Purple and Pink Flowers

Posted on by capentalc

This week I was excited to see some of my purple and pink flowers bloom. It’s been a few weeks now since I’ve seen major developments in my garden. For those who know me, I grow a lot of purple and pink flowers. Love them to death! They are two of my favorite colors.

I am particularly excited that this clematis finally flowered again. I have such bad luck growing clematis. I have six clematis plants but I never seem to get a big flush of blooms like I’ve seen on other sites. In fact, this one below is the second to bloom in a looooooong time. This is the ” General Sikorski ” clematis that I’ve had for a couple of years and it has been coming back every year. Flowers are truly vibrant as pictured but so far JUST ONE.

Morning Glory Tree

I am so in LOVE with this tree. I planted it in front of my rain barrel to disguise it. It has the most beautiful mix of purple-pink flowers I have EVER seen! It blooms profusely since mid spring. Every time I look out my patio door and see this, it reminded me that God blessed me with this beautiful tree. It has grown to about 3 feet tall since I first planted it earlier this spring. It was about 14 inches in the beginning. I hope it will survive all year here.

Opus Aster

These were grown from seeds and just started blooming. These took a really long time to grow. I’ve grown them since early spring and it is only about 7 inches tall, to be fair, it is growing in terrible clay soil with only a few hours of sunlight. I worry moving it now may hurt it. I love the delicate pink color so much.

Gomphrena “Carmine”

This beautiful purple flower is also known as a globe amaranth but I think it is a hybrid and not your typical straight up gomphrena. I adore the shape and colors of this plant. It is usually a 2 feet tall upright stem with bright and cheerful purple colors like pictured. Gomphrena is one of my new top favorite plants.

I’m not quite sure but I strongly believe this is also a gomphrena. It just looks so much like a strawflower, which I was growing at the same time but I lost the plant label so I have no idea.

Gerbera Daisies

These flowers of mine loves to grow in a pot. I tried growing them in the ground and they were miserable. I potted them up and they love an every-other-day deep watering in the hot summer sun. They bloom profusely. I think I have finally discovered the secret of growing gerbera daisies in containers!

Geranium “Lord Bute”

This is the prettiest color of all geraniums! I think these plants are probably older than my 16 year old son! It has been in my garden for so long and it has stretched out all over in a semi-shady spot along the side of my house. I love the colors in this. Every once in a while it blooms unique white and purple flowers too like the ones you see below. It doesn’t seem to be picky about soil and doesn’t stink like some geraniums. I dislike growing geraniums that are stinky.

Gladiolus

This gladiolus is a beautiful pastel purple. I’ve never seen anything with such a nice color blue purple like this before. I love these but it is growing in a very bad area and hasn’t produced as many bulbs as it should by now. I will have to dig it up and put it somewhere in the yard this fall.

Ok, I will stop gushing about my flowers for now and let you go enjoy your weekend. Remember, if you are feeling down, look to a flower or garden nearby to remind you that God is near and those flowers are probably blooming for you 🙂

Aza Pendant

Posted on by capentalc

I made myself another pendant last Sunday. I needed a pendant with silver and pink colors to go with some of my outfits so ergo the Aza pendant in this post. I got the free pendant pattern from beadsmagic.com. Lately I’ve been into make pendants because they are quick projects that I can do in an hour or so. I used to make rings too but then I realized rings bother me sometimes when I wear them. It feels too constrictive.

Just for fun, I will post some pictures of the rings I’ve made at the bottom of the page.

This pendant has 11/0 silver seed, Czech bicone, and SuperDuo beads. Instead of using Nymo beading thread which is thin and will make the pendant wimpy, I opted to use the 6 lb. Fireline beading thread which is a bit stiffer so it will make my pendant more firm and sturdy. I have black seed beads in this tray because I was flirting with the idea of making a black and silver pendant too.

Pictured below are all of the rings that I’ve made. Some are better looking than others. Some were earlier projects and I didn’t make it so well or chose wrong color beads for the projects. They are really pretty though.

Funny story, a long time ago I sent a friend a picture of me wearing one of my beaded bracelets, all my friend said was how dry my wrist was. So, for this picture I made sure my hands were well lubricated to present my rings properly. Nice, eh?

Ok that’s all I have today. I want to show you other pendants I’ve made in the past but I would need to find out the names of them. Some are a lot more elaborate than this Aza pendant. More for next time. Bye for now!

Update on Epiphyllums

Posted on by capentalc

I have been MIA (missing in action) for almost three weeks. I don’t know why I was gone from blogging. I think I just needed a little break from working so hard in the garden and on blogging. I just reached my three years anniversary of blogging this August. I think every year when I am prompted by WordPress to renew my plan I seem to stall a bit trying to figure out if I should do one more year. I do this every year, asking myself if it’s worth continuing. I have a very small number of followers and I don’t have a lot of time to invest in learning about WP and all its functions to attract more visitors.

Lately, I feel like I have been stretched to the limit trying to do everything my heart desires ALL AT ONCE. Yes, that’s how I do things. I feel tired from trying so hard. Anyway, WP took the decision away from me and automatically renewed me for another year! I will say though I am ALLOWING them to do that because I didn’t cancel it. I decided I could go for another year again and see how I feel next August. Who knows maybe I’ll try another platform.

Anyway, I think one of the other reasons I didn’t blog because my garden is a bit drabby these past few weeks. The summer heat has been pretty hot and scorched my grass and flowers. Many of my plants are struggling to stay alive so they didn’t produce a whole lot of flowers like years before. I do have a few flowers to share but I will save them for last.

I do want to show you my epiphyllums now though. Last September I talked about my epiphyllums.  This post is an update on them now.  I don’t expect them to flower yet since they have not outgrown their pots and they are fairly small.  I hope by next spring they will flower.

They are all still in the previous containers as I heard that epiphyllums will likely bloom if their roots are tightly packed in their containers.  They are gangly and one of them toppled a couple of times. I know this post would be better if it was a before and after format but for some reason I cannot set WP to let me post pics side by side. I don’t have time to figure it out.

There was some damage to the branches since I had to leave them in the hot, hot sun for a few days in February.

Overall, they are doing fine. New growth here and there. I can’t wait to see what colors they are because I bought one of those “surprise” mix on Ebay. 

Below are some of the flowers blooming right now.

Morning glory tree
Picasso calla lillies
Alstroemeria “Ariane”

These beautiful, buttery yellow daturas are so cute! I grew these from seeds early this spring. I love the double layers and delicate edges of the petals. It is only 10 inches tall and it was already flowering.

Datura “Ballerina Yellow”
No ID lily
Verbascum “Artic Summer”

Well, that’s all for now. I hope you have a nice weekend wherever you are. Here, in Southern California we are expecting hot temperatures of 90+ Fahrenheit.