Author: Quandie

another rainy garden tour.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

Or maybe I should say good morning from a garden, because this garden is not my own.  Today I’m sharing Longwood Gardens located in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

As you’ll soon be able to see, we visited Longwood Gardens on a rather rainy day on our recent trip to the Brandywine Valley.  But you know what?  I actually don’t mind visiting a garden in the rain.  It was raining during my visit to de Hortus in Amsterdam, and during my visit to the Munsinger and Clemens Gardens in St. Cloud.  I think you can get some of the prettiest garden photos on a rainy day.

So … Longwood Gardens … have you heard of them?

USA Today recently named them the no. 1 best botanical garden in the U.S.  Consisting of more than 1,100 acres, Longwood has pretty much everything you’d want to find in a botanical garden.  The map shows 32 ‘districts’ including a cascade garden, a bonsai courtyard, an Italian water garden, a meadow garden, a rose garden, the oak & conifer knoll, and the topiary garden shown above plus more.

The land that Longwood Gardens sits on was originally purchased by a Quaker farmer in 1700.  In 1798 his grandsons began planting an arboretum.  Their heirs weren’t interested in the project though and over the next 100 years the arboretum was allowed to deteriorate.  Then in 1906 Pierre du Pont purchased the property to save the trees from a lumber mill that had been contracted to remove them.

The Flower Garden Walk was du Pont’s first addition to the arboretum.

I loved the way the flowers are grouped by color in this area.

I think my favorite is the purple section.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to try something like this in my own garden, but I’m not sure I could pull it off.

In 1929, du Pont added a 61′ tall carillon, or chimes tower.

It has had a variety of different bells over the years, but it has been kept in running order and it was lovely to hear it chime out throughout the garden.

I took so many photos, and there was so much to see.  I don’t want to bore you guys with a million garden pics, so maybe I can just share the highlights.

There is a ginormous conservatory and this next photo might give you some indication of just how large it is.

It’s filled with beautiful things.

All of that pink?  That’s hydrangeas!

I sure do wish I could get these kind of results with a macrophylla hydrangea, but they really don’t like our cold weather.

They also had a beautiful display of blue ones too.

In case you are wondering, that tall purple flower behind the hydrangeas is a Canterbury Bell.

That’s another plant that I’ve never had much luck growing.  It’s a biennial, and I just don’t have the patience for a plant that takes two years to bloom and then dies.  Same with foxgloves.

The perfectly round globe shaped hanging planters in the conservatory were gorgeous.

This is the sort of thing you can do if money is no object, and you happen to have a greenhouse to grow them in.

Beautiful to see, but hard to emulate in real life.

There was also a fern wall in the conservatory …

and a children’s garden …

and an orchid room.

There were so many beautiful orchids (I thought of you when I saw this room Monica!).

There was a bonsai display tucked just behind the conservatory.

Some of the bonsai were 80 to 100 years old.  I can’t imagine the skill it takes to create these beautiful pieces of plant art.

I’ve saved the most spectacular aspect of Longwood Gardens for the end and that’s the fountains.

Remember the fountain show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas that I shared a few weeks back?

Well, the fountain show at Longwood is about 10 times more spectacular.

Unfortunately, I didn’t actually get any photos of the ‘show’ where the fountains dance to music.  By the time we got to that part of our day I was a bit worn out (we spent nearly six hours exploring Longwood), and the rain had decided to come down a bit harder just at that moment.  My photos above show the basic fountains while they aren’t ‘performing’.

So I guess you will just have to head to Longwood Gardens yourself to see the fountains dance.  It is definitely worth the trip.

Have any of you been there?  If so, what was your favorite district?  Or do you have a botanical garden to recommend near you?  Leave a comment and let me know.

the flower market tote.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

Remember the wood tote that I picked up while garage saling a couple of weeks ago?

Well, I’ve given it a quick makeover.

I started by cleaning it well.  While doing that I noticed that there was some sort of oily looking stain on the inside bottom of the tote.  So I gave just that bottom two coats of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss, just in case that stain wanted to bleed through my paint.

After letting that dry for 24 hours, I painted the inside of the tote in Dixie Belle’s Kudzu.

