No Law Says You Must Have A Lawn (Colorful Ground Covers)

This is Oscar, our 5-year-old rabbit who lives in a dog kennel with a condo-style hutch. He's been inspiring our concerted effort to shrink our lawn by eating all the grasses and clover we pull for him. There are MANY reasons why we don't want to mow grass anymore. (Color/aesthetics, time, I'm allergic to grass AND lawns are not environmentally friendly.) 

Wanting to design our yard with steppable plants that our two small dogs can run upon -- I now present a VARIETY of ground covers that have been growing healthfully these past few years. Most images are of mature plants (we've lived here five years now). 

This native moss, below, just showed up spontaneously one day. Most people here in Western Washington kill moss in favor of grass but, as I alluded to earlier, I've been pulling grass like its the weed. Just look at the photo and notice the many fascinating colors and textures that native moss presents for our external home.

Here next is a blooming steppable plant. (With a bit of clover growing for Oscar to eat later.)

Purple Clover

Commercialized/Spanish Moss

 

Beauty bark offers a great contrasting color to green plants and provides a wonderful service as a weed barrier.

This next steppable fern (brown) grew so prolific the first year I planted it -- I decided to purchased the same variety in green that next spring (I really like the way this ground cover hugs the Earth tightly!)

Strawberry plants LOVE Western Washington and grow so readily I never worry about the dogs running through it. (The Pug often stops to snack when berries are ripe.)

Hard to believe it but you can walk on either of these two gorgeous flowering plants (below) and they will survive.

Kinnikinik, below, grows in the woods around here so I knew it would do extra well in our yard where it gets watered during the dry summer months.

I grow both golden (below) and purple sage in our gardens.

This is NOT the invasive English Ivy that environmentalists warn folks about. So I've been guilt-free while training it to climb objects, such as the chicken coup exterior. 

Here's another (much brighter) non-invasive ivy; below.

One cautionary word for planting VARIETY in your yard: sometimes the plants grow together. Depending on the look you desire for your gardens, you may like the variety of many plants mingling in unison. Or you might want to thin plants out as they mature (beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to gardens and what you want to let grow there).

Here's what I mean (where plants grew so well they practically hug one another)

And ... saving the BEST images for last ... while taking the above pictures this afternoon I noticed this magical-looking spider web (two images below) under a low-lying bush. I had just watered, so the web was wet. Looking at the prisms, it seemed as though the spider was capturing each droplet like a valuable treasure.

CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

(Thank you for stopping by!)

home page: http://SunTigerMOJO.com

vampire blog: http://vamchoir.blogspot.com/

Deviating From My Yard Blog For One Post ... Estate Sales!

Photo #1: REDNECK RESTAURANT
Doug and I ate at one of the most crowded, yummiest, redneck diners today. Yes. I hate to admit it but that is actually DUCT TAPE forming the dooor frame there on the left and they do actually have hideous-looking buckets on an ugly push-cart left out in the main dining room  (but the food is awesome) and we've never gone to this "Berryland Cafe" in Sumner without sitting down inside a very crowded restaurant. (Just goes to show, decorum isn't everything!)

PHOTO #2: Here's another photo about decorum. I admit it. This is my kitchen. I LOVE having "stuff" -- vintage stuff, mostly ... and my house is super small so I need to hang my collections on the walls and have many shelves and cabinets for holding my treasures. I do believe in having everything incredibly organized (so I can find things QUICKLY). [Those Feng-Sui experts who insist "less is more." just never appreciated the nostalgia and personality that collecting cool "stuff" brings]. What's more? My visitors stand in awe of my house; everytime they come.

This blue vertical magnet, below, is a brand new (and yet very old) treasure that I found at an estate sale just TODAY! {{Yayness!}} I've been collecting vintage kitchen utensils for quite a while now and I'm regularly looking for creative ways to put my finds on display.

PHOTO #4 (Saving the best for last) ... I actually paid LESS for this huge statue that I have placed in the window, photo below. When I bought it, today, I thought it represented Father of the Gods Ra, since it features  Egypt's Cobra (which Isis made when she gained her status as deity) and the Sun. Then, a freind on Facebook advised me it's actually King Tut. 

 Amazingly, I paid less for this huges statue of Tut (which is 27" tall) than I did for the little Goddess Isis, with her outstretched wings, many years ago; she's positioned there directly in front of Tut. How incredible are finds such as these???

I paid only $25 for this huge statue and it sells at the museum for more than $250.

It took me a while to convince Doug that I'd find a great place to put this HUGE likeness of Ra inside our little house but I can ALWAYS find more room for the most awesome treasures -- and if not; charity is always willing to take whatever I can no longer use -- I can always MAKE room).

Camera Fixed. First Set Of Photos ...

I was so tickled to have found this anitque sprinkler at an estate sale recently. People just do NOT make sturdy old-fashioned sprinklers like this anymore. Every moving part is METAL! (I think I paid something like $6 for this little treasure.) What I really like about it is: I don't have to spend a lot of time adjusting the spray direction (not like the rotaiting pendulum-sprinklers made today). I have gone through so many modern sprinklers. I reallly feel full of glee to have this sturdy vintage model on hand.

LOOK WHAT JUST BLOOMED!

So glad I didn't pull these daisies below (showed up like weeds, basically).

Does anyone have any idea what plant-variety this next photo features? It's another species that just showed up spontaneously in my yard. I let it grow ... feeling (intuitively) that it had potential. Now that it's in bloom and I'm tickled by its flowers. {Clck any photo to enlarge it}

Crocosmia bloomed for the first time this week! (Photo does NOT do her justice.)

