Look who turned two today!

Oh Ben, you’re the most precious little grandson.  At two you’re a bundle of energy, playing with anything with wheels, chasing your sister, riding with P-Pa on the golf cart constantly when you visit and giggling at everything.  You’re such a little charmer, you wrinkle your little nose and that cute little grin is just the best!  Time passes so quickly, I treasure every visit and I’m so blessed to have this special little child to love.  

Happy Birthday Mr. Ben, you bring such joy to our family and brighten our days with your sweet, sunny disposition.   XOXO ~ Grammie

The Hundred Foot Journey

 

I struggle with movies, but who doesn’t.   It’s so hard to find something that interests me at this age.  I loved The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, now they’ve finished filming The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, so apparently others liked it as well.  Anything that has Dame Judi Dench in it is a must see for me!  Oh, I can’t leave out The Quartet with Maggie Smith, it was awesome, too.

And this summer, The Hundred Foot Journey looks interesting.  Can’t quite get over Helen Mirren with a french accent, but the woman is a wonderful actress.  Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, love the Brits, they do it so well!

Hubby will watch any movie as long as there is popcorn, sounds like a good date night to me….

And if you just want to sit on the couch at watch Netflix, here are a couple of possibilities for you.  Joan Plowright, another great english actress in Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is wonderful, and Enchanted April is an absolutely visual delight.

A few of my plants in the garden...

These coneflowers are a combination of bright orange and hot pink.  They’re Monrovia’s Sundown “Big Sky Series"

And this is  “Supreme Cantaloupe" my buddy V’s favorite.  And yes, I know it’s out of focus, it’s the only picture I took of it.

I have pink phlox, I’m not sure of the variety, but the color just pops, it’s so bright.

Roosters are everywhere here at Shady Acres, inside, outside, can I have too many?  My favorite, "Gorgeous George” sits  by the front door and this little guy, fondly named “Cluck Norris”  is tucked between the lariope and the Baby Gem Boxies.  I’ll be glad when Cluck ages out more, he’s only a year old, and the concrete is still green.   I like concrete statues to look like they’ve been around forever.

It was getting dark when I took these pictures last night, and this is just a very few of my plants, I’ll post more when they bloom.

Our Cottage Garden...

The way it was….

The way it is now...

I love cottage gardens, I love walking thru a garden pathway to the front door, and I’ve dreamed of doing this for several years now.  We live in a condominium community, a couple of the newer condo’s have landscaped pathways to their entrance and I think the look is so inviting.

Last week was lovely, temperatures in the high 70’s - lower 80’s, low humidity, it was the kind of week that made you just want to do something outdoors.  We got permission from the board to add to our landscaping, and since hubby isn’t as young as he used to be, Wendee and her crew that do an amazing job with yard maintenance for part of the development did the difficult prep for us.  Tuesday she cut out the sod with a sod cutter, Wednesday she rotitilled in the nutrients, and brought in some rocks, meanwhile hubby and I were scouring all the local garden centers for plants, which wasn’t easy this time of the year, these projects are usually done early spring or late fall.  My buddy V gave me lots of tips, I found plants that I really liked, and Thursday LC planted, then Friday he mulched, and in just three days  our entrance had a dramatic change.

I’m really happy with how it turned out, and we were able to incorporate my 35 year old little boy sitting on a turtle fountain into it.  Wendee and Larry dragged the boxwood in the clay pot from the patio and voila we have the beginning of our cottage garden.  Now the fun begins, watching it grow and I’ll post some individual pictures later to give you some idea of the plants we chose.

It was a busy week here at Shady Acres, and I’m a really happy camper with the way it turned out...

Update:  It looks like the butterflies, hummingbirds and bumble bee’s have found my garden already, that didn’t take long at all.  They are happily flitting around checking everything out this afternoon...