*sigh*

*pouts* *grumbles*
I was mowing the lawn yesterday.. and all of a sudden this huge cloud of smoke blows over me, smelled of petrol and cement dust. I had to run inside...
*grumbles* Country fresh air??
Don't mind me.. just getting a little rant out...
*sigh*

Seeds or baby plant swap

I saw a post on "This Garden is Illegal" about seed swapping. I think this is a great idea, and invite anyone to ask me for seeds or baby plants. If you see a plant you like on my blog, and if I can possibly get seeds or some type of propigation from it, you are very welcome to ask!
I hope I can do the same with other people, as I have admired a lot of people's plants and gardens on thier blogs these past few months. Well, no harm in asking.. so maybe you will get a visit from me with a plant or seed request.
Right now I am swamped with several varieties of parsley seeds! But ask for anything!
*hugs* to all you garden bloggers for sharing, it's been a great summer.
Here's my email for those interested: silviasalix@yahoo.co.uk

Pinocchio's Nose chilli peppers

This is the first time I tried growing chili peppers. I was reading BBC's Gardeners World magazine (here's thier website), and Pippa Greenwood had some recomendations. She liked this Pinocchio's Nose one the best. So I thought I would go with this, and see what happened.
Aren't they just weeee! Curly! They must have been designed by Tim Burton!
I don't think they are ripe just yet, as the pic in my seed catalogue shows them being red and dark purple.
This pic is from thompson-morgan website, see all the hot pepper seeds they offer!

planting Rose seeds

Two years ago, I saw an amazing hedge in Germany, edging a parking lot. On a closer look, it turned out to be a rose hedge with giant round red hips. I think it was a rugosa, not really sure.
I picked a hip, and took it home. I broke the hip open, and planted the dozen or so seeds strait into a pot of soil, and forgot about it. Left it outside all winter. Next spring I noticed one of my seedling pots had what I thought were tiny strawberry plants. I transfered them into individual pots, and eventually realised that they were roses! I have a few planted around my garden, my Mom has one of them in her garden now, and there are still 3 in thier pots, see them in the middle of my pic?
So this year I went nuts picking pretty hips from all kinds of roses. And planted seeds from 6 different hips into little pots. (The hips in my pic are googled images, I forgot to take a pic of them, I was in such an excited rush to plant them!!)
I hope they grow!!

Unhidden by faeries

Beans, beans, beans! I was gone for 2 weeks, and when I came back, the beans had taken over! I would have thought the faeries had come and unhid them, or do they really grow that fast? We have been eating beans for dinner every day, and there are still lots more! I have them growing up old Christmas trees, and one tree was leaning severly from the wieght, the beans on the ground were being merrily eaten by slugs.
Besides beans, there was also an overabundance of radishes and russian kale (you can see some in the pic above). And my grass was looking more like a meadow than a lawn.
It's amazing how quickly a garden reverts to wildness, I wonder what would happen if I did nothing? Oh, it would probably revert to weeds, like my so-called "meadow". ;-}

Glowing Roses

I saw these roses blooming in Arcen's Botanical Gardens (Kasteeltuinen Arcen), in the Netherlands. These are two different roses, but both have this beautiful glowing quality. Thier nameplates were washed out, and I couldn't make out thier names. So I need to go searching the web to see if I can identify them. Does anyone know what thier names are?

What be me?

I'm back from Holland, visiting my Mom. She got many flower bouquets, but these yellow ones intrigued me. I have never seen these before. The flowers start as little cones, and begin growing itsy petals all around the center cones, untill they become full yellow daisies.
Are these helenium? They look like the picture of helenium in my seed catalogue..

Sunshine Roses

Pale lemon colored blooms of Blythe Spirit.

Sunshine blooms of Graham Thomas.

This will be my last post before I go visit my Mom. She will be celebrating her 82nd birthday, and her parties are wild! I'll be back in two weeks, so posting my favorite color yellow, to keep things sunshiney till I get back. *waves bye*

Many faces of Violas

Lovely face makeup!

Grrrowlll!

Urban Violas.. "we like the tarmac!"

Dusky and moody, these like to sit in the corner.

Mauve

Some Swan River Daisies next to Agastache.

Geranium Caffrum, with a couple of insects enjoying thier lunch. I grew these from seed, found it very easy! From Secret Seeds.

Sweetpeas and Runnerbeans.

Songs of Swallows

The songs of summer... soon the swallows will travel south, and I will have to wait till next spring to hear thier twittering social chirping again. Every evening a small flock would chase each other around the sky above us.

Orange

Agastache, Apricot Sprite. Sounded kind of pixieish, so I got some seed. And it's lovely fragrant as well, almost anise-like.

Orange Viola, Penny Sunrise. Came free with my order. Yay!

Thunbergia from a seed pack my Mom got for free. :-}

A treat? or Tra la laa?

The spider did jump over, but decided he didn't like the color of the tiny bug, and left it alone. Tra la laa!
(click on the pic, and see it close up!)