Mega Wedding Fleurs

True Statement:

I absolutely LOVE flowers. 

Having a bundle around the house is such a great touch.  

Whether it is 1 stem or 50, it's a fantastic way to bring 

color and a bit of "fresh" to your home and it's decor. 

This week...it just so happens that I have flowers....everywhere!

I can't stop taking pictures of them...they're so beautiful. 

What a magnificent creation. 

"OH, EM, GEE HILARY"

I'm sure that's what you're saying to yourself. 

I've said it to myself a few times. 

The poor hubs, the kitty and I are sneezing like crazy!

Somehow, it's worth it.  

A peony in the late summer/early fall is a rare thing to come by. 

I was wishing for some and voila, there they were. 

So...wondering where they came from? 

Wondering...if this is what your house looks like, what did the church look like? 

Looking into the Narthex from the Nave.

This bundle came from one of the isle (pew) decorations. 

Looking into the Nave from the Narthex. 

The pew arrangements were moved for the Sunday morning services. 

The arches, alter flowers and pillar candle flowers stayed up. 

These were by far the most beautiful wedding flowers I've ever seen.

It looked like a scene from a Hollywood movie or from Martha Stewart Wedding Magazine. 

To go with the beautiful flowers, the male guests were adorned in their black tie

 finest and the ladies in the summer  2011 runway gowns and cocktail dresses. 

The bride wore a lace gown with a creme to light pink ombre underneath, with a light pink sash cascading down the back of her dress. I've not checked their line, but I'm pretty sure it was Vera Wang. 

The bridesmaids wore navy dresses that were oh so flattering on all TWELVE of them! 

The flowers they carried matched that of the church flowers.  

The multiple camera crews wisely documented every smile, ribbon, tear and flower stem. 

The homily was one to remember, the music was divine. 

I sure hope this bride and groom LOVED their wedding and never forget it. 

Of all the weddings I've been part of, this one is for sure one for the books!

Farm projects in Midtown

This week has been a sad adjustment back to reality after the fabulous week at the beach.  All these years I've maintained that I wasn't a "beach person"....and as I've reconsidered in the past few days I now realize that I was just telling myself a little white lie. Would I go back tomorrow, yes.  Would I go live there, YES!  Piano teachers are needed everywhere, right? 

So back on the farm this week, otherwise known as midtown Memphis, I have been feeding the livestock:

And have been working in the pasture:

Our crops have done well this year.  The flowers grew despite the wicked hot sunshine beating down on their shade stems and petals. The grass has turned from 98% weeds to 98% grass. And in the meantime I'm still contemplating the option of having a front walk.  Now that the grass is looking so nice and lush, I hate to tear it up.  

Yesterday, in the name of sidewalk research, I drove slowly past farms near by to look at other sidewalk options.  I'm leading towards brick, yet again....Here's what I found:

These folks have a nice pathway with a nice landing street side. What a nice way to welcome guests.  Also, this house is a very similar style to ours. 

I highly enjoy the white cement "grout" that goes with this sidewalk.  Also, isn't the grass pretty? 

And lastly, these folks went with the straight and narrow approach with the added bonus of a few steps. Quite nice, I would say. 

All I can say now is that I'm even more confused than I was before when I was still trying to decide what kind of material to use...now I can't decide which way to place it.  Grrrr...I highly enjoy the excitement of options, and yet highly dislike the aspect of organizing and weighing them. 

Fails and desires.

Last year my parents planted the most massive bundle of sun patients.  They looked amazing.  People would stop by their west lawn just to look at them.  I thought they looked lovely.  So this year I wanted to attempt to do the same.  

They planted them around 2 large trees.  The trees are approximately 15 feet from one another, so the 2 big masses of flowers looked amazing.  This is just one of the sections pictured below. 

One of the things I knew going into the project was that it was going to take A LOT of water to get them to look even remotely like this.  Dad had a soaker hose system installed in these two beds so that they would get a reasonable amount of water.  Along with all this beauty though, comes a really big water bill.  This is not desirable.  Why don't they put that on the plant tag...."This plant is REALLY expensive because you have to water it every 20 minutes"....that would have made me re think this option and move on to something else.

