Garden Scrapbooking

January Garden Calender

2007-01-14T13:12:00.000-05:00

In the Garden Albums forum at Memory Book Inspirations, I have issued a challenge for all gardeners to create a 2007 Garden Calendar during the coming year. It can be an actual calendar you hang on the wall, a desk calendar, a scrapbook filled with calendar pages, or whatever you like. Just make sure you create at least one page a month & record some interesting (or non-interesting) gardening facts and/or pictures on it!

Here's a January calendar layout I did in 2005. Ironically, I thought we had so little snow that January and that's what I was trying to capture with the pictures. Compared to this year though, we had an abundance of snow that January!...That might all change soon though. We're supposed to have a snowstorm tonight and tomorrow.

The photos were adhered on the dates they were taken, and snowflake stickers show which days we had snowfall.

Some May Flowers (layout)

2006-11-11T10:33:00.000-05:00

I finally did a garden layout last night. These are a few of the flowers that were blooming in my garden in May. On the left side, "PJM" rhododendron and a section of my rock garden. On the right side, old-fashioned lilacs at the top and old-fashioned bleeding heart at the bottom.

The patterned papers, "M" mongram, tag and sticker are from the Three Bugs in a Rug "Rhapsody" Caboodle Kit. Cardstock is Bazzill.

Moving Things Around

2006-10-10T17:45:00.000-04:00

As if it's not bad enough that I've been rearranging my web sites, now I'm creating and rearranging blogs too! LOL

When I started this blog, my intent was for it to primarily be about garden scrapbooking. As it's turned out though, it's been mostly about gardening and not at all about scrapbooking. So, I'm going to start a blog that's just about gardening...it's My Adk Gardens.

I've also started some other blogs...the links to them are on the right. As for this blog, I'll use it for "Garden Scrapbooking". :)

A beautiful autumn day

2006-09-22T20:59:00.000-04:00

What a beautiful day it was for working outside today! It was sunny and in the low 60's, so I planted some daylilies in a border that runs along the top of a stone wall. I think I spent even more time just enjoying the day though, than I did working. Which, is okay! :)

Here are a few glimpses of today's garden. The pictures are of a butterfly on Sedum 'Autumn Joy', a Hibiscus 'Southern Belle' that I started from seed several years ago, and Physostegia 'Vivid'. There are other things still blooming in the garden, but this is all I took pictures of.

I hope anyone reading this has a great week-end!

Mystery Plant Identified

2006-09-19T18:10:00.000-04:00

Joseph, from the Everything Perennials Group, has identified the mystery plant. I never would have guessed! It's Purple Flowering Raspberry (aka: 'Rubus odoratus'). Here is a picture of one of it's leaves beside a dollar bill, so you can see how large the leaves are.

Mystery Plant

2006-09-16T19:52:00.000-04:00

Can someone identify this plant for me? At first I thought it was a Swamp Maple tree sapling, but then I noticed the flowers. The plant is growing at the edge of some woods, in ground that was bulldozed a few years ago. It's about 3' tall and it looks like a young tree. It's flowering now....zone 4 in the Adirondacks, upstate NY.

The Bee Balm Garden

2006-09-09T20:46:00.000-04:00

Hurray! I finally got most of the bee balm garden planted today! I say "most" because there's one section left that I haven't planted yet. My neighbor is giving me starts from her bee balm for that particular section and I didn't get over to see her today, to get them. Maybe tomorrow after church, as it's supposed to be another nice day!

The bee balm garden is a 70' long border, running along the outside of my propagation garden. I do have bee balm planted in the Secret Garden (if you haven't seen the Secret Garden, you can see pictures of it here), but I wanted a larger section of garden that was planted to nothing but bee balm. A friend of mine has a huge bee balm border along the outside of her fences & it looks awesome when it's blooming!

If you've never grown bee balm before and you're thinking about planting some, beware that it's a spreader. You should also know that it's best to divide bee balm every 3 years or so, because the centers tend to die out. Bee Balm is also prone to mildew. It prefers sandy, acidic soil that is fertile, and it grows best in full sun or partial shade. Hummingbirds LOVE Bee Balm!

This evening, I did some scrapbooking. I only did a few quick and easy layouts though, and none of them are gardening-related.

I hope anyone reading this is having a great week-end!

Where did the summer go?

2006-09-04T14:19:00.000-04:00

Yikes! Where did the summer go? It's hard to believe it's already Labor Day!

I spent a few days in mid-August working in the garden, but other than pulling a weed here and there, I haven't done any real work in the garden since then. What I had STARTED doing in August was planting a long border to various shades of bee balm, but I got less than half the border planted. Maybe now that the cooler temps of September are here though, I'll get it finished. I love working in the garden during the cool, bug-free days of September!

