Tuesday, May 29, 2007

back to the dog vomit slime mold...

After a week it looked like this. It appears that the snails have trod (slod?)over it a time or two also.
When water is poured on it it "smokes". Clouds of chocolaty brown spoore(S?) waft up. I don't know why it (the slime mold) only pops up here and there, willy nilly. It seems to appear on decaying wood chips and /or compost piles but not always. I have not been able to determine a pattern to its sudden appearance. This photo is of an older specimen than the one above. (oi! what a lousy sentence is that! Spelling has gone to heck in a hand basket too. I'm blaming it on an hour's worth of mowing this evening followed by a biggish bowl of ice cream. I think I'll go to bed now. urgh.)
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Monday, May 28, 2007

more on the "odd" pots

If only I knew what I was doing with this blog. These were supposed to be published with the next post down.........
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Raley's odd colored pots

Ok. So maybe they aren't "odd", just 1950-ish. Of course I had to buy one of each color to test my skills of matching plants to pots. The pink pot was done first and photo posted. Then the orange pot called to me and ended up with Million bells and some coleus in it. This past week it was the green AND the blue pot insisting that they come home with me. Good thing there aren't any more colors! The blue pot contains a little "Hadspin blue" Hosta. The green pot is the home for a Diascia "Flying Colors Apricot" and a Coleus "Stained Glassworks" trailing plum.
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Sunday, May 20, 2007

lucious lilies

I bought this one at the much maligned Home Depot recently. It just begged to come home with me. My plant-a-holic friend sort of rolled her eyes but didn't try to talk me out of it. (she was thinking; "You dummie. You bought that same one last year.) It has bloomed and bloomed and bloomed over the past several weeks and it isn't done yet!
THIS one, I bought LAST year but of course, had forgotten what color it was. My friend said "I'm pretty sure its just like the one you bought a few weeks ago." (yes, she was rolling her eyes again!) :>) She really is pretty patient with me. But golly, how could you not want more of them? They are splendiferous!














Today I had to stop at HD to get more string for the weed-whacker. This yellow lily leapt off the shelf, wrapped its fat buds around my neck and begged to come home with me. What else could I do but comply? There was also a pale, pale peachy one whispering to me but I managed to escape without it.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007

dog vomit and odd colored pots

By evening of the day the slime mold began creeping across the sidewalk, it was no longer such a pretty mass of yellow but looking more like its name. Now, several days later, it sends up great clouds of chocolate brown spoores (Spoor? sheep=sheeps?) when blasted with a stream of water. Interesting stuff. I remember the first time I spotted this stuff on Mom's compost pile. Without sniffing and going solely on looks, I thought the neighbor's cat had diarrhea. Many times. In many places.
Raley's grocery store offered up quite a collection of inexpensive pots this spring. I kept looking at the Pepto Pink and the Tomato Soup Orange ones and wondering what on earth could be planted in them that wouldn't look like well, dog vomit. So of course I had to buy the smallest versions and play with the palette of plants at the nurseries. Actually, that's not quite true. My friend and I did find the cool pink & green sedum at Home Depot before I fell victim to another bout of pot-headedness. (I woke up in the middle of the night thinking "Isn't it morning yet?? I HAVE to go buy that PINK POT!")

The orange pot was purchased first and then taken to Windmill Nursery whereupon I decided on the Million Bells. I already had the coleus.

Its a wonder that I didn't also buy the pale blue, and the 1950's kitchen appliance green pots. And wasn't there yet another ghastly color?
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Woo-hoo!!

Oh my goodness! Don't tell me that this is gonna work?!
More purple. One might think that I have a totally purple garden
but there are orange sections and yellow sections and oh yes, the white garden. Green too. Green is good. Lotsa green. Parts of this yard appear to be jungle. Luckily no flying monkeys have been heard or spotted. No lions, tigers, or bears either. Deer and opossums and raccoons, yes. My mother once even found a naked woman cavorting in the back yard. And no, it wasn't me.
It has been a bumper crop year for the clematis vines. Unfortunately, I can't recall the names of either of these two nor can I access the page they're on while this page is up...their names ARE there.
Maybe, if I can remember how to edit...



This perky yellow sidewalk adornment goes by the lovely name of Dog Vomit Slime Mold.
Aren't you glad I shared that with you? It was just a few yellow flecks in the Mondo grass one evening and became this almost scary growth by the next morning. By evening it had hardened, and smoothed over making it look more like a loaf of bread that failed to rise. Now it looks totally disgusting.
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purply purple!

Let's see if I can get this thing to work. I see a photo to the left...that's a good start.
I have not been blogging because the blogger elves have been being naughty..it doesn't take much to perplex this user. So, with that said...let me hit "publish" and see what happens.
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