Last week brought us some rain and cold weather. Seriously, it got so cold that I had to bring the potted plants into the garage to protect them from a overnight hard freeze. Most of the leaves on the maple tree are already down, but the tree finally got with the program and produced some bright red leaves.
Sadly, it is now too cold and windy for me to sit outside to admire that color in the yard, but every glance out a window makes me happy.
Knitting
The second Snark-O-Meter is finally off the needles. I still haven’t woven in the ends or blocked it, but look at all the great color interactions and stitch patterns in the shawl!
The patterns in the shawl really show off my yarns. I’m so glad that I jumped in and knit a second shawl. Sharon, Sharon, I want a little gold star for this!! (Who’s Sharon? That would be Sharon from Security, Casapinka’s snarky employee who developed this pattern. I’m pretty sure she won’t give me a gold star for finishing my shawl unless I send her some quality sushi first…)
Garden
I’m moving outdoor plants into the house to rebuild the indoor garden for the winter. I really kind of like doing this, but the cats are really happy to see plants come indoors. Mateo is absolutely torturing the large palm plant that was on my porch all summer; wait until he sees the geraniums!! I’m letting the geraniums get a little more outdoor sunshine but some others like the jade plants and the bougainvillea needed to come in now.
I may have to rethink the bougainvillea as all of those blooms will be dropping off at some point and landing in my sink, but they make me happy so I’m going to see how it goes. Several of the year-round indoor plants are looking really nice right now so I’ve moved them into the kitchen to join the cheerful color of that bougainvillea. The best of the bunch is my oldest African violet.
Next week I will be focusing on getting most of the potted perennials into the ground outside and moving in more of the ones that can over-winter in the house like the geraniums. I suspect that there may be some leaf raking going on, too.
Books
Since I was spending so much time with plants this week I jumped into this book that I got from the library last month.
Years ago I went to a dinner at my boss’ house in Denver in an older part of town. Okay, this was a pretty swanky house compared to my own. There were back staircases for the servants, a library, breakfast and dining rooms, and a kitchen that was almost as big a my whole apartment at the time. Since this was a summer evening they held the affair outside in their gardens.
Gardens. Right. There were four different yards/gardens on this property. Rather than a large plot of grass with some nice trees and maybe a sad attempt at a veggie garden or a gold fish pond, this property was divided into discrete garden rooms with brick walls dividing them. Each area was planted differently to serve a different purpose and held tables and benches for people in each one. Okay, one actually had a pergola in it. It was cool.
That gardening concept is what this book was about. An old formal house with a series of unique connected gardens that are being restored to their original plantings by a talented gardening specialist. The books entwines the stories of three different generations of women with significant involvement in the history of the house and gardens with some clever parallel events to make it all hang together. It was a quick read, I learned a lot of new things about gardening, and I liked it.
That’s it. Have a great week everyone!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Marilyn, that SOM is sheer heaven ! It should be permanently on display, somehow ..
The glorious .. erhmmm .. crimson (?) brachts of your boug and blossoms of your seth efrican violet is glorious. How in the name of all the gods did you manage the same shade in both ??
The gold colored yarn just glows against the purple and magenta in the real-life shawl because of the silk. I have some more blocking combs coming and then I will give the shawl it’s wet block.
I do love that color of magenta and buy yarn and flowers of the same quite often. I just got lucky with that match, tho. I have pink and blue African violets and they are just kind of… meh… right now. I got the bougainvillea at half price and it rebloomed with all the color you see now after I brought it home! Maybe I have luck with the plants that bloom in colors that I like because I take better care of them. 🙂
Oh Marilyn ! – tsk tsk ! [grin]
You are doing well with your indoor protection. The book looks interesting
I had to keep looking up words that I didn’t know with gardening terms. It didn’t help that some terminology is different because… England, you know.
And plant names sometimes change
I had to look up some of those, too.
You take such care of your plants over winter, I hope your defences are successful at keeping your new cat duo from staging an attack. Chicken fence anywhere used to be a challenge for our old cat regardless of what it was protecting. You get a good star ⭐️ from me, it looks great from the teasers you’ve shared and I look forward to seeing the full shawl once blocked.
So far the cats are ignoring the plants inside the chicken wire, but man did one of them dig up the soil around the potted palm! I now have a towel covering the soil and will put in some clay beads to try to discourage digging. I have maintained these plants for years now and it is kind of a fun challenge to get them through the winter okay. It was so much easier when I was working and had a greenhouse to use… I had so many plants then!! My spider plants were huge and I hung them from the ceiling of the classroom during the week and then they moved to the greenhouse each weekend to charge up for the next week in the classroom. Now I just keep a few going so that I have plants with me indoors during the cold and snowy months. I’m wearing my new shawl while I type this… ends not yet woven in or blocked, but pretty fun to wear anyway as long as I stay away from kittens!
Your flowers are so beautiful!! Also that book sounds really interesting.
The flowers are looking really good now. It is like a mean trick that they pull at the very end of the growing season before the first snow. I feel so bad for them I bring as many as I can into the house for the winter where they stop blooming. Right now I am sure enjoying them!!
Your flowers and plants are just gorgeous! You take such good care of them, and they are really responding 🙂 Your SOM is just lovely as well – love the colors and your knitting!
Thank you. Yes, all the plants and animals get fussed over in this house! I went and got more blocking combs yesterday so I should get that shawl finished and blocked in the next few days.