Autumn is Officially Here

Mid-September is the turning point for weather here in Northeastern Ohio, and it's time to get ready for the colder weather. Out come the sweaters, jackets and comfortable clothing that has been stored away. Flannel, fleece, microfiber, and all the softest of the soft are great for wearing here at home, since I don't need to go anywhere to work (self-employed). It's a good time to clean the Summer things and put them away.

It's a great time of year for making pies. I'm gearing up to make a homemade peach pie this week. I've been so busy working that I haven't had time to have much in the way of fun, so it will be relaxing to get in the kitchen and bake. Nothing smells better than baking peach pie, with a little lemon and cinnamon added to the homemade filling. I snack on raspberries, bought at a local Amish market, they are better than any candy and actually nutritious. Though I can't fully turn off my sweet tooth, eating fruit curbs my appetite, as does Hummus. This year mom and I didn't do our annual elderberry picking, we both weren't in the mood to slog around in swampy terrain to get them, but did find an elderberry pie, sold by the Amish, that tasted nearly identical to our homemade elderberry pies. I had one small piece and it was like Heaven to me.

The gardens are looking happy with this cooler weather. My morning glories are blooming like crazy, reaching high up the front post, to the top and beyond. I don't deadhead the old flowers since they are annuals, and I want seeds for next year. Next year I plan to plant more Morning Glories and make a bigger display of color on those posts. The Cypress Vine didn't do so well, it has bloomed but in a very lackluster way. I collected some seeds off of it and will not use it to cover large areas next year, it only grew 1/2 way up the other front post. But in all, my plants have done very well this year. Plus, the new ones that I'd planted have had time to establish themselves so next year they can come back bigger and fuller. My roses need protecting from the cold, so I will be putting mulch around them before the bitter cold comes. They have done well, the pink ones have been daily displays of bright color, and the red ones (Mr.Lincoln variety) have recovered completely from the rust they had on them when they were given to me. Mom's are doing fine, too. They are finished blooming and are just leafing now, but look good.

My home business has been very demanding, so I have been busy designing wrapping paper and other items for my stores. It's fun, I like doing it all, but must take breaks now and then so I don't get exhausted or overwhelmed. The cats pile near me here in the office. When it's time to work for me, it's time to snooze for them. Being a cat is hard work. With the stereo on and a fresh pot of coffee by my side, my little marathons are productive. I get in "the zone" and just go for it, from morning until night. Sometimes I think about having a social life again, but will have to fit it in between my crazy work schedule. I like being alone, but not TOO much, then it's a bit lonely.

The sun is streaming in the windows as I sit here, typing. The red-bellied woodpecker likes to look at me from the tree next to one of my windows. He's a fun, loud bird who comes to my feeders daily, along with the many goldfinches, downy woodpeckers and a pair of white-bellied nuthatches. As it gets colder, there will be more and more bird action at the feeders. I put hoods on the main feeders, to keep snow off of them, and stocked up on suet.

Time to get back to work now. Lots to do, and cats to feed. I'm having sweet corn for dinner, nice and simple when I'm in work mode. Life is good.


A lovely old church near my house

Autumn Seems to Have Come Early This Year

It's cool, rainy and comfortable out here in the country, and my plants are loving it. It feels more like September than August (which is traditionally the hottest month of the year here in Ohio). It has gotten so cool at night here and there that I had to close my windows, and get out the fuzzy, fleece blankets. Sweater weather. Fairs are happening here and there in different counties. The big one here is at the end of the month (Great Geauga County Fair). Other events going on out here are horse shows, farm markets, "star parties" at Observatory Park (for Astronomy fans). There's always something going on, and I see concession trucks, horse trailers and tourist cars pulling large boats going my house on a daily basis. It's fun to be where all the action is, but far enough away not to be caught in the traffic of it all. Mom and dad live in downtown Burton, where it is very busy. They sit on their front porch and watch the festivities every weekend. I come and watch with them here and there. Parades go by their house, the farm market is right across the street from their house, in the main park. It's like the set from "The Music Man", very homey, old fashioned and happy.

My garden has been providing me with pretty flowers, fruit and vegetables on a nonstop basis. Every morning I go out and harvest blueberries, and the various types of peppers are producing, too. My roses are doing great, leafing and budding, feeling right at home in the garden. The basil plants have grown into small bushes. Looks like I'm going to have to make a bunch of pesto with it all (there is nothing better than fresh, homemade pesto!). I need to learn how to do canning. Many people out here do it, especially the Amish. I'd like to make jams and jellies, and can it all for winter. It's on my to-do list. As a teenager, i spent the summer at a wonderful farm/camp and we picked cherries, strawberries and black raspberries, made jam with them then canned it all. It was a total success and so fun to do. I was one of the fearless kids that had no problem climbing the big cherry trees to get the best berries. Those were the days! Even if this (soon to be) 50 year old body is a bit creaky, I'd still climb up and get the good cherries, if it wasn't too treacherous. Better yet, there are these wire baskets on poles that can be bought on Ebay (and elsewhere) that can help to reach the farthest fruit high up in the tree.