And so far, so good.  No oily bleed thru.

Next I painted the outside in their Drop Cloth.  Once that dried, I taped off some grain sack style stripes and painted those in the Kudzu.

I followed that up with adding just a portion of Dixie Belle’s Flower Market stencil.

Here’s the full stencil …

I taped off everything except the “Flower Market” wording for my tote.

I then gave the entire tote a vigorous sanding to age it up a bit.  I finished it all off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta in the Fresh & Clean scent.  If you haven’t tried this product, I describe it as halfway between hemp oil and wax.  It comes in 5 different scents, plus an unscented version.  I think I like the Orange Grove the most.  The Fresh & Clean is a little bit more subtle, and … well … fresh and clean smelling.

Next up I filled the tote with a load of lilacs.

I came home from the Brandywine Valley to find my lilacs in full bloom, and since then we’ve been having very cool weather (as low as 38° one night this week) so the blooms are sticking around a bit longer than usual which is nice.

Those purple lilacs are the Albert F. Holden variety, FYI.

But you wouldn’t have to fill the tote with flowers.  You could display lots of things inside, like pretty china and a lovely vintage floral tablecloth.

or maybe some books.

Speaking of books, I am planning to include ‘a year at Brandywine Cottage’ in an upcoming giveaway.

I just need to get that pulled together.  Some of you may know that I used to always bring something home from my travels to give away here on the blog.  But I looked back and I haven’t done that since my Amsterdam trip back in 2023.

I’m really slipping, and time is flying by so fast!

But, stay tuned.  At the conclusion of my posts about our trip to the Brandywine Valley I will have a giveaway that includes that book.

As far as the tote is concerned, I’ve put it in the pile of merch that I’m gathering for my upcoming occasional sale.  And that’s coming up awfully quickly as well!

If you’re local, be sure to save the date!

historic new castle.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

While visiting the Brandywine Valley, Mr. Q and I stopped in at Buckley’s Tavern in Centreville, Delaware.

It was a charming little place located in what was once a private home built in 1817.

I had what I consider to be the best chicken pot pie of my life there.

But the real bonus was our waiter.

Somehow he and Mr. Q got to chatting about the Brandywine Battlefield, and war games, and painted gaming miniatures … all stuff Mr. Q is into, and so was the waiter.  He also gave us some great advice on places to visit in the area.  On his advice we spent a lovely evening at Birmingham Hill, one of the battle sites, but more on that in a future post.

He also suggested we visit historic New Castle.  He described it as a more authentic, less touristy version of Colonial Williamsburg.

The Dutch West India Company established a fort in this spot along the Delaware River in 1651, so that gives you an idea how old the area is. During the next 31 years, New Castle was alternately governed by the Dutch, Swedish, and British, changing hands five times.

Our first stop was the New Castle Visitor’s Center where we picked up a map for a self-guided walking tour of the town.

We started off heading down this amazing cobblestone road …

to the Immanuel Church and its churchyard.

I suppose some might find it a bit creepy, but I love a really old cemetery like this one.  It’s so interesting to read the tombstones.  Poor Thomas Bird lost his wife when she was only 21 years old.

After exiting the churchyard, we headed towards The Dutch House.  Unfortunately it was not open for tours the day we were there (it’s only open on Saturday and Sunday), but the staff at the Visitor Center told us we could wander through the gardens both here and at the Amstel House (also not open inside).

I have to admit, I took a few photos of each garden, but looking back at them I’m not sure which is which.  I think the one above is the Dutch House garden, while these next few photos are of the Amstel House garden.

Look, they had clematis blooming already!

There was one historic home open for tours the day we visited, the Read House.  However, after making two thwarted attempts to see it we gave up.  The first time we stopped by there was a small tour group in front of the house and the guide quite abruptly informed us that it was a private tour and we’d need to come back in another hour.  The 2nd time we stopped by there was no one at the ticket counter and after waiting about 5 minutes for someone to show up, we moved on to Packet Alley.

This is where packet boats from Philadelphia met stage coaches bound for French Town.  Travelers heading from Philadelphia to Baltimore would take a packet boat to New Castle, board a stage coach for the 16 mile journey to French Town, and then board another boat to Baltimore, and this trip took several days.

