Here is a picture of our house as seen from a small 6 year old girl's perspective. Maia knew she wasn't allowed to step in the street to get the top of our house in but she made up for it in making sure she got in our garbage cans. (they really need a new home but where??)
This isn't a very flattering picture because our poor, tall house desperately needs to have his face and body washed. The porch is scheduled to be repainted sometime this month when the painters can schedule us in. We are finally getting rid of that icky shade of green. Also, believe it or not this house is supposed to be a yellow brick house! I know! Who would have realized under his coat of grime of oh--likely 88 years (he's a pretty old boy) that he had such fine clothes!? Poor guy---he might have to wait until next year for that one.
The plants in this picture aren't so wonderful either because when you know that any day now you are going to have college boys from College Works Painting trying their hardest (and likely succeeding only half of the time) not to tramp your flowers and plants there is no great urge to put a lot of effort in prior to the painting. The rosebush on the left against the porch hasn't bloomed yet; I'm hoping to get a few flowers before its squashed demise. The pool of green on the right are hundreds of babies from last year's very prolific Forget-Me-Nots' threesome. I'm pretty sure those guys are not going to make it either because they get to be about 3 feet tall before their flowers really come out in force.
Lastly, at the top of the steps you can see my plant hospital. This place gets the most sun and also the most attention from me because I can't help but notice them every single day. On the right, is a small container of marigolds that were left over from our Daisy Tea Party that Maia potted. They were doing wonderfully--that is until Maia and her friends decided to pick some flowers and wrenched them out flower, stem and roots! I found three out of the four of them in a glass of water and re-potted them two days later when Maia had forgotten about them.
On the left are four plants. One is a purplish vine-y ivy plant that Tristyn grew for me at school that had two stems and three leaves in a tiny dixie cup pot. I had potted them both in this bigger pot and they had both grown to about 18 inches long with many leaves and then someone kicked over the pot. I was able to replace the one back in the pot and it's sort of thriving; the other one is in a glass of water in my kitchen attempting to grow back its accidentally chopped off roots.
The second plant is a calla lily that I 'won' at a wedding shower where it was the centerpiece. It really doesn't need to be in the plant hospital but I don't know what to do with it or anything about calla lilies. Do they get bigger? Should I plant it in the ground? I'm clueless and keep forgetting to look it up. The third is a prayer plant that I rescued from hall outside of Rick's office. It had one leaf and was in a cracking pot. I re-potted that plant and now he's up to four leaves with another one rolled up cigar style and ready to unfurl any day now.
The last plant is in the hospital entirely due to my own negligence. It was one of the mini-rose bushes that come in a pot. It and its sister graced my table during the Daisy Tea Party. Amanda took the sister home and left me with the brother. Who then sat on my mantle dying for a few weeks. Who then moved to my kitchen when I realized he had received no water in said period. Or sun. Who then in a desperate attempt to save him got moved to the plant hospital and rewarded me by making the rest of his leaves turn brown and fall off. Then, and as silly as this sounds, I remember reading this L.M. Montgomery book, The Blue Castle, where Valancy shops a rosebush to smithereens and it comes back better than ever. Because I believe everything I read in books (ha!) I did likewise until I had three much shorter sticks coming out of the pot. Four days later and guess what? Teeny tiny leaves are starting to grow!!!!!!
All are healing well in the plant hospital. =)