Then there's elderberries..love them. Last year, mom and I slogged around in near-bog conditions, picking them off of bushes. Elderberries frequently grow in bogs/swamps/wet areas. And, they tend to be surrounded by poison ivy. We got a multitude of berries but worked hard for them, then took them back to their front porch, and used combs to pull the little berries off of their stems. Then, we made pies. Elderberry pie is my favorite dessert..especially the way mom makes it. I took berries home and made my own filling later, too. Amazing how anti-oxidants can be had by eating pie. My kind of health food. I need to get my own elderberry bushes so there will be no need to muck about in soggy terrain. Next year, I'll add more berries to my garden. As for this year, I've been too busy to go elderberry picking but might..the jury's still out on that. The older my parents get, the more the task of picking berries belongs to me, so they don't have to strain themselves too much. Dad stopped picking last year, and mom should now. I will get them, if I get up the motivation then she can work her magic on the berries afterwards.

My appetite has been very low lately, now, to exercise more so I take off more weight. It's doable, just takes time. Weight loss is best done slowly. I don't diet, just cut back and drink lots of water. Seems to work, even now, at this age. It's just not as easy as it used to be to drop ten pounds (or more). No big deal, working out with exercise CD's will help it all along. I'm not into going to the gym, because it's a "meet market" at those places. When I'm sweating, the last thing on my mind is meeting anyone, lol.


My Garden Flowers

Gardening Techniques and Propagating Peony Seeds

There is always much to know about plant care and propogation. Though I know how to identify and basically grow flowers, I'm missing so much information about specific, special needs plants so I set out to educate myself with a bunch of good gardening books and gardening know-how websites online. Subjects covered..annuals, perennials, bulbs, roses, etc. I get used books cheap online then study them like college textbooks, focusing on the topics that matter most to my garden. Seems to be going well so far. It's also really helpful to read what the experts and Master Gardeners do via message boards such as GardenGuides.com.

The rose bushes given to my mother and I by a kind nursery owner are all doing great now. She has two and I have two. Books told me what I needed to know to get the bushes cleaned up, medicated and decontaminated. They look so much better as leaves and buds appear. I thank the Master Gardener at my local County Extension Service, where Master Gardeners are reachable by phone. I talked to one about various plants and she was very informative.

Next on my list of things to do is grow herbaceous peony plants from seed. I bought two types of very showy, uncommon peony seeds directly from China on Ebay and now will seek guidance on how to grow them. Apparently from what I read, many types of peonies take at least five years to begin flowering. Well, it's going to take awhile but I'll give it a shot. According to the instructions I got, the seeds will be planted in October (here, inside). If you are interesting in propogating peonies from seeds, here are instructions straight from the Chinese..and they REALLY know their peonies:

In mid-August, collect the mature seed pods (brown-yellowish color) and put them at a cool location, until the seed pod splits, take the seeds out. Do not dry and avoid sunlight. Seeds too dry will lower the germination rates. Prepare the planting location, cultivate deeply with compost, manure and water deeply. Use wet soil to make a "cake" about 2-3 inches high, 1 squre foot. Place the seeds with 1 1/2 inches spacing on top of the cake, then add another inch wet soil over them. Use floating row cover to protect the seeds and keep the soil moist. In about 20 days the seeds will start rooting underground, but you won't see anything above ground until spring. If planting too late or the soil too dry, then you might never see any seeds germinating next year. In dry winter climates, water deeply right before the ground become frozen. In spring, around the time when the peach flowers (usually mid to late Feb in China), remove the floating row cover, lightly rake the ground surface so the seedlings will break out easier. In a couple of weeks, you should be able to see the seedlings.

I have no idea who to credit these instructions from. If you know, contact me and I'll include it. It was from an anonymous post on a gardening site.


A beautiful deep red-violet Peony flower from my mother's bush.

Saving Neglected Plants So They Will Live Another Day, Week, Year..