In 1832 the road between New Castle and French Town was turned into a railway line and the ticket office is still standing.

We also saw the Old Town Hall.

It was built in 1798 and is a “head house”, which is a building that served as a town hall in front of a series of market stalls that stretched behind it and could be accessed through that arched opening.  My photo above shows the back of the building, so I’m standing where the market stalls would have been.

I did enjoy checking out a few of the window boxes in New Castle.

They weren’t quite as impressive as the Charleston window boxes that I shared back in 2022, but they were still worth a photo or two.

I did particularly like these pots …

and now I’m wondering if I can do something similar in my own rusty pots this year (FYI, the Dwarf Alberta Spruce spirals that I put in them last year did not survive our harsh winter).

We ended our visit to New Castle with lunch at Jessop’s Tavern.

The tavern is located in a building built in 1674.  According to their website, they “strive to be reflective of the American food history that shaped what we eat today, representative of the English, Dutch, Belgian, and Swedish presence in this region.”

We ordered the Oli Bolen, a.k.a. Dutch Apple Cakes, for dessert.

And they were delicious!

We really enjoyed our visit to New Castle.  We felt like we practically had the entire town to ourselves, granted we were there on a Thursday morning in May so it wasn’t quite tourist season yet.  I assume it gets quite a bit busier on nice summer weekends.

Have you ever been to New Castle, Delaware?  Or do you have another favorite historic town?  Leave a comment and let me know.

hello yellow.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

It’s time for another tackle box makeover.

This box came from the windfall of boxes that I got from my friend Kathy last year.

There it is at the bottom of the pile on the right.

Some of you may remember that it had the word ‘camping’ written across the top.

I ended up getting that mostly removed using a Magic Eraser.  However, even after it was removed I still thought I should paint the box.

After giving it a good cleaning and a light scuff sanding, I decided that this box didn’t really need my usual prep with Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss.  First of all, it didn’t have any rust (so I wasn’t worried about it bleeding through my paint).  Second of all, I knew I was going to use the Dixie Belle chalk style paint and I have found that it adheres quite well to a metal surface that has been lightly sanded.

After my handyman Ken removed the pop up tray (like all tackle boxes have), I gave the inside two coats of Dixie Belle’s Holy Guacamole.

Once dry I gave it a coat of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat to seal it.

Next I painted the outside in two coats of DB’s Drop Cloth.

Then I pulled out my I.O.D. Rose Botanical transfer and found that I’m running dangerously low on pink roses.  However, I hadn’t used any of the yellow ones yet.  I guess I’m just not usually drawn to yellow.

But I decided to go ahead and use them on this tackle box, and I’m sure glad I did.

They really are so gorgeous, don’t you think?

After adding the roses, I also added some wording from the now retired I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.

I think my favorite bit is the “London:  Covent Garden.” on either side of the latch.

I finished the outside of the box with a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

This tackle box would be the perfect size for containing art supplies.

This tackle box is for sale locally, check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for details.

  What do you think of the yellow roses?  Leave a comment and let me know.

a disappointing spring?

Published on by Quandie7 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

As you may remember, last year’s gardening season ended on a bit of a low note.

First of all, I discovered that I had jumping worms, and secondly, my neighbor removed a huge, glorious shade tree and now my back garden feels like it’s baking in the sun (#stillnotoverit).

It probably hasn’t helped matters that I just returned from a trip to visit some of the most spectacular gardens in the U.S. (more on those visits in future Sunday posts) only to find that my own gardens are a hot mess.  Apparently we had a freak heat wave while I was gone that encouraged the weeds to completely take over while I wasn’t looking.

In addition to all of that, I seem to have lost quite a few plants over the winter.  It seems that little to no snow cover and sub-zero temps combined to create a winter that was quite hard on gardens.  According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the frost line was deeper in 2025 than any year since 2019.  Here in Minnesota we need that snow to protect our plants from the cold and we just didn’t get enough of it last winter.

All of these factors have contributed to what has been a rather disappointing spring in my garden.

