November 10, 2014 by Born To Organize

A Feast for the Squirrels

Smile! You’ll be appearing on my blog next week

Since I’m taking one season off from pumpkin farming, I had to do something with all those seeds. I prepared a feast for the squirrels. They’re not terribly fussy about table settings and I’ve never seen them use a napkin, so the work involved was minimal.

Squirrel Feast

After Mike finished his carving masterpieces, I scooped the pumpkin guts into a plastic bag and set them aside on the kitchen counter. My son’s friend asked why I was saving pretzels for the squirrels which made me laugh. I reused the bag the pretzels came in but labeled it ‘save for squirrels’ so that no one tossed it out.

We covered our outdoor table and chairs for the winter. I remain optimistic about rain. I plunked the squirrel feast in the center of the covered table so I would have optimum viewing.

The good seeds must be at the bottom

The squirrels came and went all week. At one point there were five squirrels playing tag and taking turns on the table. Many of the visitors were camera-shy. I did my best to hide below the edge of my window sill, but the slightest movement sent them scurrying.

At last, this female squirrel arrived and happily nibbled and gathered while I clicked the camera. Isn’t she pretty?

Look at those dainty ‘hands’

Over the weekend, Boomdee posted a clever YouTube video of a squirrel ‘carving’ a Jack ‘O Lantern. She suggested they might just put my husband out of business. You decide. :-) I’m pretty sure you’ll smile either way.

She’s keeping an eye on me

Thanks for stopping by. Our forecaster says rain by mid-week. Fingers crossed. What is your weather up to?

September 23, 2014 by Born To Organize

Two Flowers Standing

One by one, the sunflowers faded. There are now two flowers standing.

Salvia flanked by two sunflowers

They look spent, but as long as the birds and squirrels keep coming, I don’t have the heart to pull them out. It’s been nice seeing the Salvia in all its glory after a summer spent in the sunflower’s shadow. The Salvia continues to bloom into late October. The bees and hummingbirds love the velvety purple flowers. Salvia thrives in dry conditions, making it the perfect drought tolerant plant.

Salvia leucantha (Mexican bush sage)

I wasn’t sure if the tiny finches were still coming to eat sunflower leaves, but then I spotted one from the kitchen window.

Goldfinch takes a bite

I’ve got my eye on you

Squirrels are still climbing the trellis, looking for what remains of the seeds. They aren’t staying as long, so I’m guessing what’s left are empty seed shells. I’ll give it one more week.

Checking out the seed supply

I love his perfectly aligned tail

There is a lot to do this time of year, but it’s work I enjoy.

Our Japanese Maple (Acer) is dropping a few leaves out back, but the Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis) is still green. When it does turn, its glorious and one of the reasons we planted it nearly twenty years ago.

Over the weekend I pulled out the last of the tomatoes. I left several tomatoes behind to go to seed in place. I hope to repeat my luck next year: an all-volunteer crop of delicious heirloom Roma tomatoes.

The last of the tomatoes for the season, emptied box with basil in the corner, the drooping plant as it ends the season, a wheelbarrow full of plants, some kind of infestation just started at the base of the tomato plants

The basil is hanging in there and still making into a few meals each week. It looks lonely in the otherwise bare planting bed.

Basil hanging in there, all alone in the box

Meanwhile, on the other side of the vegetable garden, the ‘pumpkin plant that ate New York’ is taking over. The leaves are as long as my arm now, with several small fruits at the soil line. Though the leaves, stems and flowers all looked like pumpkins, the fruit is a dark green. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Late-season, over-the-top, self-supporting pumpkin plant

Japanese anemones (hupehensis var. japonica) dominate the rock wall and frankly, grow like weeds. I’ve tried to thin them but they come back stronger than ever. They’re a lovely sea of white flowers and the last to bloom before winter.

Last week I picked up some flowering bulbs, a little wiser than I was in previous years. I’ll share more about that later in the week.

I hope your week is going well.

Japanese anemones (hupehensis var. japonica)

Japanese anemones up close

September 3, 2014 by Born To Organize

Crafty?

What do you think of my crafty idea? Should I enter it in the county fair?

What am I?

It’s part mutant octopus, part over the top wreath. It might even show up on a Pinterest board entitled “Crafts Gone Terribly Wrong.”

So, can you guess what it is?

Give up?

It’s part of my squirrel nesting experiment. After destroying the slipcover in July, the squirrels returned to hand-pick the stuffing from the lining of the swing. I disguised the damage with a cotton shower curtain which only slowed them down. Now they carefully fold back the edge of the cover and continue to pluck the stuffing.

My sorry-looking garden swing

My experiment

I smoothed the curtain/cover over the exposed stuffing and placed two things on top:

The soft, exposed lining of the sunflower…

Exhibit A: Sunflower Fluff

The idea came to me this morning when I found a shredded sunflower head in the middle of the lawn. I couldn’t believe how soft it was. Maybe they’ll use the pulp for nesting.