While our whole lawn is in transition right now, the grass looks more brown (because of the treatments to kill weeds) than green and my flowers are consistently looking wilted because I'm not out there to water them every 20 minutes. Geez.  I really went wrong this year on the gardening.  Bummer.  Though, it is only June, perhaps things will get better.  I don't see how it could possibly get hotter than it is right now...it's already readying 100 daily in Memphis with the heat index at like 242 degrees.  Yuck.


Moving forward ... I took these photos last summer in front of Anthropologie in Kansas City.  I love these planters and I love the plants they put in them.   Isn't it an interesting way to prune this shrub?  I think it's divine....now if I could only get my hands on those planter/urn numbers!!!! this may have to be a big DIY (except I'm not very good at that sort of thing).

Fleurs do grow...Hopefully the weeds to not

Flowers as of June 3, 2010

Funny story.....So this year Geoffrey and I decided that we would give our lawn a go with a professional lawn care company.  Over the next year they will come spray our yard every 5-7 weeks approximately and with that, they've said that it would be better.  Our house was renovated from shingles to basement and everything in between, but the yard....WAS NOT.  Call it what you want but this yard was full of crab grass/Texas grass...nasty! As of now, our yard has had 3 treatments by this unmentioned professional yard care company.  Between the application of the 2nd and 3rd applications, we received a knock on the door by another representative from the company trying to sell us a year's worth of lawn care.  (Aren't they supposed to know we are already in the system?) Geoffrey listened to his whole speech about how bad our lawn looked and about how much better it would look if we had their service because "IMMEDIATELY" we would notice a difference...or so the salesman said. 

Following this fabulous (memorized) speech...Geoffrey said, "Hmm, interesting that you think we need your lawn care service." The salesman ask "why"....Geoffrey said, "because we have already had 2 applications and apparently this IMMEDIATE difference you speak of doesn't exist."  

Poor salesman, I thought his jaw was going to hit the sidewalk. I've never known of somebody to backpedal so fast.  

This past week my family was visiting from the Midwest and I was thankful that my father, the biggest critic I know, remarked that our lawn sure did look better.  Apparently the ugly grass is in fact going away.  Perhaps not as fast as they advertise it will, but alas....the lawn will look better. In the meantime...we are left with patches of brown amongst the thriving kelly green.  That should be proof enough that it is working, but I guess we all need our Dad's approval once and while. 

Mrs. Dow-Ward's "garden"

Spring gardening has begun in Mrs. Dow-Ward's neighborhood.  This past Saturday I spent the vast part of the day hunkered over my flower beds.  I have 3 beds that I currently maintain in our front yard.
Last year I did quite a bit of work to establish these spaces and this year it has been much easier since all I had to do was weed and plant.  Notice I said...."ALL".  Gracious, this year not only did I weed and plant...I also developed a rather ridiculous sunburn around my neck that would rival any high fashion bib necklace on the market!

Here is the garden last summer (2009)....from the beginning....

.... After 4 weeks of growth 2009 ....

.... July 2009 ....

.... May 2010 first planning ....

.... May 2010 second planing ....

Summer 2009 when I started "gardening" I didn't have a particular formula for what I was going to plant, or knowledge of how big the plants would get.  I just picked colors that I liked and things that were on sale.  The stones that make the flower beds came from a pile in our back yard.  Thankfully there was enough to make a few good stacks along the edges, I would love to have more though. 

This summer I've not been as motivated to start planting until this past week.  I was much more on top of it last year.  Perhaps...it was because it was the first time and I had no idea how much work it was going to be...and THIS time I did.  

Last week I started things quite slow buy giving the herbs and flowers that had made it through the winter a little bit of a trim.  They were way over grown, I was quite surprised that they had done that well.  Like I said, I didn't really know what to expect from the first season of planting.  My herbs were huge....I had no idea they would grow that big that fast.

I started this year with a nice set of pink flowers.  This is the first time I will admit to making an obvious error.  I didn't notice that they were "shade" flowers until I was finished planting them.  The beds they were planted in are more of the FULL SUN persuasion.  We'll see how that works out.  After realizing what I had done, I considered doing a second planting with the thought in mind that the shade flowers would either die, or have to be removed and re planted elsewhere.  To date, they have been in the ground 9 days and have shown no signs of death.  Perhaps they will be shaded enough by the FULL SUN flowers I put in over the weekend? Time shall tell.

Stay tuned for a summer of bright pinks, oranges, reds, and a touch of yellow!