Most of the perennials that I planted last year have bit the dust including a Lemon Meringue baptisia, a hosta Wu-La-La, a couple of azaleas, several Queen of Hearts brunnera, a Rozanne cranesbill, and some Japanese Forest Grass.  Although I have to point out that the azaleas and the forest grass were iffy propositions in our climate in a good year, so it’s not surprising that they didn’t make it.

But I also lost some things that had been in my garden for years.  One of the biggest losses was my lamium.

I had a lot of this ground cover in both my hosta garden and the front garden.  In the past it has been semi-evergreen, meaning it would retain some of it’s leaves through the winter.  As the snow would melt in the spring it would reveal mostly intact plants that were even still a bit green.

This spring there is little sign of it.  The arrow in the photo below is pointing to one tiny sprout that has managed to survive.

I’m not entirely sure if this loss is a result of the winter, or from the jumping worms, or maybe a combination of both.  However, my neighbor nnK belongs to a local Facebook garden group, and apparently many of the members are complaining about having lost ground covers in particular this past winter.  So I’m hoping it’s that.  Otherwise, I have little hope for replacements surviving in the future.

I’ve also lost a good bit of my ajuga, although it’s trying to come back.  Last year it was finally filling in …

And now it’s quite sparse and barely blooming.

I’ve also lost my gorgeous Aralia cordata, or ‘Sun King’ Golden Japanese Spikenard.

This would have been its 3rd year in my garden.  I may also have lost some of those hostas around it.  In fact, I’m quite baffled by this spot …

As you can see, it looks quite decimated.  I’m taking a wait and see approach for now, maybe those hostas are still going to come up?  Fingers crossed.

Either way, I’ve already purchased a replacement for the aralia, and FYI, I found it at Home Depot.  So this plant is definitely more readily available than it was when I first planted it.

Alright, enough of this dismal reporting on garden failures.  Let’s look on the bright side.

My Pagoda Dogwood looks great this spring.

I planted it back in 2022, so this will be its fourth season.  It’s finally tall enough to really see it above the tops of all of those ferns, so I’m very relieved that it came through the winter.

I’m also happy to see that my lilacs are full of blooms right now.

If you’ve followed me for long, you know that I’ve really struggled with this lilac hedge.

I started out planting all hybrids with gorgeous flowers, and they never took off.  I eventually had to replace all of them.  I replaced two of them with the Common Lilac, and those have grown like gangbusters.  They are over 15′ tall, and they are blooming like mad.  They had a bad case of leaf spot fungus at the end of last summer, so I wasn’t sure if that would affect the spring blooms but apparently it didn’t.

Unfortunately, their flowers are just a bit blah.  So I succumbed to temptation and added a few more hybrids on either end of the hedge a couple of years ago.  Just look at how much prettier the flowers are …

But the hybrids continue to look more straggly overall compared to the Common Lilac and I’m just not sure they are going to fill in enough to provide a screen from the unsightly neighbor’s fishing boat storage area behind us.

I’m incredibly relieved to find that all of the new Quick Fire Fab hydrangeas that I planted to create a hedge have survived.  Especially since I didn’t plant them until August of last year, so they didn’t have a lot of time to establish.  I also underplanted them with some muscari and daffodils, and they look great.

That is Muscari Valerie Finnis, isn’t it the loveliest pale blue color?

The daffodils are an all white variety called Trumpet Mount Hood.

I’m hoping that both of these naturalize (ie. multiply) and fill in all of the space under the hedge eventually.

This area is sunny enough now that the bulbs should do well from year to year.

I’m slowly starting to get over my dismay at the number of plants that didn’t make it this year.  On the bright side, this gives me an opportunity to get some new plants, right?

And as for the jumping worms, I’m going to have to learn what works and what doesn’t going forward.  Leaf mulch is definitely out, but I recently read that using cocoa bean mulch might be a good option.  I used to use cocoa bean mulch all the time, but it is difficult to find around here.  Also, FYI, it is highly toxic to dogs, so if you have a dog that likes to munch on stuff in the garden you definitely don’t want to try it.  Another study suggested that slug bait might work to help control the jumping worms.  Some of you might remember that I had to give up using slug bait because our cat liked to eat it, but now that she’s gone (#stillnotoverit) I can go back to using it.