…and my octopus wreath.

Exhibit B: Octopus wreath

My ‘wreath’ will not be entering any craft fairs, but with luck it will serve its purpose: Lining the squirrel’s nest.

Stay tuned.

Sunflowers in Art

Yesterday, Val at Nikitaland said “I love that flower painting on the glass as it makes a nice statement in the backyard, not to mention, I love how it adds instant color! I bet it looks beautiful when the sun hits it!” Thanks Val!

I tried capturing the light this morning with mixed success, but you can see why I hung the painting over the back of a trellis instead of the fence or wall. The sun pours through the glass window around ten in the morning. If I’m lucky enough to be home, I get to enjoy it.

Whitney Pintello: Reverse painted sunflower on salvaged window

September 1, 2014 by Born To Organize

In a Vase on Monday: Sunflowers Last Call

My sunflowers are going fast. Staying true to their DNA, sunflowers grow from seed to seed in about 90 days. I planted mine in mid-May so I’m on borrowed time.

The shortest of the sunflowers bloomed the longest, making them the perfect flower for today’s In a Vase on Monday. Cathy at Rambling in the Garden features flowers and a prop in a vase each Monday year round. Impressive! She encourages others to participate as well. Come join Words and Herbs and Creating my own Garden in the Hesperides, and others. It’s fun.

Sunflowers in a vase on Monday

Easy Arranger

Check out my new gadget. It’s called an Easy Arranger™. It’s a wire form in the shape of a flower, made in China, assembled in the United States, sold in Canada and now holding up sunflowers harvested in San Jose. My easy arranger should consider applying for a frequent flyer card. I bought two of them in the beautiful gift shop at Butchart Gardens on holiday last month. The malleable form molds over the top of your vase lending support to cut flowers. Pretty nifty, eh?

Easy arranger in action

Saving Seeds

I’ve been gathering seeds from each of the seed heads so I’ll have plenty to plant next year. I’m going to package a few and give them away at Christmas as well. I wish I could share with my readers around the world, but shipping seeds outside of the US is a no-no.

As an aside, so is shipping millipedes, but apparently a crate marked ‘toys’ arrived in San Francisco this week with foot-long millipedes illegally shipped from Germany. No thanks!

Assorted sunflower seeds and seed heads

Making quick work of delicious sunflower seeds

The Long View

The photo below is the long view, taken from my back door looking out on the space where we read. Although close shots are generally more interesting, I find that I’m often curious about the scenery just out of view.

My Garden: The Long View Dear Reader, I wish you were here! This is the view outside my back door. You take two steps down and you land on this patio. Just beyond is our browning grass, born from necessity in our continued drought. The white flowering plant is an Anemone. They’re usually more prolific, but again, the drought. The lovely window painting is at eye level when you’re seated, painted by the talented Whitney Pintello. I wish you could come join me for a cold drink, a hot tea and a chat. Cheers, Alys

Does this interest you, too?

I’m trying to mix it up a little at Gardening Nirvana, hoping to add some zest to the mix. Does the idea of the long view interest you or are you shrugging your shoulders and wondering “what is she thinking?”

Please leave me a comment, below, or take the quick poll.

August 26, 2014 by Born To Organize

Top Ten Reasons to Grow Sunflowers

Sunflowers are a delight in any garden. They do most of their growing up, not out and they don’t require a lot of fuss. They can grow from a seed to as tall as 25 feet (average is six feet) in just ninety days. What’s not to love?

Here are my top ten reasons to grow sunflowers:

1. They’re easy to grow once they germinate. I’ve solved my squirrel-digging problem by covering them with screen savers until the seedlings take root.

Sunflower seeds undercover

2. Sunflowers are bee magnets. We need all the bees we can get. You can read more about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) here.

Bees grace the garden

Bee in flight

3. Mood enhancers. It’s nearly impossible to stroll past a strong, lemon-yellow flower and not smile.

Joy in every bloom

4. Sunflowers are tall. Growing a flower you can look up to is always fun when you’re 5’10” (177 cm).

Six foot sunflowers

5. Bird watching. Lesser Goldfinches like to eat sunflower leaves. They start low on the plant and move up, so apparently the more established leaves are the delicacy. After a few meals, the leaves look like lace.

Lesser Goldfinch and a well-nibbled sunflower leaf

6. Grow your own privacy screen. What’s not to like about a flowering fence/privacy screen to keep things cozy on the front deck?

Grow a summer privacy screen in no time

7. Self-healing. I came home a month ago and found one of the flower heads in my driveway, ‘harvested’ before its time. The plant generated several new flowers half way down the stalk of the plant. That was a nice surprise.

