Roses and delphinium...and a thank you to you all!

I wanted to share a little of what has been keeping me from my blog so much lately.

I am making new beds in the garden right now and it is taking up a huge amount of time

and it has kept me from visiting all of your wonderful blogs for the past week.

Soon things will be slowing down and I will get back to doing something besides gardening.

But for now, I am pretty much living in my dirty garden clothes.

Never fear...I do take a bath every night and first thing in the morning I look pretty clean...

but then it's downhill from there.

This is my hobby. This is my passion.

This is what I live for in the Summer.

Too bad I can't look good doing it. LOL!

The pictures above of the gazebo and roses, I took last night.

But the pictures from here down I took last week, but didn't have a chance

to post them.

The delphiniums are now finishing their bloom time. These photos were taken when 

they were at there peak. 

My favorite delphiniums to grow are the Pacific Giants.

There are very tall and stately in the beds.

They always make me wish that they lasted longer.

Here are the views walking up the front walk to the pergola covered porch.

A sweet little perennial foxglove.

Hydrangeas in a concrete pot.

This view below is a view of the front of the garden from the road.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your well wishes on the studio being

published. You are all so supportive and wonderful to me.

 I have enjoyed reading all the lovely messages you have left for me.

I feel so blessed to have you all in my life and be able to connect through this

awesome thing called blogging.

 I LOVE meeting all the amazing women who 

love the same things I love, feel the same things I feel,

and want the same things out of life that I want. 

I will be gone a few days and will catch up with you all the first of the week.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Summer. Isn't it going by so fast?

I have to squeeze every bit out of it...because we sure have a short one here

in my corner of the world. Soon we will be gathering wood

 to get us through the long Winter.

Yikes!!! I hate the thought!

I have some big thanks...

I have some people to thank today.

Some very special people.

The first special person is Karen from My Desert Cottage.

For the past two years Karen has labored tirelessly to

give bloggers a place to share their creative spaces with the world.

She works so hard getting everyone signed up and linked. She sends out e-mails and

prepares special posts to keep us informed of the latest news of the party.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Karen from the bottom of my heart.

What an awesome friend you are!

Another special person I want to thank today is Jo Packham of Where Women Create.

I would like thank her for the hours she must have spent going over

and over the many different studios that were linked to this party.

Can we even imagine what that was like? I am still making my

way through the list...and I will only have to do it once.

I am thankful today that she saw something in my little backyard studio that she liked.

I have still not been able to take it all in. I have never been published in anything, and am

a little nervous about the process. I am sure it will be a learning experience.

Thank you Jo for this honor!!!

The face to face friends that I have shared this with tell me to just sit back

and soak it all in. They are excited for me.

And I have received so many well wishes

from all of you and you are all saying the same thing.

So I think I shall do just that...sit back and enjoy it! 

I have another special friend to thank today.

Debbie from My Shabby Roses had posted about re-purposing her Shabby Chic

window panels when she redid her bedroom recently.

She had made herself the cutest blouse ever!!!out of one of the panels.

She then stated in her post...'now what shall I do with the other two?'

Jokingly, I told her she could always send them to me!

So just guess what Debbie did!

She did!!!

She sent me one of her panels.

I just had to show you how this sweet gesture was packaged.

My gosh Debbie! You went over the top, the way you presented it to me.

How did Debbie know how much I love old keys?

How did she know how much I love tea stained tags?

How did she know I love old clothespins and vintage bias tape and roses?

Just look at the card she made!

Now I know how she knew I loved gardening, but to go and fashion such a

lovely card...this is friendship!

I think this will be me in coming years.

HA! What am I thinking...other than those stylin' garden clothes, it could be now!

And here is the curtain panel that I begged Debbie to send me.

Thank you so much Debbie for your sweet friendship.

And for a wonderful package to make my day.

Now...I can't wait to cut into this!

So today I am thankful for these special women, who have made this a very special week for me.

Coming up roses!

I had a great post all ready to post last night, and then the text all disappeared and so now, I am just going to be showing you some pictures of the garden as it has looked this past few days. I had written some things that I think I really needed to write and the 'poof' they were gone.

I kindda of want to kick Blogger somewhere.

 I have had trouble posting the past two posts and commenting on a few blogs.

