Country vs.Urban

Loving the space of this country garden and the ingenious incorporation of green gardens in this urban landscape . Hurray for gardeners everywhere. Which would you rather have a country or city garden?

Images via a well traveled woman.

Monday Inspiration: A Little Patch of Our Garden

Monday always requires more effort on my part. Leaving the weekend behind is hard, especially knowing I may be working this upcoming Saturday and Sunday.

This weekend we bought some plants for the garden, but the threat of really cold weather kept us from planting them. So the garden's progress is on hold for now and I'll have to be content with this little patch in our rock garden that's in bloom.

The Perfect Outfit: For a Mediterranean Jaunt

This dress from Emerson Fry would be a perfect for a vacation on the Mediterranean. Dressed down for daytime with black capris or leggings and effortlessly dressy for evening. Maybe if I buy it, the trip will follow.

Wander Lust # 3:

I first saw an image of Cinque Terre on a free calendar more than a decade ago and could barely believe it was real. The tiny village of Vernazza with its equally tiny beach, looked so magical. The village's buildings clustered tightly together, seemed to cling precariously to the sides of the regions cliffs.

Visiting this grouping of cities along the northern Italian coast was instantly added to my bucket list. Years later, I have yet to hike the paths that connect the five cities, but I stumbled across some photos and the urge to visit this area has been rekindled.

Sadly, two of the five villages, Vernazza and Monterosso, were damaged by devastating mud slides in 2011. Monterosso has been able to dig out and rebuild, but Vernazza is still recovering. Hopefully this beautiful village will be accessible again this summer. Do you have a place you've always wanted to visit?

A Jump on Spring

The unseasonably warm weather allowed me to clear the front garden. Just as well, the warm weather has given the plants a head start too. The oregano and our Miss Dot grass have already started growing into the dried out stalks from last year. I trimmed back the old growth and raked up a surprising amount of left over leaves from the fall. The leaf clean up revealed lots of spring buds and what's left of the tulips. I have a sneaking suspicion that our tulips are also being attacked from below. Are the chipmunk's pulling them right into their underground tunnels?

While I was bagging leaves and puzzling over our missing tulips, my little one was busy building a fairy house with her cousins. They made good use of the remains of Miss Dot and twigs from the yard. They were not a 100% happy with their fairy house, but I think it turned out first rate.

In the late afternoon, I took a walk in the back woods and came across some shed antlers and two tiny deer skulls, little victims of the winter or more likely a coyote. A strong reminder of the cyclical nature of things, which made me even happier that Spring is almost here.

Our First Crocus and the Call of the Garden

Our first little bulb popped out two days ago, a tiny white crocus looking very delicate amongst the remaining leaves that managed to escape fall clean up. It has yet to fully open and maybe regretting it's decisions the weather is cold again today.

Yesterday was so warm and sunny it could have been May. It got the planting bug going in me. Last year we got started too late and struggled to catch up all Summer. I'm not going to make that mistake again. Yesterday I bought seed packets and this weekend I'm going to get out and clear the beds and get some tiny fences up to protect the tulips. No deer candy this year.

Above are some images from Country Living that are serving as inspiration to get my hands dirty this weekend. You can see more images of this Connecticut garden here.

Chilling Out with Plants and Zombies

Work and life has been stressful this week, including a very sick four year old and ridiculous schedule demands. Lucky for me, I found the perfect stress numbing escape in the Plants vs. Zombies. It's a strange combination of my love for gardening and fighting off zombies. It's oddly relaxing and completely addictive. Did I mention it's also a huge waste of time?

Well sometimes just plain old fun stuff is, so I'm trying not to feel guilty when I use it to zone out. And also not to get too upset when the zombies win and eat my brains! Thanks to my nine year old nephew for introducing me to the joys of zombie slaying.

Circus Magic

Our circus outing was a huge success from the butterfly glow stick to the Flying Cortes and all the over sized cotton candy and popcorn in between.

It's great seeing wonder in a child's face and the circus delivered. We even made the local paper.

Photos by Terry Boudreau of the Bridgewater Patch.