Sunflowers get a second life

8. Free entertainment outside your kitchen window. I parked my camera on the kitchen counter this weekend, ready for my seed-eating guests. Squirrel antics make me smile.

squirrel snacking on sunflowers front deck

The real reason we grow sunflowers

9. Plenty of seeds to share. Each flower head produces hundreds of seeds, leaving plenty for harvesting and roasting, planting and sharing with the birds and squirrels.

May I offer you some seeds?

10. Planting sunflowers gave me an excuse to publish a top-ten list.

Vintage Postage Give-away

Don’t forget to make your requests. My Vintage Postage Give-away ends this Sunday, August 31st, 2014. You can read all the details here.

On the form below please request your first, second and third country of choice. Include your full name and mailing address. That’s it. Click on the list of postage stamp countries to see what’s available:

List of postage stamp countries

Vintage postage issued mid-1937 to mid-1938.

What can you do with a bunch of old postage stamps?

Use them to make mixed-media art
Make a birthday card for someone special
Laminate them in strips and use them for bookmarks
Add them to a scrapbook page
Give them to a child and make up a story to go with them
Celebrate history
Take part in this gardening nirvana blogging adventure.

Please send your request via the contact form, below. I would love it if you joined in the fun.

Go back

Your message has been sent

August 13, 2014 by Born To Organize

A Nesting We Will Go

What do garden swing covers and shower curtains have in common?

Give up?

They’re almost exactly the same size. Serendipity!

After a nesting squirrel did this

Squirrel hard at work

and this

The squirrels have a field day

I knew the swing cover I’d sewn was beyond repair. Eventually I brought in the tattered cover, washed it, and put it in a bag in the car. I planned to use it as a pattern when I got around to making a new one.

The soft cord inside the piping of the cover seemed to be the prize. I cut a strand of leftover cording and draped it on the back of the swing to test my theory. Sure enough, I returned home to find it gone. I took the rest of the cord, cut it into strips, and placed it at the scene of the crime.

There the cord sat. It sat and sat. No more squirrels. Perhaps nesting was complete for the season. Eventually I brought in indoors, figuring I would put it out again next spring. I don’t want to put the time and effort into a new swing cover, only to have it shredded once again.

Sigh. I acted too soon.

A few weeks ago, an anonymous squirrel was at it again. The swing looked bad enough without the cover when this happened.

Shredding the original cover

Fluff and stuff

It was demoralizing staring at the swing in its damaged state, but I couldn’t muster the energy to do much about it.

Well, this past weekend the husband of a friend came to call, all the way from Australia. We planned a coffee and catch up in the garden, and I wanted a quick fix for the unsightly swing.

Backing up a bit, three years ago I bought a brightly colored shower curtain to use as a patio tablecloth. I couldn’t find a cheerful tablecloth at the time nor did I have the time to sew one. Twenty-dollars later a tablecloth was born.

Now it’s getting a second life as an impromptu swing cover. Serendipity!

Quick shower curtain fix

Shower curtain, side and back. I eventually added binder clips to hold it in place.

Although I can’t speak with authority, I expect to see a dray of baby squirrels traversing the wires any day now.

July 3, 2014 by Born To Organize

Caught in the Act!

My apologies to the rats, crows and mice of the neighborhood. You’ve all been unjustly blamed for the damage to my swing cover. Today this brazen squirrel continued her destruction. Here she is: caught in the act!

Gathering nesting material

Let me just put this back for you

She barely looked up when the camera flashed, then went back to the business of chewing. She ran off when I stepped outside. I decided to cut my losses at that point, and pulled out what remained of the soft cord. I draped it along the back of the swing, fairly sure she’d return when I turned my back.

I came back mid-afternoon after a few appointments and there she was again, this time under the swing. She’d pulled the cover half off. Rather than shredding the offered cord, she took the entire length back to her presumed nest. I’m sorry to have missed that photo opportunity.

My swing cover is beyond repair now. Perhaps the ‘silver lining’ is knowing that part of the cover will be keeping tiny squirrels warm and comfortable in a nearby tree.

Enjoying the 4th

Tomorrow is Independence Day in the States. My teenage boys have outgrown the 4th of July parade, so I’ve re-purposed all their 4th of July sparkle. I gathered the ribbons, pinwheels,and other bits of red, white and blue once used to adorn their bikes and added some bling to the garden. Doesn’t the pumpkin patch look festive?

Pumpkins, sunflowers and some 4th of July bling

Patriotic watering can

Fairy garden bling

It’s a funny thing celebrating American Independence Day when you’re a Canadian ex-patriot with a British father. I sometimes feel like a bit of a fraud. So in my heart I’ll celebrate independence for all the citizens of the world. Let freedom ring.

