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30 Day Challenge Barbie's garden Gardening Miscellaneous

The 30 Day Challenge – Day 2

The days come and go too quickly for me, so I am grateful today for time.

With time I can hold a flower in my hand and relish it or I can sit and watch the rain and not feel rushed or that I have to be somewhere. Time is so precious for us all and I make the most of all the time I have on this planet. Time is what we seem to always chase, so I try to capture it by moments……

 

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The 30 Day Challenge – Day 6

Today I am grateful that gardening allows me to be creative. My beloved grandfather was a talented and prolific artist and it has often bothered me throughout my life that I never cultivated the artist in me. I stopped drawing at some stage and today find it difficult to draw even a simple stick man (ok, that might be an exaggeration, but as I child I could draw and paint. Well. That is something I cannot do today).

But in the garden I can pretend to be an artist! I can be creative and “design” garden beds, I pair different plants for effect, prune shrubs to shapes that appeal … often the results of my gardening creativity are questionable, but I’m learning to be creative in my garden and for that I am grateful.

Japanes Anemone

Photo: Japanese anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’. I simply love this easy-to-grow plant which rewards me in my shaded garden with a wonderful display of these gorgeous white blooms dancing high above the plants foliage in late summer to early autumn.

‘Honorine Jobert’ is a vigorous, fibrous-rooted, mounding, compact Japanese anemone hybrid cultivar which typically grows to 3-4′ tall and spreads by creeping rhizomes. Single flowers (2-3″ diameter) with 6-9 overlapping white petaloid sepals and yellow center stamens appear on long, wiry-but-graceful, branching stems over an attractive foliage mound of trifoliate dark green leaves.

About the 30 Day Challenge

Cat of The Whimsical Gardener, has invited Garden Bloggers the world over to join her in the 30 day challenge of posting a photograph and sentiment that you are thankful for – every day for 30 days. Find something you are thankful for every day, for 30 days, can’t be too difficult, can it? See all my posts filed under “30 Day Challenge“.

 

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The 30 Day Challenge – Day 5

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to “play in the dirt” and be a child again. Who would have thought that I’d transform from “perfectly groomed” to “I don’t give a …”? Had you told me ten years ago I would get such satisfaction from getting dirt under my nails, mud streaked across my face and standing in doggie-do, I would have laughed at you and said “Not me, never!”. But gardening has re-introduced me to my inner-child – the child that loved playing outdoors and getting dirty. It’s fun, its therapeutic and immensely rewarding when it produces a garden to delight in.

And the dirt? It washes off silly! Just as it did when I was a kid …

Babiana stricta

Photo: Babiana, or “baboon flower”, another gorgeous South African native that I tried for the first time this year. This one really surprised me – none of the photographs quite prepared me for the beauty of the actual bloom. I would describe it as an “unassuming plant” – the leaves are quite ordinary, nothing special but when it flowers … well it knocked my socks off! The little blooms seen through the lens of a camera were something special to behold!

Babiana stricta or baboon flower comes from the Western Cape, South Africa, and is among the best-known species of Babiana, the one used most often as an ornamental plant. It is included in the Iridaceae family, Crocoideae subfamily. There are many hybrids and forms with different colored flowers, usually blue or pink with white additions. In mid to late spring, each flowering stem produces six or more blooms, each to 2 inches across. They are collected in an inflorescence and have a pleasant scent similar to lemon.

About the 30 Day Challenge

Cat of The Whimsical Gardener, has invited Garden Bloggers the world over to join her in the 30 day challenge of posting a photograph and sentiment that you are thankful for – every day for 30 days. Find something you are thankful for every day, for 30 days, can’t be too difficult, can it? See all my posts filed under “30 Day Challenge“.

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The 30 Day Challenge – Day 4

Today I am grateful that gardening distracts me from the “noise” of life. Everything seemingly blocked out while I focus on the garden chores at hand, no other outdoor past-time has afforded me this form of escapism from the daily grind. I didn’t start to garden with this in mind, I now acknowledge it as a beneficial “side-effect” of gardening, a surprise really, as I had thought that gardening would be the ideal time during which to contemplate … but when I garden, the “noise” in my head is quietened without effort – and for that I am grateful.

Agapanthus

Photo: Agapanthus. Another wonderful indigenous (native) plant I have growing in my garden is Agapanthus, which is commonly known as “Lily of the Nile”.

Agapanthus is not a lily, and all of the species are native to South Africa from the cape to the Limpopo River. According to Wikipedia, species boundaries are not clear in the genus, and in spite of having been intensively studied, the number of species recognized by different authorities varies from 6 to 10. The type species for the genus is Agapanthus africanus. A great many hybrids and cultivars have been produced and they are cultivated throughout warm areas of the world

About the 30 Day Challenge

Cat of The Whimsical Gardener, has invited Garden Bloggers the world over to join her in the 30 day challenge of posting a photograph and sentiment that you are thankful for – every day for 30 days. Find something you are thankful for every day, for 30 days, can’t be too difficult, can it? See all my posts filed under “30 Day Challenge“.

