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Our sunflowers got us in trouble!

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Can you believe we got a notice today that we’re breaking a city bylaw?

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I have to cut down my beautiful sunflowers! We got an official notice stating that the flowers in the boulevard are overgrown and must be cut down to 0.92 meters (3 feet) by September 12th. The notice doesn’t say what will happen if we don’t do it, but I’m sure it will be a fine of some sort.

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I guess it’s because we let the sunflowers grow as they wanted – all over the boulevard instead of just a thick line of sunflowers this year. We also have one that’s grown to about 14 feet in height!

I could see the complaint if we were a house on a corner and or if all our neighbors used their driveways, but we’re the second house from the corner and we are the only people out of 8 houses on our block that actually uses our driveway! We don’t use our car much since we live close to work so it’s not like seeing around the sunflowers as we back out is a daily issue and it’s not that hard to see around them anyway. Grrrr.

Sorry I’m so behind on my Green Thumb Sunday post. We had our family reunion over the last five days and I really didn’t have any time to get my blogging done. All the guests are gone now so I should get back to normal blogging again. I hope! I’m very tired though.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.






Have you ever thought of using a professional landscaper?

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I know that many of you who read this blog have lovely gardens that you’ve worked on for years. Others are just starting out and some of you would eventually love to have a beautiful yard, but you’re still trying to figure out how you’d like your landscaping to look.

Have you ever thought of contacting a professional landscaping company? The company that I’m writing about today is called Leisure Landscapes and they service the Triangle area of North Carolina.

I’ve written about landscaping in past articles. Some people contact a landscaper and are provided with landscape design ideas that they can then either approve and have the landscaping company begin work on their yard, other people pay to have a landscape designer come to their home, provide design ideas that would work with their layout and their gardening zone and then begin the design projects themselves. In the last case they’ve just payed the landscape company for an opinion and design ideas.

Most landscaping companies provide a variety of services such as the installation of patios, walks and walls, landscape lighting, gardens, fountains, decks and arbors. Many will also install fences, lawns, irrigation systems, ponds and even plant small to large trees on your properties. I believe most landscaping companies also offer a maintenance service to keep your newly landscaped yard looking lovely. Certainly Leisure Landscapes provides all of these services and more.

Do think about contacting a landscaping company if you want to revamp your property and create something special.

Goin2travel could make it easier for our to plan our next family reunion vacation

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I’m behind in my blog posts this weekend because we’re having our big family reunion this weekend. In about an hour I’ll be going over to my brothers home where we’ll be having a big barbecue. All of my brothers and my sister will be there with their spouses and children. It should be fun.

I expect at some point during todays activities we’ll begin to discuss what we’d like to do next year for our family reunion. In prior planning sessions we’ve discussed traveling to other countries for our reunions.

Obviously if we were going to hold one of our get togethers outside the country we’d probably look in to some kind of vacation rental as this would keep our costs down and I’m sure we’d have fun staying together in one or two vacation rentals.

So … I’m doing a bit of research before I leave for the BBQ. There’s a site called Goin2travel.com that specializes in worldwide vacation rentals. Owners and managers of various types of vacation rentals list their rentals and availability on the site and people like myself who are looking to rent can browse through the selection and find the ideal vacation rental.

One of my brothers went to San Diego a couple of years ago and he just loved the area so maybe we’ll look into San Diego vacation rental homes. Another idea might be to look for Newport beach rental homes. The beauty of this site is that you can find vacation rentals just about anywhere.

Actually … one of my brothers lives in Vancouver Canada and we haven’t had our family reunion out west yet. Perhaps I should look for vacation rentals in Whistler BC. Staying in a lovely mountain home sounds beautiful doesn’t it?

I’m bookmarking this site and I’m definitely going to be telling my siblings about it when I see them in an hour or so. It might really help us plan our next reunion.

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