MouseGarden

Thursday 17 September 2020

Plants of 2020

Mouse September 17, 2020 0 Comments

This year some plants really stood out.

One of my current favourites is the Oriental poppy (Papaver orientalis) which is usually red, but this one is known as Royal Wedding, and is white with a tiny tinge of pink, and the center is dark purple. This one bloomed in June, but for some reason it has decided to throw out a bloom in September as well. They have really large blooms that don't last long, but they are spectacular.

Very dramatic, these poppies don't like hot weather very much but they do like sun. At some point I should photograph the seed pods.

Another I really like is the Gold Heart Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis). Most Bleeding Hearts have green foliage but this one is kind of yellow green. It makes pretty much anything in front of it look great. The flowers are the usual pink.

This bleeding heart is at the centre of a long flower bed. In the Spring it had tulips in front of it. People call it gold, but it has a certain lime green quality.

Red and White Tulips with Gold Bleeding Heart

It looked good till August, when there were periods of extremely hot weather. On a side note, I really like the contrasts it makes possible.

Friday 3 July 2020

Gardening and A New Way to Deal with Slugs

Mouse July 03, 2020 0 Comments

I've been gardening. Last year I battled slugs for my sunflower bed and mostly lost. I still achieved flowers but my leaves looked like Swiss cheese.

This year, I have a new tactic, which I will share.

I am not a fan of poisons, mostly because there is a fair bit of wildlife around, plus the occasional cat. Last year I tried sneaking out at night and hand picking slugs, which was not very effective, and disgusting, though I see a skunk one night in the rain...As far as I can tell, he wasn't interested in slugs at all.

This year: LETTUCE.

You wash a leaf of lettuce or two, and you put it between the plants your slugs snack on. Then you let them snack overnight, and you check it in the morning. Most of the time they will be still on or around the lettuce, or underneath. Some days I just leave it there, until it draws a crowd.

When there are enough gathered together I relocate them far away where there is a slug population living under a bush far away from my flowers. No flashlights, no slime, no poison. Pick up the leaf and go. You can stick it inside an old flower pot for transport.

Even though it has rained a lot, I have much less damage to my plants, and I get to easily see how big a slug problem I am facing. They come to me. *evil laughter*

Meanwhile, I put out seeds earlier this year, risking bad weather, and now the seeds are already plants just as the slugs are showing up. Hard rain did crush some baby plants, but mostly it seems all right. I collected seeds last year, mostly pansies and violas, and I have some wildflowers as well, and a few geraniums I grew in the winter.

On the craft front, I'm working on a bunch of new things for my online shop. If I'd known there was going to be a pandemic lockdown, I would have definitely had more supplies! I've been trying some new knitting stitches.

UPDATE:

Worked very well until I um...ran out of lettuce. I tried baby lettuce but they ate it too quickly. They wouldn't eat dandelions (of course not, that would be useful). The heat wave reduced their numbers. I also discovered black beetles are supposed to eat slugs, and some did appear towards August. They hang out underneath pots during the day.

Sunflowers I planted very early were not as affected by slugs as the ones I grew later, which I had to move to pots because it was too hard to keep the slugs off. They much prefer soft young leaves rather than mature ones.

Monday 9 March 2020

Is it Spring?

Mouse March 09, 2020 0 Comments

The temperatures keep going up and down, which resulted in some interesting patterns on a frozen pond.

Really neat.

Lately photographing items outside is challenging now the neighbour's new cat is suddenly interested! I have to do it when he isn't around.

Friday 31 January 2020

Artist Jason Polan Died and I Have Thoughts

Mouse January 31, 2020 0 Comments

I have to admit that until I read the newspaper today I had never heard of Jason Polan.

He had a blog called Every Person in New York.

He had a big goal: to draw everyone in New York.

I would think you could call him a People Watcher. I often see people doing strange things as they go about their daily lives. When he saw interesting things he would draw them. But then he got sick and then he died aged 37, so he can't finish his project. That made me feel sad, because I love people with big dreams like that.

It reminded me of a quote from Matt Smith's Doctor in Doctor Who.

And there was Jason Polan, drawing all of them. Or trying to.

He published a book of 30, 000 of them as a kind of first installment. He also drew art he saw in the Metropolitan Museum of art and published his drawings of that. He had a drawing blog in some publications like The Times. He showed a bit in galleries.

I love how he would tell people to email him if they wanted to be drawn by him in a public location, and how it would take 2 minutes of their time but he asked for 24 hours warning "beacause I may unfortunately miss you and do not want you to have to invest more than 2 minutes of your time in case I cannot make it."

I want to feature interesting artists and things on this blog and Mr. Polan is the first.

The New York Times has an obituary with some photos here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/arts/jason-polan-dead.html

Art can make you look at the 'ordinary' a different way. Maybe there isn't any ordinary, at all.

Monday 27 January 2020

Lime Green Knit Scarf

Mouse January 27, 2020 0 Comments

It's back in stock. I like this one because it makes me think of Spring. It takes a long time to get leaves back where I live. The Spring feeling comes long before the leaves, flowers and warmer weather!

Rib Knit and long enough to wear in a loop.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/506891199/lime-green-hand-knit-scarf-mens-or?ga_search_query=lime&ref=shop_items_search_1&pro=1

Wednesday 22 January 2020

Cream Knit Scarf

Mouse January 22, 2020 0 Comments

This is my newest completed scarf. It's a soft rib knit acrylic.

It can be bought here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/771989465/cream-hand-knit-scarf-mens-scarf-womens?ref=shop_home_feat_3&pro=1

This week I'm having a sale!

The scarf I'm working on now is lime green.

Happy New Year! January brought arctic temperatures for a week, which are thankfully gone now.