In My Secret Garden

By Laura Walker

Members of my family have owned what is now the oldest florist and greenhouses in Lexington, Kentucky since the early 1900’s. As a child I would sit in the potting shed at the back of the greenhouses and plant flowers with my grandfather, who would tell me what each flower was as he taught me to gently plant them in terra cotta pots. So I guess it is only natural, that wherever I have lived as an adult, I have had some type of garden. Sometimes the space has been quite large, while at other times there may have been only room enough for a few potted flowers on a porch or balcony. Every winter I sit and dream about my summer garden and plan what I am going to plant when spring arrives.

I am currently in a townhouse with a bit of space in the back. A patio leads down to a dense area that was virtually unusable. So we decided to hack away the small trees and foliage and create a small haven that I like to call my secret garden. Stepping stones lead down to a small seating area that is a perfect spot to sip a glass of wine or lemonade, read a book, or just to enjoy some peace and quiet. 

As you can see from the pictures, I am usually not alone for long. We have a small colony of feral cats that we feed, who are becoming domesticated, a family of raccoons, who like to share the cats’ food, some naughty squirrels, and a lot of birds. Keeping everyone living in harmony while maintaining a pretty space is an ongoing work in progress.

I have learned while living in various places around the country that there is always some trial and error involved in choosing plants for a garden.  What may work beautifully in one area of the country may turn into a disaster in another. Don’t try to fight Mother Nature. If your area is primarily shady, as mine is now, don’t try to grow sun loving plants. It just doesn’t work.

I like the area around my patio to be lush with plants. I mix annuals with perennials so that there will be a constant display of color with lots of green foliage. Tucking some potted plants into the beds gives some variance in height and creates visual interest. Just like in the interior of my home, I love the coolness of white and so plant a lot of white impatiens in my beds. The pinks in the pots add a pop of color.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is starting a garden is to plant what is appealing to you and have fun with it.  Summer will be over before you know it, so get outside and enjoy your garden.

What great advice, Laura!  Thank you!!  It must have been such a wonderful experience to be able to sit & learn with your grandfather like that.  I just got the test results back from my soil sample & am dying to figure out what it means so I can start planting, too.  You can find some really wonderful vintage treasures in Laura's shop I'm So Vintage and be sure to check out her blog, too!

Next week's featured Guest Blogger is Paige from Little White Chapel on Etsy and her blog Final Clothes-Out.  She'll share a crafty tutorial with us.

Wordless Wednesday: Bird Watching Can Be Exhausting

Must lie down to do it....

Make sure you come visit tomorrow when Laura from I'm So Vintage on Etsy and her blog of the same name will be blogging about her secret garden & sharing some tips with us.

ReCreational Art Makes Upcycled Art

Hi! My name is Rose and I am a re-useaholic.

After graduating high school I went abroad for over a decade and then came back home to marry the boy next door. After working in the corperate surroundings and getting burnt out I then took a job working in a coffee shop as a barrista. I absolutely loved it! The aroma of the exotic blends that I served, the fabulous people that I served, came to know and am still friends with, the unique opportunity that I was given to step outside of the box and learn new things is a memory that I hold dear and near.  Working in the cafe was fun and at the end of the day when I would sweep the floor there would be a small mound of coffee beans and although I knew we couldn't serve them again, I just felt it a waste to toss them in the trash. So I rinsed them off, dried them out and saved them. They looked like natural organic beads to me, so I bought a Dremel and drilled little holes in them and made coffee bean jewelry that, luckily, the owner allowed me to sell in the shop.

Also we had a plethora of Burlap bags that the coffee beans came in and although the owner donated them to several elementary schools (that used them for the kids to do races in) and a local church (that used them to decorate a playroom) there were many bags to go around. So I started taking them home and that's how my Burlap Covered Boxes came along, which I also sold in the Coffee shop. I have made other goodies from 'throw-aways' at the coffee shop: some purses crafted from plastic caps, and how about a lamp shade made from used tea bags!

I quickly learned about Etsy.com from some of my customers at the coffee shop. They suggested that I think big, they thought that I should get out there and sell my creations to a larger audience, they encouraged me to take step outside of my comfort zone and after a while I decided to take the plunge and put my work out there!

I have always been a fan of creating as little waste as possible, teaching my Boy Scouts how to be thrifty.  Challenging them to see how much waste could be minimized with a little effort opened my eyes even more! We would come up with crazy ways to save and reuse items like straws and cupcake liners. We would learn that not taking utensils on a camp out not only forced us to think outside of the box and use a Ziploc bag as a storage container, then a  bowl and then a place to store trash to take home to throw away - but we even saved the water and soap that would have been used for clean up! I stretched that idea much more in my personal life so, for example, when I rinsed those coffee beans I would save the water and use it to rinse the rags with and then mop the floors with. Sometimes I could get pretty extreme with my thriftiness! lol. Even now I get a chuckle when I see my scouts eating an orange on a camp out and then using the halved rind as a bowl for his Raman noodles! My son, at 19, will still do upcyclable things like cut open the empty cereal box and use it as a sketch pad or painters palette or cut it half way down and use it as drawer dividers!

One day I remembered about a 5 gallon pail that my dad, avid yard saler and treasure collector, had picked up at an estate sale for a couple of dollars. I dug it out and began playing. I would take apart the broken necklaces and create new pieces of jewelry. 

Sometimes I would need to make a trip to a local craft store to pick up items needed for finishing touches like clasps and what-nots, but all in all it felt really good to recreate new pieces from what someone considered 'junk'. My ReCreationalArt shop on Etsy is a place for me to post these fun pieces that have been given a new life for other ladies to enjoy! Like the Bracelets and Necklaces made from computer transistors!

Soon after I decided that men should have a place to shop, too, seeing as I had come across several accessories for men (mainly with the donation of my mother-in-laws old jewelry box full of her husbands old tie bars and cuff links). So I opened a new shop: GentlemansEmporium on Etsy and have had so much fun researching the history and ever changing fashion of men's accessories and have a place to post these beautiful heirlooms that I had acquired and that my Dad still finds for me through estate sales and flea markets!

My new endeavor is my PennyBoperoo shop that I am working on. This is a place for me to be more whimsical. I love playing with felt and this is where I post my felty creations. I still try my best to minimize waste and am able to create pieces with scrap cuttings and much with felt that my Dad (and now I!) find at yard sales. I also use old stained T-shirts that have cute designs to use as focal points in many of those creations.

Thank you Rose so much for sharing with us your upcycled treasures!  I am a firm believer in recycling and upcycling everything you possibly can and your art is such a wonderful example of putting that into practice.  I personally love your Geek Chic Collection, your Burlap covered boxes, and your Coffee Bean work!!  You can also find more on Rose's blog.

Next week's featured Guest Blogger is Paige from Little White Chapel on Etsy and her blog Final Clothes-Out.  She'll share a crafty tutorial with us.


Edit:  Oops.  I hadn't had my coffee yet.  Paige from Little White Chapel will be guest blogging her crafty tutorial in two weeks.  Next week, Laura from I'm So Vintage on Etsy and her blog of the same name will be blogging about her secret garden & sharing some tips with us.

Wordless Wednesday: The Makings of Dinner

A salad with herbs straight from the garden.

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili

The chili will be served over rice with some shredded cheese and sour cream on top; tortilla chips on the side.

Make sure you come visit tomorrow for a new guest blogger: Rose from ReCreational Art will talk about upcycling & recycling.