Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Our Berry Garden

Here is a picture of me in my early twenties, standing in the yard of the house that I rented in Maine  for eleven years. Behind me is the neighbor's house that I think I decorated 
a thousand times (in my dreams). 

A blackberry hedge separated our yards, from which I harvested sweet blackberries for days on end, sometimes in the early cool hours of the morning, sometimes after the day had calmed just before the sun set. 

I have such fond memories of those days. I knew that when I owned a home, I'd have a berry garden of my own. 

My first berry garden includes five varieties of blueberries, and a friendly (thorn less) blackberry bush at the end of the fence. To keep the berries company are Little Lamb hydrangea on the left, underneath the dining room windows. 


We planted our berry garden just outside the dining patio, which is at the end of the hydrangea hedge. 

I'm so excited to pick our first berries!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Beautiful Artichokes


Boil until tender. Enjoy with warm melted butter and lemon!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Snowball Bush

With each passing day, the yard grows more alive with the blossoms of the season. In addition to our lilacs which have come and gone, and the peonies which will join us soon, we are enjoying the blossoms of several viburnum shrubs that we planted this spring - these beautiful 'snowball' bushes are in full blossom.

Here is one of our first bouquets of them. 

I love that they so closely resemble the hydrangea blossoms. We planted six this spring. 


Wednesday, June 8, 2011

"Bye bye lilac...see you next year."


This is what I said to Graham and Margaret as we walked around the yard. Due to extensive rain fall this past week, the lilacs are bidding their final farewell. 
We also walked around to say hello to fresh new blossoms...

"Hello clematis...nice to meet you." 

"Hello rosa rugosa...nice to meet you too." 

The peonies are filled with ripening buds. I hope that we'll be able to say hello to them soon also. 

Here are a couple of our last lilac bouquets. 


Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Downstairs Bathroom Revisited...Again


We gave our downstairs bathroom a little spring lift. We did two things...put on a fresh coat of paint (Benjamin Moore's Simply White), and...

...added some new floral shower curtains (which also happen to be organic). I love the bright yellow, especially as we come into summer. 

The art is the same. 

The furniture is the same. 

But yet, those two simple changes offer a nice little pick me up. 

It's wonderful that a simple can of paint and a few new shower curtains can be so reinvigorating. 

This is the first year I made a bouquet from our white lilac bush. Mostly because the white lilac bush is about ten feet tall - and with rather sparse blossoms. Thus, I had to do some acrobatics to get to the flower blossoms on top! 

They filled the room with a heavenly spring fragrance for days. 

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The West End...

... of our house. 

This is what it looked like when we bought it, before the wraparound porch, the dormer, the new windows and doors, and a fresh coat of paint.

Here's hubby shortly after those renovations were complete. If you look closely, you can see the pressure treated posts supporting the porch. They're most visible on the west side of the porch due to the grade of our property. 

We finally had all of the posts faced with fieldstone. We actually used paver materials for this as they were quite a bit less expensive, yet we felt they provided the aesthetic we were looking for. 

It is a small detail but to us, it made a big difference as we've strived for our renovations to look period appropriate. The pressure treated posts stuck out like a sore thumb. 

Happy June! 
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