Caught this bumblebee taking in the sights and nectar of  Baptisia sphaerocarpa in my garden. Nature never ceases to amaze me, but instead, wows me again and again. I grow several baptisias after seeing them grown so well in Chicago when I went there for the Garden Bloggers' Fling in 2009. In my garden, it's taken three years for the false indigos to take off. I believe this is the fourth spring for this false indigo. Since then, I've added a blue one from Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery, B. Midnite Prairieblues™. It is a lovely shade of dark blue, but is taking a very long time to thrive here. I don't know why. After seeing a huge clump of 'Purple Smoke' in a friend's garden, I planted a four inch pot two years ago. It is very pretty and beginning to bloom in earnest this spring. It's really much more purple than...

Oh, how I wish you could visit this spring. We could stroll through my garden with clippers in hand, and I would cut you a bouquet. You would smell roses, peonies and iris, along with the heady, clove scent of the dianthus because I grow several kinds. Never have the roses been lovelier. Even a little blackspot can't mar the view. Because the spring temperatures have been so cooperative without too much heat, I've sprayed a bit of EcoSmart Organic fungicide I bought somewhere. It has rosemary oil as the fungicide with insecticidal soap as the sticking agent, and I'm not sure it will be effective, but I'm willing to give it a try. I could also spray some Neem oil which might help as a bit of fungicide and a natural miticide for those nasty beasties. I rarely spray because horticultural oils are generally a problem in our hot...

Of the Fiskars family of garden helpers, the PowerGear® tools are my favorites. When Fiskars gave me the opportunity to give away anything I wanted from the PowerGear® line, I chose the following: Item: 377363-1002, UltraBlade® PowerGear® Bypass Pruner; I don't have these, but I'd enjoy them. Hint, hint Fiskars! Item 7937, PowerGear® Bypass Pruner; I use a pair of these everyday; Item 9619, PowerGear® 17 Inch Bypass Loppers; okay, this is my best tool for getting into those tricky rose pruning jobs. They are just the right size, and I don't get scratched as often. For bigger jobs, I like Item 9632, the 27-inch,PowerGear® Bypass loppers; and Finally, Item 9619,PowerGear® Hedge Shears, which are new to me this year, but I use them for trimming decorative grasses and cutting back perennial herbs among other things. At retail, this prize package is worth approximately $178.00. To win these cool tools,...

Once, I saved dish towels and aprons in a hope chest and fantasized about my future home. Nothing fancy. Instead, it was always a cottage adorned by fragrant, climbing roses. Not very original I know . . . . How many girls who read Regency romances don't dream of a rose-covered cottage and picket fence with two cats in the yard. Books have been written, and songs composed about such. So many that some girlish fantasies come with a heady aroma tinged in rosey hue. Mine did anyway. In Oklahoma, the land of prairie and sun, this dream of mine was not very practical, and my personal exterior displays a very practical girl usually clad in blue jeans, t-shirt and tennis shoes. If you met me, you would wonder where the dreamy artist is, but my inner life is full of fanciful notions. On an ill-fated vacation in Missouri when...