You can see from this mother hen and chicks plant, in its pot, that it rained a great deal this year (moss growing on the container).

I'll have much better photos to post next time. *Thanks for sharing in the fun.

This Blog WILL Return ...

Camera has been down for a while ... I will be updating with new photos soon as that issue is addressed.

EVERYTHING ROSES!!! [Click Any Photo To Enlarge]

This first photo includes the path to our chicken coup (there on the right). I'm really pleased with how fast my climbing roses are growing over the black iron trellis. I just planted them last year and the plants were very small then. Meanwhile, my rose trees (see one example in the foreground on the left) presents just beautiful and fragrant roses as well. 

These photos are untouched. Some may have been cropped (but that's all).

I'm so tickled with all the colors and variety of roses I have growing in my gardens. It's taken years of collecting plants (and accepting rose plants as gifts).

This yellow rose is one of my favorites due to the incredible aroma and just how prolific the flowers are on this little rose bush.

Not all young roses have a green tent for sleeping in the wild. This variety is special that way!

See? This next rose variety doesn't make the buds sleep inside green tents!

As difficult as it is to believe ... this next photo is completely untouched. The special effects were made just by shooting the sky in the background (and it's another atypical cold June day today -- here in Western Washington).

Look at all the character in this rose! Isn't it amazing?

This next flower, below, is called "swamp rose." It's one of the earliest varieties of roses (at least that's my understanding). This rose bush spreads pretty rapidly here in Washington ... it's a native plant! So naturally I have a few such bushes growing in my gardens.

Sorry for the blurriness in this next photo. We really haven't had much sun at all yet this summer ... hence I am working hard to just ignore the rust spots on my rose bushes (seems kind of futile to try and treat the plants when it's continually cloudy).

The Good And The Really Ugly (Bad)

Here in Western Washington (USA) we've had so much rain for May and June --my yard is just not looking as beautiful as it usually does this time of year. Consider this tiger lily, for example ... with the constant rain, slugs have completely invaded my entire yard. They really are eating EVERYTHING! (This is, quite honestly, the best looking Tiger Lily I have growing this season. See how many of its leaves are eaten away? Most of these are so horribly damaged by rain and slugs they are too depressing to photograph). Meanwhile ... I want this blog to focus on what's beautiful so (scroll down) you will see some plants that LOVE the rain!

The flower boxes I planted in late February/April are doing great! (Of course, they're protected from both slugs and rain).





Here, my pink Yarrow is in bloom and aren't these flowers just lovely?

Lavender, in my back yard, is just starting to bud! If we can get some dry weather (for a change) I'll be seeing bees and pollinating insects here; hopefully soon!

Rain means plants have been growing so very lush ... I spent more than three hours weeding this morning and there's so much more weeding to do (Where is Edward Scissorhands when I need him?) but look how healthy my ground cover plants are looking!

I have strawberries all over my yard (I use this fruiting plant as an attractive ground cover as well as have plants in my garden area). The pug loves foraging through whatever strawberries are not fenced in ... he's obviously not reached these in the pot!

Valerian Root makes beautiful delicate pink and white flowers. Usually I trim these (as I did for most of my plants) to keep the herb itself more potent but every year I let a couple of plants bloom so they can self seed for next year.

This is just the cutest little stepable plant (not very big ... about the size of my hand. The pink flowers are big as a dime).

This flowering bush that I have in my front yard has benefited from the extra rain. Unpredictable weather is one very powerful reason why I plant variety in my gardens.

This flowering bush grows on the south side of our home and makes a great privacy barrier between neighbors.

I actually grew up with these pink carnations blooming in the rockery out in front of our childhood home. I had searched EVERYWHERE for them and never could find this particular variety. Then ... lo and behold ... my little sister (who didn't remember the flowers since she's 4-years-younger) had these growing in her very own yard!) Her neighbor had given them to her and they're so prolific she had extra to share with me! {{I feel so blessed to finally have them!}})

I probably have more orange California poppies growing in my gardens than any other flower. They have self-seeded each year and just bloom EVERYWHERE. I hate pulling them like weeds because they do not transplant well but we'd have no walkways if we didn't thin these out each year.

WARNING: HIDEOUSLY UGLY PHOTOS FOLLOW:

Think I have a slug problem??? This is my rhubarb patch ... (Slugs have been a horrid problem with such wet weather.

Yes! Those are actually rust spots you see on my rose, below. And in addition to bugs eating the leaves, we've got blight on the leaves as well thanks to months of rain, rain and MORE rain!

Looks like rusty leaves doesn't it! (That's because it's rained way too much  ... my poor fragrant organic roses!) I cannot even treat them with a skim milk spritzer it's raining so often!

please send comments to dearTami@ymail.com

Pink Peony ~ Just Before The Huge Lightening Storm

We've been having the worst sort of weather for June this year in Western Washington (USA). Of course: there's a Welsh saying: "Warm in January: Cold in May" (And it was ridiculously warm in January this year, so GUESS WHAT!) Meanwhile, this is JUNE already. It should be warming up. Right?

As we had a little sun out today ... the skies suddenly turned very dark. I ran out to snap photos (because cloudy skies make for the best pictures). Here's my peony!

Soon as I started snapping yard photos, however, a most horrific lightening storm began. With a very heavy downpour of rain, the thunder hit the same time lightening struck in my yard (no delay in sound).

My pug (who is usually barking a lot) was completely silent but our dachshund (whose most often quiet) was barking like nuts. We all ran into the house toward safety together! These photos are all I managed to get.

After I was in the house ... it still felt too dangerous to try and take lightening photos. These bolts were flying across the sky almost sideways. It was amazing!