May 22, 2014 by Born To Organize

Sunflowers Under Cover

A few years back, I had to plant my sunflower seeds three times. The first crop, lovingly planted with my son, disappeared. I’m not naming names, but I saw this little fella in the neighborhood around the same time.

Doesn’t he look guilty?

I planted the second batch indoors, then transplanted them, but they were leggy and weak.

Refusing to be outsmarted yet again, I came up with a solution after wandering around the hardware store. I bought small screens, designed to be placed in windows for about $6 a piece. Any money I saved buying seeds instead of starter plants went out the window that year, but since then, they’ve proved to be an investment. I even loaned them to a friend off-season to rabbit-proof one of her plants. You can read my screen saver tutorial here.

This year, I simply planted the seeds and immediately covered them. Within two weeks, they’ve sprouted and grown. Once they’ve set true leaves, I’ll uncover them and off we’ll go.

Screen Savers protect this year’s crop

They’re not pretty, but they get the job done and they are only there temporarily. Mouse keeps a close eye on things.

Screening allows air and water to circulate

Budding sunflowers

I planted two varieties this year, both from Botanical Interests®: Sunflower Snacker and Sunflower Florist’s Sunny Bouquet, both Helianthus annuus (hybrid). The Snackers, planted in the back row, will grow 6′ – 8′ tall (1.8 – 2.4 m). The Florist’s Sunny Bouquet are a shorter variety, reaching 4′ – 5′ tall (1.2 – 1.5 m).

Please pop by again for updates. Meanwhile, how do you outsmart the foragers in your neighborhood?

April 25, 2014 by Born To Organize

When You Garden You’re Never Alone

Though gardening often feels like a solitary activity, I’m never alone for long. Our mostly indoor cats can’t resist the view of me kneeling on the ground. One, two and maybe even three of them will venture out to see what I’m up to.

Thursday, as I planted and pruned, mulched and swept Lindy was on the scene. She sits on the warm stones and keeps an eye on things, moving when I move to other parts of the garden.

Lindy keeps watch

After tending to the basil and tomatoes on one side of the garden, I moved to the fence line to prune the dead growth on my fern. As I stepped down from the rock wall, I heard a loud fluttering. I’m used to the sound of bees and hummingbirds, but this was different. Within seconds of focusing on what looked like a huge moth, a hummingbird swooped down in the same direction.

Oh darn…where is my camera when I need it?

As the hummingbird flew away, the ‘moth’ settled into the clippings of my recently pruned fern. Not wanting to lose track of the visitor, I looked over my shoulder for my camera, then walked backwards to get it. Camera in hand I attempted multiple shots of the wings in flight. That thing moved fast! It zipped around the garden, plant to plant and finally disappeared behind the flax.

Hovering moth

Moth at rest

Now I’m full of questions. What was that winged visitor? Was it food for the hummingbird or prey? Was it just a coincidence that they flew at each other, before they both moved away? Where is my backyard manual when I need it?

I finally managed a few shots, then continued with my work. That’s when a squirrel in the pine tree started telling me off. It isn’t a sound you can ignore. I made my cluck-cluck-clucking sound but he wasn’t impressed. There was nothing left to do but take his picture and walk away.

Garden patrol

As I packed up my tools and readied for my appointments, I tried to imagine things from their perspective. They spend far more time in the garden than I do. Suddenly a middle-aged red-head with long green gloves and sharp tools is bobbing up and down among the plants. I am the interloper, not them.

Lindy was back inside by now, preferring the soft rug and the cooler temps. Or, maybe she took the hint. The moth and hummingbird were probably working as a team, hoping to chase me off. When that didn’t work, the squirrel started shouting from the tree tops: “Can’t you take a hint?”

Excellent team work. I wonder if they think they’re rid of me for good?

Have you ever been told off by a squirrel?

January 17, 2014 by Born To Organize

Sunbathing in January

Cats loathe the rain. Conversely, they love the sun. Though our freakishly warm temps are anything *but* normal, they’re okay with it. They’ve been sunbathing in the garden and generally loving life.

Winter shadows, summer temps

Beijing faces the sun

Squirrels have hunkered down in other parts of the country. Not around here. This little fella is soaking up some rays from the comfort of a neighboring pine tree. I love the way he drapes his tail across his back for extra warmth.

Catching some rays

Apparently the spinner of this web is on walkabout. All that sun went to her head. Of course I didn’t linger long in-case she tapped me on the shoulder to prove me otherwise.

I wonder where she is?

What do cats, squirrels and spiders have in common?

Stealth mode. They can hold completely still, then move at lightening speed when the mood (or the meal) strikes. You can drop that little piece of trivia at your next cocktail party.

We’ve been so long without rain now that even the rain-haters are talking about it. Meanwhile, critters everywhere are stocking up on Vitamin D.

Have a terrific weekend. Wishing you seasonally appropriate weather in your special place in the world.