How about you?  How has your spring been so far?  Did you have many plant losses over the winter?  Are you dealing with jumping worms?  Leave a comment and let me know!

the brandywine valley.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

Well, I have to confess that I pulled a fast one.  Mr. Q and I were off on vacation for the last week and half.  I had pre-scheduled several blog posts to keep you entertained, and to semi-disguise the fact that we were out of town (for security reasons).

However, a little over a week ago we flew off to Philadelphia, rented a car and first drove to the Brandywine Valley to spend a week touring battlefields and gardens.  We followed that up with a couple of days in Gettysburg.

If you aren’t familiar with the Brandywine Valley (and I wasn’t before we planned this trip), it is about 30 minutes from the Philly airport and includes part of both Pennsylvania and Delaware.  We stayed just outside Wilmington, Delaware at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Wilmington-Brandywine Valley.  I’m only mentioning that specific detail because I would highly recommend this place.  It isn’t at all historic, and it’s not in a super picturesque area (although it is nestled in a wooded area that was quite lovely).  I suppose it’s also not necessarily a bargain.  But if you’re staying for a full week, and you want some space to spread out, it’s nice to have a suite that includes a sitting area and a small kitchen.  They also include breakfast every morning, as well as dinner (yes!  dinner!) on Monday thru Thursday.  In addition, our suite was very nice and super clean.  It was also really quiet, which we very much appreciate.  we weren’t so lucky with the 2nd leg of our trip in Gettysburg where a school group of some kind descended upon our hotel and kept us up with constantly banging doors.

The staff at the hotel in Brandywine were excellent, super friendly and accommodating.  We had a problem with our shower on the first night and the maintenance guy had it completely fixed up by the next afternoon.

In addition, there is a quintessential east coat staple right across the street, a diner!

We ate there more than once … OK, we ate there three times!

Another bonus is that this hotel was pretty much right in the middle of all the things we wanted to see including Longwood Gardens …

the Nemours Estate …

Winterthur

historic New Castle

and the Brandywine Battlefield.

Not only was our hotel only 10 to 15 minutes away from all of these spots, but the route to get to them was absolutely gorgeous!

Remember way back when I posted about Rustic Roads in Wisconsin?

Well, nearly all of the roads we traveled on from our hotel would qualify as Rustic Roads.

The roads were quite narrow and wound over creeks (sometimes with a covered bridge!) and through the woods with spectacularly historic buildings around every corner.

Or sometimes just the remains of a historic building …

Those are the remains of an octagonal school building built in 1838.

I wish I had been able to capture more photos of these amazing roads, but they were literally so narrow in most spots that you couldn’t even pull over.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Brandywine Valley, but now we’re back home once again.  I need to get crackin’ on stuff for my upcoming sale.  I also have a long, long list of gardening projects to tackle.

So be sure to stay tuned for all of those, plus a few travel and garden posts with more details from our trip!

how to create a miniature rug.

Published on by Quandie3 Comments

Today I’m sharing a ‘how-to’ post on creating your own rugs for a dollhouse or other miniature display.

I’ve already shared my mini rugs eureka moment, when I figured out that you can purchase printable canvas and create your own rugs using downloaded .pdf files.

I found my canvas sheets on Amazon, but I’m sure you can find them in other places as well.

I’ve purchased several different downloadable .pdf files for printing rugs via Etsy.

So far this one in shades of lavender remains my favorite.

I purchased that from MinatureMoo.  The rug in shades of blue in this next photo is also a .pdf purchase from Miniature Moo.  Unfortunately, apparently this shop is no longer selling on Etsy.  I guess I’m glad I got these .pdf’s when I did.

I think downloading printable rugs is the easiest option, and purchasing the file is generally fairly cheap.  I paid $5.37 for each of those files.

Another option would be to find a good quality image of a rug online, re-size the image to suit your needs, and then print it out.  I haven’t actually tried this approach, so I can’t really give you any advice on how to go about it.