Neglecting greenhouse plants happens frequently. You see it at Wal-Mart, Loew's, Home Depot and other stores. It happens all year long in the big box stores and in the private greenhouses when the plant buying season starts to taper off. For this reason, I go on a plant-saving mission, looking to get good plants who just need some love, at a discounted price. I save paying full price for the fancier, more rare or showy plants but have found some very viable, beautiful varieties that were just about to be thrown out, then working a deal with the vendor to sell them at a reduced price. Sometimes they just give the plants away, since they feel that they're going to die. But the ones I choose are able to be resuscitated..even if they look sometimes quite worn out and too far gone.

When I was younger, I worked in a few area greenhouses, learning tricks of the trade here and there, memorizing names/genus/species, etc. I learned how to bring plants around and how to prune them. So, on plant-saving missions, I dust off the knowledge that managed to stick with me, and find perennials, orchids, tropicals and others that I've worked with in the past..and some that I haven't. What looks like a twig with a few little green leaves at its base can be a thriving, happy plant later on with a little love, good soil and water (or lack thereof..in case of plants that were overwatered nearly to death). I like to use different plant vitamins (especially Super Thrive), plant food and fungicide to give them a boost.


This lovely Asiatic Lily was a ratty, already-bloomed, half-dead plant at Wal-Mart last year. I bought it for a dollar and this year it's doubled in size and has been very happy.

When you think of the time and effort it took to raise those poor, neglected plants..only to let them decline, it's a tragedy. In my twenties, I used to get racks of half dead orchid plants and my apartment was a floral paradise as they grew like crazy and were good as new after some patience (orchids grow slowly). Also, some annuals you see in the stores can be raised year-round in tropical climates, such as Morning Glories, Portulaca, etc. I saw them year-round down in Mexico. Morning Glories grew everywhere as weeds, and after big, tropical rains, they bloomed en masse, in shades of purple and pink. So if you like or save a pretty annual, consider potting it and bringing it inside during the winter. Just care for it as normal, as tropicals love water/humidity. They will reward you with color and beauty during the drab, cold months, and then you can put them outside on your porch in late Spring, or plant in your garden. With a little love and creativity, those throw-away plants you see at stores can be beautiful all year round.


This 5-foot tall double peach flowering Hibiscus tree is recuperating from a fungal problem, and is doing much better as time goes on. It has huge flowers, and lives on my porch in the Summer, then in my kitchen during cold weather. It will grow very large in time. I did it before and the one I used to have before grew so big I planted it in the ground when I lived in Florida, and let it stay there to live out its life in the tropics..where it came from.

Rose Gardening in July

After dealing with health issues of my dad's (dad's doing fine now after a gall bladder removal surgery), gardening has been on my mind pretty much nonstop this month. Something so relaxing and surprisingly good exercise. Probably not aerobic, but it's still exercise. Mom and I are addicted, a life long hobby of the whole family. Recently mom and I checked out the latest sales at area greenhouses. A kind greenhouse owner near me (wish I knew the name of his establishment but it's on Kinsman, near WalMart between Burton and Middlefield) had a few rose bushes that had some "rust" on them. Mom and I like to rescue plants in distress then rehab them and we asked how much they were. He said we could have all four of them, that they needed time and work, which he didn't want to bother with..big, gallon sized plants. Not only a kind gesture, but a great marketing move..I bought a healthy creeping rose bush also, since he did that for us, and went back a few days later and got another one. Mom and I have stripped the plants of the diseased leaves, sprayed the heck out of them with rust killer/fungicide and they look MUCH better. Sparse, but improving. Roses add a splash of elegance to the garden, much better than just having roses by themselves in a rose-only garden.



After reading up on roses and in doing so, found out that a rose expert is called a "Rosarian". I told mom, "If you became a certified expert on roses, you would be known as "Marian the Rosarian" (couldn't resist ;) People even refer to their bushes as "he" or "she"! LOL. I wonder if they give them pet names too. It's interesting, never knew any of this. I'm not the rose naming kind of person, just want to really make them happy and healthy. Had some in our gardens when I was a kid, and it's been years since I've owned a few bushes. Last year I bought a gorgeous miniature peace rose at Heinen's, which is still doing fine. It has the most stunning little yellow flowers with pinkish orange edges. Now there's four more to add to my collection. The big ones are "Mr.Lincoln" variety, the others are creeping roses.