Hopefully, in addition to working in the garden, I'll also start updating this blog more often! :)

Conklingville "Waterfalls"

2006-06-29T23:25:00.000-04:00

I was right. The waterfalls at the Conklingville Dam was even more impressive today, than it was yesterday. Especially early this evening, when a rainbow formed in the mist!

Conklingville "Waterfalls" on 6/29/06

Conklingville Dam spillway

2006-06-29T09:53:00.000-04:00

We've had so much rain in upstate NY lately, that water is going over the spillway at the Conklingville Dam in northern Saratoga County. This event has occurred only a handful of times since the dam was completed in 1930. Usually, there's no water going over this spillway!

This picture was taken last evening. Since some of the streams flowing into the Great Sacandaga Lake (which is the lake that the Conklingville Dam holds back) weren't supposed to crest until today, and since it rained again last night duing the night, I bet the waterfalls at the dam is even more impressive today!

The spillway at the Conklingville Dam on 6/28/06

Notes from my journal - June 12th

2006-06-12T11:26:00.000-04:00

· It rained 9 out of 10 of the first 10 days in June. Saturday it didn't rain, but it was too cold and windy to work outdoors. It might be the middle of June, but our furnace is still coming on at night!

· I couldn't find any Bt locally, so the handpicking of caterpillars is continuing.

· The area where I plan on planting cucumbers was thick with tall weeds, so yesterday that area was string-trimmed and raked. I still have a few perennials that I need to dig out of that area, before I cover it all with black plastic.

· These are some of the plants that are blooming in my gardens right now:
Large leafed rhododendrons
Rugosa rose 'Therese Bugnet'
Potentilla 'Abbottswood'
Hepseris
Lupines
Oriental Poppies
Bearded Irises
Siberian Irises
Painted Daisies
Columbines (Aquilegias)
Linum perenne
Daylily 'Stella D'Oro'
Old-fashioned Bleeding Hearts
Woodland Bleeding Heart
Knautia macedonica
Perennial Geraniums
Alpine Asters
Creeping Baby's Breath (G. repens)
Dianthus Alwoodii
Veronica liwanensis
Cerastium tomemtosum
Mother-of-Thyme

Caterpillars

2006-06-05T20:24:00.000-04:00

The invasion of Forest Tent Caterpillars is worse than I had originally realized. Last year was bad, but I think this year is worse! They're even defoliating my peonies, which I've never noticed caterpillars bothering in the past.

This afternoon, I banded several fruit trees with duct tape and then coated the duct tape with Tanglefoot. Many caterpillars were also hand-picked and dropped into a bucket of soapy water, with a splash of vegetable oil thrown in for good measure. Tomorrow, I'll try to find some Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) when I go into the city.

It Has Finally Stopped Raining!

2006-06-05T12:09:00.000-04:00

It has finally stopped raining here & the pleurisy that I'm recovering from has improved considerably, so I got a chance to walk around my yard this morning. Yikes!!! The weeds have grown like...well...like weeds! Every perennial garden is in desperate need of weeding & some are beyond just needing weeding. I'm afraid I'll have to tear some of the gardens apart and start them over from scratch!

The lawn needs mowing, the rose shrubs and fruit trees are literally covered with caterpillars, and I still haven't gotten my vegetable garden rototilled, let alone planted. I think I better stop writing & get to work. I'll have to be careful not to overdo it, because of the pleurisy, but I can't resist the temptation to do at least a little bit of gardening. :)

I hope anyone reading this is having a great day!

Welcome to Garden Scrapbooking!

2006-06-03T09:23:00.000-04:00

My passions are gardening and scrapbooking, so those subjects are mainly what this blog will be about.

I live in upstate New York, gardening zone 4, and the gardening season has just started here. I'm planning on creating a garden scrapbook this year. I had planned on making one last year, but I didn't get very far with it. Oops! Hopefully, this year I'll do better!

Last night I altered an inexpensive composition journal, to use as a garden journal. My plan is to record miscellaneous gardening information in the journal during the growing season, and then refer to my notes when I do my gardening scrapbook layouts. The journal isn't every fancy, but I'm proud of it never-the-less since it's the very first thing I've ever altered.

It's a miserable rainy day here, so I'm not going to get any gardening done today like I had hoped to. Maybe I'll head up to my scrapbooking room to do some scrapbooking instead! :)

Thank you for stopping by my blog! I hope you'll visit again soon!...Trudi

My Garden Journal

I used patterned papers and textured cardstock from the DCWV summer stacks, Heidi Swapp chipboard letters (painted white), a chipboard flower, chipboard photo turns, a silk flower, buttons and miscellaneous ribbons.