Once I realized that these canvas sheets worked really well for printing rugs, I thought that perhaps I could also use some stamps to create a unique rug as well.  You saw my version of that in the dollhouse kitchen reveal.

To create that rug I used an I.O.D. Ephemeral Type stamp with some VersaFine Clair ink in a color called Morning Mist to stamp the canvas.  Then I glued some cotton twine around the edge to finish it off.

I had created another rug using that same stamp set for my U.K. hallway.

You can’t see it terribly well in that photo, but in case you didn’t notice, the writing is in French.  And somehow, it just seemed wrong for my U.K. hallway to have a French rug.  Right?

Then at about 3 a.m. one night, a light bulb went off in my head.  I have a small Union Jack stencil that I got ages ago from Maison de Stencils (no longer in business as far as I know).  Perhaps I could stencil my own Union Jack rug!

I started by cutting a piece of that printable canvas to the size I wanted.  Then I taped off a narrow border around the edges and gave it a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Once dry I centered my stencil and painted it in a mix of Drop Cloth and Dried Sage.

Once that dried, I went back over just the triangles with straight up Dried Sage.

Although I liked the way the stencil worked on the rug, I felt like the Union Jack needed to be bigger for this size of rug … and this is the size of rug that I needed in the U.K. hallway.

So it was back to the drawing board.

For my 2nd attempt, I decided to just draw the design on the rug using a ruler, lots of measuring and a pencil and then paint it in free-hand.

This time I went with an even more subtle selection of colors using just Drop Cloth, and that custom mix of Drop Cloth and Dried Sage.  Rather than painting the full background, I just painted the stripes.  So those triangles are unpainted.

One important note if you are going to paint on the printable canvas, the paint will cause the canvas to curl up a bit.  I solved that problem by ironing the ‘rug’ flat again once the paint had dried.  I also anchor the four corners of the rug to the floor using some double sided tape.

I hope this post has given some of you some ideas for creating your own miniature rugs.  Be sure to leave a comment if you have any other methods that you like to use.

shoo fly, don’t bother me.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

Remember this little box that I picked up at the Goodwill near my mom’s house?

It’s nothing special, just a little box with a curved lid.  But I thought it would make a fun painting project.

After getting it home, I gave it a good cleaning and then got right into painting.

I painted the inside in one of Dixie Belle’s newest colors called Thicket.

Then I painted the outside of the box in another new color, Ecru.

Once dry, I sanded the edges to distress and then started adding transfers.

The black and white floral is from the I.O.D. Brocante transfer, and the color florals are from their Floral Anthology transfer.

The little bit of typography on the front of the lid is from an old re.design with prima transfer called Paris Valley.

And the “specimen no. 9” on the bottom corner is from a Tim Holtz rub-on.

Last but not least, how about those flies?  I put one on the top of the box …

and one on the front.

The flies are from one of the newer I.O.D. transfers called Wilde Bloemen.

Looking at those little flies on the box I can’t help but think of the Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family that was painted around 1470 by an unknown artist.  Are you familiar with it?  It belongs to the National Gallery in London.

If you look closely you’ll notice that this woman was painted with a fly on her headdress.

Not only does no one know who painted this or who the subject is, we also don’t know why she was painted with a fly on her head.  Some think that the purpose of the fly is simply to show how good the artist was at creating a very realistic painting.  Another possibility is that the fly was some sort of little trick, to make viewers attempt to shoo it away.  The subject is also holding a sprig of Forget-Me-Not’s, so perhaps the fly is symbolic.  The fly is often associated with death, so maybe this was a posthumous painting of this woman so that she would be remembered.  Again, no one really knows.

But for my part, I can imagine this woman constantly having to shoo a fly away while sitting for her portrait.   Eventually she gave a little smile and said to the artist ‘you might as well put it in the painting’ as her own little joke, and he did.

But now I wonder, why did I choose to put a pair of flies on my box?  They aren’t exactly pretty.  I do like the realistic feel they add though.  They give the box a ‘dark academia’ sort of vibe, like it belongs in a entomologist’s study.

I will admit that when I first saw those flies in the Wilde Bloemen transfer I wasn’t sure if I would ever use them, but now I kind of love what they added to this box.