On the way to my dentist's office (which is a half hour away), I usually stop at Lowe's Greenhouse over on Chillicothe Rd in Chagrin Falls, which has an impressive variety of plants, some of which are harder to find. It's really nice how they color code their flowering plants according to bloom color. Another wonderful place is (of course) Pettiti's Garden Center. That place is just addictive, feel like a kid in a candy store. I am a rational adult who doesn't need every plant under the sun. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Next year I'm getting some elderberry bushes, need two different varieties, just like the blueberries. A long family tradition has been dusted off and resumed of making elderberry pies. My grandmother did it, mom does it, and I have, too. Mom and I slog out in the moist, almost bog-like terrain that elderberries grow in and pick them. They are usually situated in a giant patch of poison ivy, too. Last year we got a large quantity of berries then we all sat on the front porch of their house, combing the berries off of their stems. These little rituals are important to me, especially the older we all get. Elderberries are packed with nutritious vitamins and anti-oxidants, and what better way to get our nutrition than pie (not too sweet, the flavor is brought out with a little lemon). Heaven. During our combing sessions, dad and I would let berries roll off the edge of the porch, hoping some would take root in the garden below. To our surprise, one has, and it's a healthy, two-foot tall plant right now. They now need one more, then they will pollinate.

My garden monitors, hard at work.

My Garden Grows..and Grows

How I love Summer gardening out here in the country. Especially this year, which has been cool and pleasant mixed with some hot weather. A comfortable mix. At the beginning of Spring, my poor, sad looking garden was modest, not all that interesting because Winter had taken its toll. Well, not anymore! I've been on a flower and plant buying/planting binge like never before. I got a mix of younger (cheaper) plants and full priced, rare or older plants. There are a bunch of great greenhouses in this area and I went to a few of them. Bookstores and greenhouses are my total weaknesses..I'm like a kid in a candy store if they carry what I like (and they usually do!).

Looking around at a local greenhouse, I ran into a bunch of really nice blueberry bushes. I've been afraid to try them but bought one, figuring these were just too nice not to get one. I brought it home, then got on the internet to see how to take care of the plant. To my surprise, the experts all said that a bigger, better crop of berries is possible if you have at least two bushes. They don't pollinate themselves so you need another one for cross-pollinating purposes. Ack! Ok, so I went back the next day and bought another variety, and net to cover them with so the birds don't chow down on the fruit.

When opening the package of plastic netting, I thought, "How hard can it be to put a bird net on a blueberry plant? It can't be that hard!" Yeah, right. I unfolded the fine netting carefully, placing it over the bushes. The net stuck to everything (every berry, leaf and branch, everything). Eventually, I untangled everything and got the net positioned, while standing in this huge black plastic wad of netting mayhem. Secured it all then noticed that berries were sticking out of the net here and there. Unrolled more net and secured it over the first net, on both bushes. Now they're protected. Meanwhile in the background, there was a male red-winged blackbird, making a lot of noise. He must've been calling dibs on those berries and was disappointed to see that his meal is now out of reach ;)

Other plants now in the ground are Tansy (herb with gorgeous yellow flowers), Evening Primrose (pink), crimson colored Coreopsis, golden Gaillardia, Serrano peppers, Thai Basil,very young Helleborus (Lenten Rose) plants, Heavenly Blue Morning Glory, white Japanese Anemone and more. My garden went from drab to fab in one afternoon's planting! Now, to keep it all happy and healthy! It will fill out more and more as time goes on, but the framework for a good garden is now done.

I wove a trellis around the less-than-attractive plain posts of the front porch (the weaving looks like fine horizontal parallel lines) for the Morning Glories to climb up. Also growing near the posts are Major Wheeler Honeysuckle, both yellow and orange Trumpet Vines and Cypress Vine (little red star-shaped flowers with feathery leaves). I'm determined to hide those posts with flowers, one way or the other!

Welcome to my new blog! I'm Carolyn, a freelance artist and business owner. I love to garden and decorate my house, a 175 year old Colonial style bungalow in the countryside of Northeastern Ohio. I used to live in the suburbs or city but got tired of the stress, so a few years ago I left the rat race behind and came out here to Amish country. Amish buggies pass my house daily, and I get a real kick out of seeing horse trailers, haywagons, tractors and other country type vehicles go by. It's nice to be in a quieter atmosphere yet have quick access to city when needed. Out here the air is fresh, my gardens grow better and life is good. This blog is about my home, pets and garden. A little of this and that, with maybe some art stirred in.

Out here, there are horse farms, greenhouses, farm markets, and much more to explore. Last year I put in my garden (the beginning of it, anyways) and now it's getting a bit bigger and more established. This year I'm adding more plants and planning how to make it into my own personal Eden, with butterfly and hummingbird gardens. I have a steady group of wild birds who visit my feeders on a daily basis, mainly woodpeckers and goldfinches. I had one little dark Ruby Throated hummingbird last year but hope to have more in time, as I put in colorful flowers and a better feeder. It's all a work in progress.