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Welcome. This blog is my little home on the web. It's mostly about my favorite hobby, digital scrapbooking. You might also find some recipes, home decor projects, or parenting woes. But mostly digital scrapbooking.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

My Patio A Year Later

I have lost my enthusiasm for gardening. I've grown weary of dealing with pests. Aphids have been my problem this year. I actually know a good strategy for dealing with aphids: ladybugs eat them voraciously.  But it's hard to catch a bunch of ladybugs, and I can't bring myself to pay money for them either.

I did get plants and seeds early in the spring (some seeds I even planted back in the fall), and I put in a decent effort, but most of the flowers I bought died (because of aphids).  And most of the wildflower seeds I planted never grew flowers.  Here is what the porch looks like right now.


There are little daisies (grown from seeds) in the hanging planters. I was really excited about those, thinking that they would grow easily. I guess they did, but they don't seem to take the heat too well. Plus the one on the right got aphids. I do have a nice basil there in the font and some parsley that you can't really see. Some oregano grew really nicely, but I've never used any of it.

Each year it seems that I find some kind of plant that does well for me.  Last year it was the petunias. This year it was the Alyssum.  That is the bushy little plant with lots of tiny white flowers. 


I had a six-pack of Alyssum starts and divided them up among three pots. They grew and filled, and even overflowed, the pots that I put them in. The scientist says that Alyssum comes in lots of colors, but my six-pack was all white. I'm actually thinking that next year I might plant some herbs that I want, and simply fill everything else up with Alyssum, even the hanging planters, in as many colors as I can find. They seem to do great on my shady porch, and the aphids don't seem to even bother with them.

I'm getting tired of watering everything by hand every day.

So I haven't really been doing much gardening this year, but I do spend time on my porch, and here is how I have spent most of my time out there:

I like taking pictures of bugs. Believe it or not, flies and bees actually hold still for you better than a six year old will. So they make perfect models for photography practice.

Thanks for stopping by.

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