What do you think?  Would you add a fly to one of your masterpieces?  And why do you think the unknown artist painted a fly on his subject’s headdress?  Leave a comment and let me know.

garage sale season is here.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

Yay!  Garage sale season has finally arrived!

Here Minnesota we tend to have about six months between garage sale seasons.  We can sometimes find one or two sales in October, and last year we even got lucky and found a sale in early November.  But that was a fluke.  We then don’t see any more garage sales until the season kicks off the last weekend in April.

In other words, we have a long, dry season with little to no garage sales.

But when it finally rains, it pours.

There were no fewer than 37 neighborhood/city-side sales to choose from this past weekend including the 100 Mile Garage Sale that runs along The Great River Road.

So my friend opK and I stocked up on small bills (no one wants to make change for a $20 when you’re only spending $3), and planned a garage sale marathon.

We started off on Thursday when our city plus the two adjacent cities were all having city-wide sales sponsored by the Lions Club.  There were 3 or 4 garage sale signs on every street corner.

This area can be hit or miss.  Last year we didn’t find much at all.  But this year I came home with a decent haul.

I couldn’t pass up the vintage camp stools.  They’d be perfect for a cabin.

As would the minnow buckets.

They would make cute vintage planters for out on the dock.

The title of this book alone made it worth the 25 cents I paid for it …

and I’m looking forward to giving the wood tote a makeover.

The guy I purchased the vintage lumber yard apron from said that this particular shop was under the Earl Street Bridge in St. Paul and that it was torn down some time ago.

I also found a sled that was within my price range, so that will go in the pile for a Christmas makeover.

I picked up this rather cool looking birdbath.  I don’t think my photo does it justice.

I’m planning to have a garden theme for my upcoming occasional sale at the end of May, so once I clean this up a bit it will be added to my inventory for the sale.

Those of you who are local should pencil it in if you haven’t already.

Day 2 of our garage sale marathon was a bit of a bust.  I’m blaming it on the weather.  It was only in the 40’s and a bit overcast, drizzly and breezy.  Not a good combination.

We started out in what is typically one of my favorite neighborhoods, Tangletown.

I must give them a lot of credit for putting together a fantastic map of their sale locations.  Their map clearly showed the name of each street, each sale location and whether or not it was open on Friday (some were only open on Saturday).

It was super easy to make our way around to each sale location.  Unfortunately, a few of the sales that were supposed to be open weren’t actually open.  I’m sure the proprietors took one look at the weather and thought ‘nope, I’m not going to sit out there all morning in that!’ and I can’t blame them.

Here is the rather sad look at what I found in Tangletown.

We’d made it to all of the available sales by 10 a.m. so we moved on to another city-wide sale north of Minneapolis.  Sadly, it wasn’t much better.

We ended up at one sale that promised ‘vintage’ items.  And she did have vintage items.

Quite a lot of them as a matter of fact.

But she definitely didn’t have garage sale prices.

This cookbook may be listed somewhere on eBay for $80, but it’s also listed at AbeBooks.com for $13.60 and on Etsy for $15.  I’d be willing to bet that no one was willing to pay $50 for it at a garage sale.

We also stopped at an ‘estate sale’ that pretty clearly wasn’t an estate sale, but just a regular ol’ garage sale.  I did find something to buy there though, this figurine.

She’s a bit stark in her coat of bright white (does anyone else immediately think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding here?) but I plan to give her a rusty patina using Dixie Belle’s Iron Patina Paint (you can see how I did that once before here).

Day 3 of our garage sale extravaganza dawned beautifully sunny.  At 8:30 a.m. it was already warmer than it had been all day the previous day.  We had two classic Minneapolis neighborhood sales to choose from, Linden Hills and Bryn Mawr.

We ended up in Linden Hills simply because they had more sales listed than Bryn Mawr.

I wouldn’t say it was the best garage sale haul ever, but I found a few fun things.

I picked up several pairs of vintage ice skates that I’ll put away to work on for next Christmas.

I’d noticed a significant shortage of furniture on the first two days, so it was fun to actually find a piece of furniture that I wanted to work on.

