, my favourite colour.