May 31, 2012 by Born To Organize

Blooming Thursday: Cosmos Open Up

Tomorrow’s Bloom?

This lovely flower was entirely unexpected. It re-seeded around the corner from last year’s location. As is often the case, the seeds that are hearty enough to survive volunteer status (dropped by a bird, blown in the wind, planted by a squirrel) do well. This is the first bloom of the season with two promising buds (photo, left) ready to spring forth in pinks and yellows.

The fairy garden flowers are holding up nicely. I spruced up the table with a mini bouquet and a table-runner made from leaves. Lindy is the self-appointed watch-cat, keeping those scary garden gnomes I saw on Facebook yesterday at bay.

What’s blooming on your Thursday?

First Cosmo

Lindy Standing Guard Near the Fairy Garden

The Fairy Garden: New Table Runner and a Purple Bouquet

May 30, 2012 by Born To Organize

Therapeutic Bath Salts: Putting My Dried Lavender to Work

Dr. Teal’s has a wonderfully fragrant and oh so relaxing lavender bath salt, but it’s nearly seven dollars a bag. I shop for generic brands of Epsom salt, half the price and equally effective for soaking sore, tired muscles. That said, I long for the relaxing scent of lavender filling the steamy room.

So today I’m experimenting with my own dried lavender. I took a few flower heads and gently pinched the flowers from the stem. I tucked the flowers into a small organza bag I had on hand (available at most craft stores) and double knotted the ribbon at the top.

Recipe to Relax

Lavender Sachet

Recipe to Relax:

Draw a hot bath, preferably up to your chin.
As the water fills the tub, add two cups of Epsom salts.**
Run hot water over the lavender-infused bag.
Hang up the do-not-disturb sign.
Practice yoga breathing, letting your cares slip away.

**A word of caution: bath salts and oils can make the tub surfaces slick. Use common sense care when getting in and out of the tub.

Enjoy!

May 29, 2012 by Born To Organize

Raspberries: Natures Candy on the Vine

Mouth-watering Raspberries

We planted a pair of raspberry vines two summers ago. We’ve anticipated the day when we could stroll by and pluck them straight from the vine. That day is…today!

I’m tempted to pull up a chair and a bowl to the edge of the planting box, but I’m showing a little restraint (mostly because I’m wearing a new white shirt).

As I see it, berries are the perfect fruit: no cutting or peeling required. You simply pull them from the vine and pop them in your mouth. Brilliantly red and lusciously sweet, it’s even fun to say: raspberry, razz-berry, rasp-bury.

What do you think? Is there any other fruit so sweet?

Berry Close-up

Berry-laden Vine

Raspberry Vines: Year Three

May 28, 2012 by Born To Organize

Gardening Nirvana Turns 1!

I launched gardening nirvana a year ago today. It’s been fun! My fellow bloggers are a wonderful inspiration and through them I’ve learned a lot.

Early this year I challenged myself to post every day. The discipline is wonderful. In addition to posting from home, I’ve posted from hotels in Las Vegas, Cupertino and Santa Monica and look forward to posting from LEGOLAND® this summer. Wherever I go, so too goes my blog. It feels like a good friend

Thank you for reading, for commenting and for clicking the like button. It’s such a compliment when you share my words on Facebook or Twitter.

With appreciation,

Alys

P.S. We joined our friends Doug and Laura for a tie-dying party this afternoon. They have an amazing garden, with unique specimens tucked into every corner of the yard. Here are a few of my favorites:

Doug’s Garden

Flowering Cactus

Otherworldly

Doug and Laura’s Cactus Garden

May 27, 2012 by Born To Organize

Passionate about Purple: For Sharon

Flowering Blooms: Madonna Inn

Multiple Sclerosis is a cruel disease. It can knock you to your knees in the prime of your life, robbing you of energy, activity, appetite and independence. My younger sister was diagnosed with MS over a decade ago. She continues to fight it. She drives herself to the Y each day for a 15 minute swim to reduce the fatigue and the joint stiffness that are a part of her daily life. She commutes to Palo Alto and puts in an eight-hour day in a contract position at the VA call center. A college graduate with over 30 years of work experience, she’s struggled to find full-time employment for over three years. My sister is grateful for the temporary position, hard-won through Project Hired but the benefits are meager. When you have a chronic illness, doctors visits are more common. She avoids going if she can. Her illness is untreatable, progressive and unrelenting.

She caught a cold this week, something that would make most of us cranky. On Monday, she lost her balance and fell. She drove to work anyway. When she lost her voice, they took her off the phones and gave her a project to do. She made it to Thursday. Late that day, her body said enough: she couldn’t see the computer, so clocked out an hour early and headed home. Suddenly overcome with dizziness, she wisely pulled off the road. She called a co-worker who came but said she “couldn’t take her to the hospital!” Her second call was to her supervisor who told her to call 911. If she had called me I would have been there, but I didn’t hear from her until after the paramedics admitted her to the ER. I understand that she wasn’t thinking clearly, but felt so helpless hearing from her after the fact.

The common cold activated the worst of her MS symptoms. She can’t walk, can barely lift herself from chair to motorized scooter and is too afraid to take a shower. I drove her to the Y today so she could shower safely in an accessible shower stall. She was grateful. I did a little shopping for her, picked up a prescription and did some errands at her home. I know the little things help but what I really want to do is make it all go away. I want her to walk again. I want her to take spin classes, to go shopping and to wear the fun shoes that she loves. I want her to have days where she doesn’t think about her health every single waking minute. If it’s not asking too much, I want a cure for MS.

