2017 – MAY and JUNE, SOPHIA and GLINDA

This post, 2017 – May and June, Sophia and Glinda, was written by Annie in Austin for the Divas of the Dirt blog.

2017 was fixing to be a very unpredictable year. 

SOPHIA

May was another rain-out. Sophia thought 80% chances were so high that she cancelled her planned day. We were not happy – partly because we really wanted to help Sophia with her garden and partly because she serves such wonderful lunches and desserts!

The rain did materialize and boy, did we need it.

At least there was a new rescue kitten at Sophia’s house to console her for the lost meeting.

Mindy scored some rescue plants that had been torn out for new landscaping. This beauty is a RickRack orchid.

GLINDA

Back in January the Divas set mid-June as the date for Glinda’s day. Luckily for Glinda the weather was warm but dry. The back garden inside the fence looked pretty good.

The beds were tended and it was full of birds and flowers...

..but the front yard really needed help. There aren’t any Before photos of the project because Glinda didn’t like working up there. The trees were okay and the lawn was mown but the beds were a mess! The mutabilis rose had frozen back hard but Glinda wanted to clean it up and give it a chance. The hummingbird acanthus and salvia in the parkway were good for the birds but the weeds made it an eyesore for humans. The woodland area had flowers but you could hardly see them.

DivaAnnie arrived first, then Sophia, Karla and Mattie (with tail-wagging Barbie) and Buffy a little later. The Divas of the Dirt set to work and made everything better – the lawn bags were filling up!

Buffy set to work with the hedge clippers, taming the boxwoods.

The aging Arizona Ash provided dappled shade for the workers. No one knew this would be the tree’s last summer. A couple of months later Hurricane Harvey cracked off many limbs, revealing rot. The tree had became too dangerous to keep.

The front bed looked a lot better – what was left of the rose would have to decide whether to live or die. Mulching would come later.

The woodland area was pretty once more, with dead sticks and sapling trees gone and Malvaviscus/Wax mallow blooming for the hummingbirds.

 

Time for lunch! Glinda used her meeting as a chance to try out La Fleur flower shop where she found gorgeous Hydrangeas. But Glinda’s menu had nothing fancy – it was an indoor picnic. Chips and Guacamole, Cranberry Chicken salad, cheeses and Black Forest ham on crossants and Gluten-free bread, Sweet Kale salad with lemon poppyseed dressing, tomatoes, Hibiscus-Mint tea and coffee.

For dessert there were raspberry/chocolate cookies and blueberry shortcake on gluten-free sponge cake with whipped cream.

The mulched front border looked good and so did the parkway.

the Boxwood hedge looked not only good – it looked respectable.

Just one pair of left-behind garden shoes gave a clue who had worked the magic.

The next day Karla sent a photo of her butterfly border – Happy Summer! 

This post, 2017 – May and June, Sophia and Glinda, was written by Annie in Austin for the Divas of the Dirt blog.