If you haven't heard from me, it's a Blogger thing I think.

Something is going weird with my e-mail too.

Do you think it could be the user?????

I will be posting 'Living my life in color' soon, because it has been so long since I have posted from the heart and I really needed to write what I wrote last night, but because I don't write my posts beforehand and I tend to just sit down and write what's in my heart, I now have to regroup and get in the 'mood' again.

Here are some views of the garden this week.

The roses have started to bloom and things are a riot of color in the garden.

My John Cabot roses are such treasures in this garden. They work so hard and really make the garden look lovely right now. I had two of these roses last year and then, because I love them so much, went to the nursery last Fall and bought two more. I think this brings me to 48 roses crammed into this garden.

This is a view under one of the arbors.

I have barely come up for air this week. I have had a ton of work to do in this space.

I haven't had time to do much else, but work on a new bed I am planting

and a bed that I am having to redo.

The bed I am reworking is too shady now for the plants that are there, and so as

all gardeners know, the work is a continuous process.

Some of the delphiniums have started to bloom. I love their tall, showy spires.

My Persian Yellow rose is now just finishing it's bloom cycle. It blooms about the same time as many of my peonies and they are all just about finished now. I picked my last peonies a couple of days ago.

This rose is such a lovely color in the garden.

It looks beautiful with everthing else going on out here.

Some of the roses blooming along the driveway. 

The last of the peonies. I took this about a week ago, when the Winnipeg Parks rose started to bloom.

The studio is full of drying peony blooms this week.

They didn't dry as well as I would have liked, (they seem to be more fragile this year)but

they will make a lovely wreath or two.

Of course, I have to show you some of my latest photos of them.

The chamber pot in these pictures was one of my Farm Chicks finds.

One of my favorite finds too!!!

I can't promise that this is the last you will see of my peonies...I took a scad of pictures...enough to get me through the long, cold Winter.

Soooo...you may be seeing some of them in about January or February.
I think by then we'll all be ready for some Summer loveliness.

A lot of this...and a little of that...

SO...

what do you think???

Should I think about opening a studio for kitty glamour photos???

Ashes looked so glamorous laying next to this concrete garden ornament,

that I couldn't help snapping a couple of shots of him. 

I've had some of you ask about how he is doing, so I thought I would

have him say hello.

As you can see...he thinks a lot of himself...

and he should.

Because he is one cool cat!

I thought I would show you one of the things I did over the fourth.

Last year I took you to Rebecca's with me.

This is a little shop in Bellevue, Idaho that is only open the 4th of July

and Labor Day weekends.

I am always anxious to see what she has gathered together

for those of us who come to paw through all of her stuff.

Please forgive me for the not so great photos...I was too busy pushing women out of my way

to get to the good goods, to care about the settings on my camera!!!

This lady looks likes she's prepared to push a few women around as well...lol!

I have to play nice when I shop, because I know people here. I hate that!

I'll just be quiet while you look around...

and you know how hard that is for me. 

I do want to introduce Laura...

She makes and finds a lot of the great stuff here.

She makes the bags and the pillows, and last year, I showed you the lampshades

that she does.

These sachets are made by a friend of Rebecca's. I bought some last year and one this year.

I think they are so lovely. The lavender that she uses in them is wonderful.

Yes, I did find some really beautiful things that I had to have, and I will be showing them

to you for White Wednesday. I was surprised at how much restraint I used over 

the weekend. I guess I am still recovering from my trip to Farm Chicks.

I almost feel like I've overdosed myself on pretty stuff!

OH...speaking of pretty...

Can I share more peonies with you???

PLEASE!

 I have hundreds of these blooms and I have been cutting them like mad 

and have them all over my house. I have enough for at least two more posts.

Did I just hear a groan out there?!

 Okay maybe it was just my imagination. 

This bouquet started out on the porch...

I did manage to leave some in the garden...

even after cutting all of these!!!

I was able to take a huge bunch to my friend Michelle, which then shared some with Lisa

(my Farm Chick chicks)

I am trying to stay in good graces with them, so they will take me again next year.

Do you think it will work???

How I wish I could box up a huge bouquet and send them

to each of you as well!

I wish you all a lovey Summer weekend.

I hope you do something wonderful!!!