Today’s blog is in honor of my younger sister, and to others fighting this difficult disease. My hat is off to you. =^..^=

Lavender

‘Mexican Sage’ salvia leucantha

Blue Bells

Hyacinth

Vinca

Resources:

MSAA – The Multiple Sclerosis Association of America

Types of MS: My sister has Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (no remissions from the onset)

EMSP– The European MS Platform

Wiki List-MS Organizations around the world

May 26, 2012 by Born To Organize

Slugs and Snails and…Slugs and Snails

You witness life at a whole different level when you crawl around in the dirt. I was up close and personal with the camera this week, taking pictures of the flowering catnip. I turned to my left and caught sight of a snail, sliding its way up the side of a fern. I took several shots, none of which came out, of the snail’s careful journey. As the gastropod gained height, the fern slowly gave way. Up and up went the snail, down and down went the frond. Mesmerizing! Eventually the snail’s green path dropped but the gastropod, undeterred, continued its ascent. I backed up and saw the rest of his slippery group heading toward cool shelter for the day.

I felt strangely voyeuristic. Inadvertently, I stumbled upon the secret hiding place of these unwanted helix aspersa. I don’t like it when they snack on my garden, yet they seemed harmless and graceful as they slipped out of sight. A friend recently wrote an interesting blog entitled, Evolution: Escargot, Erotica, Empathy about her own awakening to the multitude of creatures that inhabit a French field.

It’s an interesting metaphor for life, I suppose: it’s easier to fear and hate what we don’t like or understand. A little knowledge goes along way to level the (French) field.

Ascent

Nature Snapshots (instillari.com)

May 25, 2012 by Born To Organize

City Pickers Update: Week Three

Things are looking good in the City Pickers. I planted three starter tomatoes along the front of one box and seeds along the back. The tomato plants sprouted last week. I thinned them to one or two per planting. The second City Picker holds a different variety of seeds. They don’t seem to be performing as well, though I’m not sure why.

In addition to the tomatoes, I added one pumpkin seedling. So far, so good. Temperatures remain on the cooler side by Bay Area standards. We had healthy plants and poor production last summer for the same reason: very little heat. Here’s hoping the new planting system coupled with the reflective heat from the house and gravel add up to a warmer environment.

City Picker Tomato Boxes: May 1, 2012

City Picker Tomato Boxes: May 23, 2012

City Picker: Grow Tomatoes on your Porch, Patio or Deck (gardeningnirvana.wordpress.com)
I Say Tomatoes, You say…. No (wzlx.cbslocal.com)

May 24, 2012 by Born To Organize

Blooming Thursday: Flowering Catnip and the Demise of a Rose

Flowering Catnip

Here….kitty, kitty, kitty!

The catnip flowered this week, sending up delicate purple flowers, tiny in proportion to the plant. The cats prefer the leaves anyway and we have plenty of those so the felines will be set for awhile.

Intermingled with the catnip, also known as cat mint, are peppermint plants. I inherited the mint from my friend Karen when she moved back to the east coast in the mid-nineties. She also entrusted me with her miniature pink rose, an anniversary gift from her husband. The peppermint survived three city moves, along with the rose. I’ve joked that I needed to keep that rose alive for the sake of her marriage. Truth be told, her marriage is solid and so was the rose until two summers ago when it failed to survive the final transplant. What a let down after all those years of tender care. I console myself with the fact that her marriage thrives along with the peppermint, and further, remind myself not to take my garden failures personally.

What’s blooming in your garden today?

Flowering Catnip

Spiderweb Basket of Morning Dew

Did you hear? She’s growing this catnip for us!

Peppermint and Catnip Intertwined

May 23, 2012 by Born To Organize

Pumpkin Nirvana: The Crop Runs Away!

Yahoo! We have a small but viable pumpkin crop. Last year’s one volunteer re-seeded in the upper box. I had to amend the soil and top off the box before replanting it in the lower box. Not only did it survive, it thrived. Look at that baby grow! Our ‘Big Max‘ has a companion as well, cosmos from another season. For whatever reason, that tiny four by four-inch spot in the lower box has the perfect combination of soil, shelter, sun and moisture to make things grow.

A few of this seasons indoor seedling transplants survived so we have two or three varieties at different states of growth.

I spotted a few male flowers last week and the requisite bees in the vicinity. Yesterday the first female bud emerged, a tiny, yellow orb with magnificent potential.

Here is our pumpkin crop so far:

The Vine’s Curling Tendrils

Morning Sun Streams Through

Budding Female Flower

Pumpkin Plant Close-up

Planter Pumpkins: The Long View

May 22, 2012 by Born To Organize

The Gardens of San Jose: Come Take the Tour

Hey Bay Area friends! Come join me this Sunday, June 3rd for a tour of several private gardens in the beautiful and historic Rose Garden neighborhood. San José Parks Foundation presents The Gardens of San Jose 2012 tour.

My friend and colleague Jim Reber is the Founding Executive Director with deep roots in our community. Many will know him as the founder of San José Repertory Theater in the early eighties. San Jose Parks Foundation vision is:

Founding Executive Director, Jim Reber

To establish innovative vibrant parks, trails, and recreation programs by building a permanent charitable endowment that will provide sustainable resources in perpetuity for San José.

Their Mission

To enhance the recreational, educational, and cultural life of the San José community by encouraging and soliciting support for our City’s parks system.

The San José Parks Foundation is an independent not-for-profit organization that:

Inspires passion and community involvement in our parks, trails and recreational programs.

Helps build and develop a world-class parks system by providing private funding for park programs, as well as acquisition, capital improvements and beautification and landscape enhancements.