June - Roses and Weddings

June.........So many dreams come true now - roses bloom, bouquets are tossed, sweet music fills the air.........

 

 

 

 

June is National Rose Month.  In honor of that, I was asked by the Orlando Area Historical Rose Society to put fresh roses from my garden in a local library - Oviedo, Fl. This is the first of at least three bouquets which I will donate throughout June, along with some from two other members. This is my favorite rose bouquet that I have ever made!

 

 

 

My society grows and promotes the growing of antique roses.

 

 

 

My bushes cooperated and I had plenty to make a nice arrangement. June is also a special time of brides and the satin "sleeve" I made to slip over the vase fits in with both themes. 

 

 

 

Lucas Nursery donated a pot of Drift roses for our display.

 

 

 

I love the very close-up shots where you can also see the tiny buds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This contains six different types of roses - Old Blush, La Marne, G. Nabannon, Marie Van Houte,  Pink Pet and Clair Matin.

 

 

 

 

 

Marry when June roses blow - over land and seas you'll go - wedding superstition

 

 

 

This is the small wedding I worked on Monday for DestinationOccasion.com. These roses are not from my garden.

 

 

It was threatening rain but, held off, thank heavens.

 

 

 

 

Some day my prince will come, too!

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May all your June dreams come true.

 

Linked to Mockingbird Hill Cottage - A favorite thing #40 

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http://www.destinationoccasion.com/

Near the Mossy Bench............

...............One of my favorite places in the backyard is the area where my old mossy bench sits.  I liked it even better before two trees, that were located just behind the bench, died. One was a tall slender tree and the other one was short and bushy.  Together they made the bench area private, not showing at all from the side street.

 

I love this old moss covered bench! It is too weak to trust sitting on and the wood cannot last very much longer. I will miss the old wood when it must be replaced.

 

Early morning is my favorite time to set up the little table for a simple but special breakfast under the trees. I know some of these pictures are on the dark side but, they portray the look I see here.

 

 

The area is found just a few steps down this path and within sight of my back porch door. To the back of the table you will notice a very large camphor tree trunk with sprouts growing out of it.

 

 

Another view from the street side.

 

 

 

So, I have already gathered up most of what is needed (except for the food) and brought it out in one of my favorite baskets.

 

 

 

 

The basket is metal with an attached wooden rim and handle.

 

 

The rooster plate and mug are very suitable for early morning, just as the sun is rising.  Notice the moss on the bench in the background as it is being lit by the sun. I see three pine cones which have landed on it to give it more woodsy character.

 

 

You can see that I brought an extra set of silverware out and will grab the other things needed if you can hurry on over to join me!

 

 

I cut some fresh flowers for a quick arrangement to pretty up our table.

 

 

My agapanthus, one of my favorite flowers,  is finally blooming. It's common name is Lily of the Nile.  Mine is always a few weeks later than what I see blooming around town. 

 

I might have chosen some roses but, am saving all of those for a special arrangement I am making to 

   go in the local library tomorrow.  It might be the subject of my next post.   

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Linked to A Favorite thing - Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Garden Journal...........

.........I thought of something that some of you might be interested in seeing. I am still feeling pretty lousy (shingles), and this post will take less time for me to get ready than others do. It contains a good bit of reading which is already written and on pictures. Are you a gardener? Do you keep a garden journal? I have several and just love having them and enjoy the process, too.

 

This is my latest one which is done in scrapbook style, in a dark green, loose-leaf binder. Before I show you some of the pages I would like for you to read a short article I wrote a couple of years ago for my rose society's newsletter. I really hope you can see the words easily. I have a large screen monitor and can read it without trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

After reading this again, I can see a few places where some editing would improve it but, there is no way to edit words on a picture.

 

 

Verdure means: green, growing things. I glued (rubber cement) a sheet of decorative paper over the binder front. Then printed out these words, cut them in the shape of the green label and glued it to the front of my binder.

 

 

This is the first page. More decorative paper glued to a page of cardstock. Most all the pages in this journal is cardstock with whatever I chose to glue on it. I punched the three holes after front and back were finished. The white square is also cardstock that I printed the words on and then glued to the "frame" which was already on the paper. You notice that I cut out around some of the flowers and leaves and slipped the square underneath.

 

 

I had saved many gardening themed calendars over the years and boy, did they come in handy for this project! I also made use of my sticker collection, tags saved from plants, little tags I made, like this one sticking out of the pocket made from a little seed package.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the quote written around the bird picture. The quote just above, "as is the gardener, such is the garden" is a similar thought to one in my journal article - you will probably journal in the same manner as you garden.

 

 

The wildflower didn't make it!

 

The picture above is a card and you will see that I attached a little loop of ribbon with a staple.

 

This is what you see when you lift the front of the card.

 

 

 

Depicting one of my favorite experiences in the garden.

 

 

This is a page-size envelope with the back side up.  I just punched the three holes and put it in the binder. Of course I couldn't waste all that white space so glued a picture of one of the desired plants from the list. I never did get this plant. The envelope is handy to insert loose notes, seed packs, plant tags or whatever.

 

 

Something else I made use of a lot is lined note pad pages. You might recognize the little wheelbarrow tag from Michael's $1 bins. Oh, yeah, they are now $1.50. I have Tons of this kind of thing and it pays to gather up as many possible supplies as you can before you start to do this type of journaling.

 

 

This page has a little bit of rubber stamping on it - the birdcage and bird eggs at the top and the green dragonfly, just above.

 

 

Well, this is more than enough to give you the idea of the way I like to journal. I have gotten bogged down and haven't been journaling lately but, maybe doing this will inspire me to get back to it! I would love to hear that you have been inspired to start journaling! Let me know.

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Linking to Common Ground Be Inspired

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Linking to Sunny Simple Life - From the Farm

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Linking to Mockingbird Hill Cottage - A Favorite Thing

 

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I was getting so much spam in my comments that I changed the settings. I hope you can still make it work. It really means a lot to bloggers to hear from their readers!!  I can now review all comments before publishing. The spam was from people who were leaving stupid remarks which wouldn't apply to this blog, and would then direct us to their blogs, several of which had porn names.

 

  Due to having shingles, it will be a while before I am able to do a new post. 

 

Wordless Wednesday.....

.......Wordless Wednesday in my garden...........