A fanciful twist will be hosting a mad tea party july 12, 2014.

I think, ultimately, this on-line tea party will provide an opportunity for other website owners to visit others site.  a way to mingle outside the box!

cheers luvvy! see you there. ; )

To participate click here http://www.vanessavalencia.com/blog.html

As you can see, i have made good progress on the pop n play castle. I'd say you would never know it was a castle!  There is still more painting and stone-work to be completed. Now, if you are not doing anything to the back, then you will be very close to finish. However, the back is the secret garden. so the stone-work needs its mortar lines painted in and the garden will be partially painted and silks glued on. and a pretty blue sky. so stay tuned for more How-To!!!

“The earth has music for those who listen.”
― George Santayana

A flower garden is a little piece of heaven on earth. I don't know what it is to put the notion in one's head that alot of back-breaking work is worth one's effort to have a flower garden. Philosophically, it would be far more practical to plant only edible specimen. There is something awe inspiring about a flower garden. I haven't had the desire to plant or care for flowers in years. Yet all it took, to take me down, was one heavily flowered pot of foxglove! of all the flowers to to inspire me. Foxglove - a digitalis (used for drug preparations that contain cardiac glycosides). This genus is native to western and southwestern Europe, western and central Asia, Australasia and northwestern Africa.  The flowers are produced on a tall spike, are tubular, and vary in colour with species, from purple to pink, white, and yellow. The best-known species is the common foxglove, Digitalis purpurea. Foxglove is a very popular plant for the english garden. Perhaps thats what caught my attention. Foxglove is not very common around these parts.

My husband and i spent this mother's day weekend planting a tiny english garden. He ripped out a monster bush (and it's stump) that i never liked. I planted a variety of sun loving flower specimen, including a few plants that will prefer a bit of shade.
Here's what i planted (most of the plants are from a retailer called English Gardens):
foxglove (rotten little instigators! lol)
lavender
forget-me-not (pink)
sweet william
delphinium
columbine
scotch moss
lithodora
Angelface summer snapdragon
spider flower (cleome)
marguerite daisy (butterfly)
petunia
impatiens