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30 Day Challenge Barbie's garden Gardening Home page features Miscellaneous

The 30 Day Challenge – Day 1

Even though it is already the 5th of November, it is my 1st Day of the 30 Day Challenge.

I am grateful for my feathered friends!

It was hard to chose the first thing I am grateful for, so I selected what was for me precious and amazing TODAY! Well, needless to say, that the birds in my garden delight me and entertain me and keep me human. They always remind me that I must stay present in the moment and enjoy what I have now. Life is delicate and fragile and precious and we need to remember this, so I am grateful for this. I am also grateful to my chickens who are my companions in the garden. xxx

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The 30 Day Challenge – Day 3

Today I am grateful for the beauty and ease of growing native or indigenous plants in my garden. After planting mainly non-natives or exotics in my garden, this spring I “accidentally” discovered the beauty of and ease with which indigenous plants grow and flourish in my garden – a valuable lesson learned and one I’ll recommend to all newbie-gardeners. Exotics are of course great, but if you don’t have the greenest of fingers, planting indigenous flowering plants in your garden that are suited to your growing conditions is a sure recipe for success – wonderful blooms and foliage with minimum fuss!

Indigeneous Ixias

Photograph: Ixias. See my original post on Ixias that “converted” me from gardening with exotics to including more and more native plants in my garden.

The genus Ixia consists of a number of cormous plants native to South Africa from the Iridaceae family and Ixioideae subfamily. Some of them are known as the corn lily. Some distinctive traits include the sword-like leaves, and long wiry stems with star-shaped flowers. The popular corn lily has a specific, not very intense fragrance (Wikipedia says it smells like vegetables, I don’t agree!). The Ixia are also used sometimes as ornamental plants. The genus name is derived from the Greek words ixias, meaning “the chameleon plant”, and physis, meaning “bladder”.

About the 30 Day Challenge

Cat of The Whimsical Gardener, has invited Garden Bloggers the world over to join her in the 30 day challenge of posting a photograph and sentiment that you are thankful for – every day for 30 days. Find something you are thankful for every day, for 30 days, can’t be too difficult, can it? See all my posts filed under “30 Day Challenge“.

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30 Day Challenge Christine's garden

The 30 Day Challenge – Day 2

Today I am thankful for the changing of seasons. With each new season come new gardening opportunities, new growth, and for me – growth and new knowledge as a gardener.

Iceberg Roses
Photo: Iceberg Rose. First introduced in Germany in 1958, Iceberg is a very popular, white rose. It is a shrub that can be trained as a standard or tree form. Iceberg is an outstanding, free flowering white rose with lovely foliage that makes an excellent hedge or standard. The Iceberg Rose is one of the most popular rose varieties because of its vigorous growth and prolific flowering habit.

About the 30 Day Challenge

Cat of The Whimsical Gardener, has invited Garden Bloggers the world over to join her in the 30 day challenge of posting a photograph and sentiment that you are thankful for – every day for 30 days. Find something you are thankful for every day, for 30 days, can’t be too difficult, can it? See all my posts filed under “30 Day Challenge“.

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30 Day Challenge Christine's garden Home page features

The 30 Day Challenge – Day 1

So I’m running a few days behind, but here we go … One of my favourite Garden Bloggers is Cat of The Whimsical Gardener – Cat has invited Garden Bloggers the world over to join her in the 30 day challenge of posting a photograph and sentiment that you are thankful for – every day for 30 days. Think about it – to find something you are thankful for every day, for 30 days, can’t be too difficult, can it? (I’m adding another layer to MY 30 day challenge – My daily photo will be of a different bloom from my garden every day for the next 30 days …

Day 1:

Today I am wildly thankful to my garden for its forgiving nature. I’ve made mistakes a plenty, and the garden forgives and forgets … and as I correct my “gardening blunders”, the garden picks right up where it left off and rewards me with wonderful growth and blooms. For that I am grateful.

Gaura lindheimeri

Photo: Gaura lindheimeri – Gaura lindheimeri (Lindheimer’s Beeblossom, White Gaura, Pink Gaura, Lindheimer’s Clockweed) is a species of Gaura native to southern Louisiana and Texas. I chose this photo today in honour of Cat as she gardens in Austin, Texas. I LOVE Gaura in my garden – when I see the gorgeous blooms I always think they are a bit “whimsical”, a bit like Cat 🙂

whimsical (adjective)
1. spontaneously fanciful or playful
2. given to whims; capricious
3. quaint, unusual, or fantastic

About the 30 Day Challenge:

What inspired Cat to start this 30 day challenge? A pretty cool video that might inspire you if you watch it, as it inspired me … See her original blog post about it here. Then join us – its easy and fun. A photo and thought a day …