The Springtime Yard

No pictures of quilting tonight.  I have been busy glue basting the next Christmas block down for applique.  I have been asked why do I glue baste the whole thing down at one time.  I guess the actual proper way is only to work on one little bitty piece at a time?  I’m not sure -  I am self taught which means I do it my way      I like to glue baste the whole thing down for several reasons.  I have a small work area and only one work table.  If I only glue or baste with thread or pin one piece at a time  I would have to keep coming back to my table constantly to put my next piece in place and check with the overlay to make sure it is in the proper position.  I rather glue the whole “picture” down and then I can bring  it all with me where ever I am working on it without having to get the overlay back out for positioning.  I need my table for other on going projects.

Today was a pretty day – quite windy out here but pretty so I am posting some photo’s of springtime.  The photo in the upper left is of one of our dogwood trees.  It is the one that is the closest to the house and the youngest.  Upper right is our porch and the flower bed has clematis growing among other things.  The older the clematis get the bigger they get.  The one in the corner is the oldest as you can see and it is taller than it has ever been before!  Melanie the one you gave me about 3 years ago is in the middle of that row, I think you will be able to pick it out.  I have 5 or 6 planted in that bed, some are only in their 2nd year now.  On the other end of the porch I planted 6 last year that I got on an end of the season sale and I didn’t know how they would do.  I got them for a dollar each and they were in bad condition.  3 of them came back I’m glad I had luck with some of them.  The middle right photo is of the small redbud that grew out of no where – I did not plant it, it just started to grow from seed blown in.  The middle right photo is of our azalea hedge.  They are planted right next to the pine trees in the shade.  We have had them for years and planted them from 25 years ago to the newest about 15 years ago.  The pretty pink in bloom on the edge was actually supposed to be a miniature.  It was given to me by Mike’s boss 20 years ago when I was in the hospital for some surgery.  I decided to just plant it and see what would happen with it and for the first 5 years or so it stayed miniature – then it just took off!  So pretty.  We have white, red, and two shades of pink.  Of course for several weeks they will look like crap when the flowers start to die, but I love the flowers when they bloom and we don’t do anything to them for care.

The last two pictures are from what I call the “wild hill” area just from different sides of it.  Several years ago Mike decided he needed a new workshop.  He needed to move some dirt in order to build the foundation for the building so he rented a backhoe and proceeded to move dirt.  I had a lot of plants in that area and I thought I dug them all out and replanted in other areas – little did I know how much was left.  He moved all this dirt to an area we always referred to as ” the field”- it isn’t so much a field anymore as we have a lot of trees growing in it now.  When we moved here 28 years ago there was only a couple growing there and it was mainly just a “small field”.  Anyhow he moved the dirt and just dumped it – it is a distance away from the house and isn’t in our way.  Now I have so many plants growing there I will need to decide what to do with it.  Leave it grow and just clear out the weeds or dig the plants out.  Right now I am leaning towards controlling the weeds add some ground cover to hopefull help contol the weeds and letting the plants stay there.  I have tiger lilies growing, iris’s, daffodils, yucca plants (4 or 5 groups of them) a rose bush that grew from a stray root, Queen Anns Lace & honeysuckle.