Friday, July 20, 2007

Queen-Ants Lace

I love to photograph flowers and download them on my computer; it sometimes amazes me what I miss when I just look at the flowers in the garden. I don't care for Queen-Anne's lace, to me it is a weed. This one is growing in my backyard but I took a picture of it and when I saw the picture on the computer, I was surprised that there were ants on the flower. I even held this flower in my hand because the wind was blowing. I don't know how I missed seeing those ants, but I did.
Today was absolutely beautiful, just too pretty to be inside. On my way to the nursing home to feed Nell, (my m-i-l with Alzheimer's), at 11:30, the temperature was 71 degrees. As I sat feeding her I kept glancing out the wall of windows that look into the courtyard and I couldn't believe the weeds that had grown from the bird feeders, it was horrible, there was even corn as tall as me. I asked the sweet activities lady if I could do some weeding for them. She said I could and even brought me and Nell some gardening gloves. I put them on Nell but she couldn't really follow instructions to weed. This is so sad to me because she always loved to work in her yard, she still loves it outside though and she and her little friend enjoyed watching me work. They were so cute, whenever I would tug and pull a large weed (and they were large), they would clap and cheer me on. I had almost finished weeding the entire area when they became restless and needed to go in.

I even finished one of my backyard projects today. I did an English edge around a row of trees and grasses the other day, and today I did the weeding, laid newspaper and then mulched the area. It looks so much better. Usually I want to pull out every blade of grass I see, because I can't stand weeds in my flower beds, but after spending way too much time weeding, I decided some of the weeds could stay under the newspaper and mulch. I'll never get through if I don't stop pulling the grass.

Tomorrow looks like it's going to be another beautiful day and I have a few more projects to complete.

3 comments:

Carol Michel said...

I know how you feel about the grass getting in the flower beds. It is hard to get it all.

Sounds like a great way to spend time with your m-i-l, I be she had a very good day, too!

Carol at May Dreams Gardens

Annie in Austin said...

I could not resist the pun in your title, Robin - and loved the bittersweet story of your weeding at the nursing home, which sounds a little like performance art for shut-ins!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

BTW - is it possible that your tiny sunflowers are some kind of Melampodium?

Robin's Nesting Place said...

Annie, it's possible that the tiny sunflower/black-eyed Susan plant is a Melampodium,I did an on-line search and they certainly look similar, but I didn't see any with the black center, they were all yellow. I'd love to identify it. Do you know if there are any species with black centers?