That pretty curved door on the front will be the perfect canvas for a transfer of some kind.  I’m looking forward to giving this a new look.

I scored some lovely vintage linens on day three too.

And lastly, I picked up this metal banker’s box.

I’m calling it the find of the day simply because I love these metal boxes.  I aspire to one day have a row of them in stacks like this example in Kabinett & Kammer by Sean Scherer.

I’ve got three of them now, so we’ll see if I ever get there.

It was awesome to be out hitting the garage sales again.  I’m looking forward to doing a lot more of it this coming summer, how about you?

you win some, you lose some.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

My gardens are slowly but surely starting to wake up for spring, but while I wait for that to happen I thought I’d report back on some of my over-wintering experiments starting with those gorgeous rex begonias.

You may remember that I planted two different varieties of rex begonia in my front window box last year.  I think you can get a feel for how small they were when I purchased them in this next photo from last May.

I really wasn’t sure whether or not they would do well for me in that north facing window box, but as it turned out they loved it there.

Last fall I decided that they were too fabulous to just discard, so I potted them up to see if I could save them indoors over the winter.

I also took some cuttings to root in water.

Both cuttings developed nice roots within a couple of weeks, and ultimately I potted them on for winter.

In the end, one of them dried up once it was in the soil, but the other one continued to live.  I wouldn’t exactly say it thrived over the winter though.  It was basically a single leaf sticking out of a pot of soil for the bulk of the winter and I did not have high hopes for it.  But then, earlier this spring, I noticed that there was some growth sprouting out of the base of that single leaf.

And then a week or so later I noticed that there was also new growth coming from the soil too.

Eureka!  It lives!

Now I kinda wish I’d started more new plants from cuttings.  But that being said, the two original plants also did well over the winter.

I may have lost a little bit of bulk, but I’m sure that as soon as I get them outside they are going to take off again this year.

I think I will give both of these a little hair cut and see if I can root up a few more cutting before planting these out in mid-May.

Since I typically spend around $200 on annuals to fill that front window box, it would be nice to save some of that money by keeping rex begonias going from year to year.

That brings me to my 2nd overwintering experiment, the succulents.

As you may remember, I planted an antique newspaper roller with succulents two years ago.

I overwintered them in the roller the first winter, but it took up quite a bit of space in my window sill, and it leaked all over when I watered it.  That’s OK for an outside planter, but not so great on a window sill.

So last fall I decided to pull the succulents out of the newspaper roller and put them all in a pot together.

I placed the pot in a south facing window for the winter, and here is how it looks now.

As you can see, not everything made it.  Particularly that lime green sedum in the front, and that one succulent on the right.  But other things really thrived, like that rather spindly sort of succulent in the back right.

I don’t plan to put these back in the newspaper roller this year.  I never really did have a good spot for displaying it.  We’ll see what I can come up with for a unique succulent planter this year.

Finally, that brings me to my massive over-winter gardening failure, the bulb lasagna.

If you’ll remember, I found some half price bulbs at Home Depot quite late in the season last year.  Too late to plant them outside really, so I decided to try planting a bulb lasagna.

I filled two pots with a couple of layers of different spring blooming bulbs.

After watering them in, I placed the pots on my front three-season porch and I wrapped them in blankets.  I set a reminder on my calendar to give them just a little water once a month so they didn’t dry out completely.  Then as the weather started warming up this spring I uncovered them and set them in a sunny spot indoors.

And …

Nothing.

So I waited.  One week.  Two weeks.  Three weeks.  Still, nothing.

So I thought maybe they had to be outside at this point and I put them on the deck.

Still nothing.

So I decided to dig into the soil to see if I could find the bulbs and sure enough I found a bunch of rotted bulbs.

In hindsight, the porch must not have been a suitable location for them.  It probably got far too cold even though I’d protected them with blankets.  Or maybe I gave them too much water (although I really did only give them a very small amount).

Regardless, it was rather disappointing to get zero results.  Maybe a bulb lasagna just isn’t for me.

How about you?  Have you tried growing bulbs in pots?  Did you have success?  Have you got any tips to share?  If so, be sure to leave a comment.