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It’s a Holly Jolly Christmas

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I took this photo at the beginning of October. It’s of my Holly bush.

The holly (really a male and female Prince and Princess Holly planted together) is planted in the back corner of my garden. I can’t say that it’s grown much in the four or so years that it’s been planted there, but it’s healthy and flowers then produces lovely red berries each Autumn. I think the holly has only grown about half a foot since I planted it. At this rate it will take 20 years to reach a decent height!

Looking out into the garden from my kitchen window I can see that there are still red berries on the Holly. I guess the birds haven’t eaten all of them yet. Perhaps I’ll bring the camera outside later and take a photo of the Holly with a little snow on it.

I hope that everyone has been enjoying the holiday season and I wish you a Happy New Year!






I’m back from Vegas

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Sorry for the lack of posts since Wednesday. I had planned to write regularly while I was in Vegas, but I barely had an internet connection in my hotel so I was unable to make any new posts!

That was such a drag! I was in Vegas for two blogging conventions and ended up with out internet access. How Ironic huh?

Well, I can tell you that the weather was much nicer in Las Vegas than it was here in Toronto while I was away! As our plane took off on Thursday afternoon I noticed what looked like snow flurries hitting the planes window! Ah it was snowing!

Last year you might remember that Vegas had snow in December, A few inches I believe, and we hadn’t even had snow here in Toronto by that time. Quite the change this year!

Las Vegas was a little warmer this past week than it normally is around this time in November. I’d say it averaged about 80 F during the day and low 70’s at night. Very comfortable temperatures since there was really no humidity to speak of at all.

I got home late last night or perhaps you might say early this morning and I already miss the Las Vegas weather. It was raining and cold and just plain gloomy looking outside today! Not inviting at all.

It won’t be long before the cold weather sets in, I’m sure of it.

We still had our patio table and chair set up outside so my husband tried to spend some time outside this afternoon in order to take them apart (they are metal and glass) and store them but he only got the job half done as it started to rain heavily.

Tomorrows supposed to be cool but mainly sunny. Perhaps we’ll get that patio furniture put away tomorrow and if I’m feeling up to it I’d better start working on putting the garden to bed for the winter too!

Have you finished all your autumn garden tasks yet? Is your garden all tucked in and ready for winter?

I’ll have to replace my Oriental Lilies

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Our Oriental lilies didn’t come up this year. Well, there might have been a tiny sprout or two but they didn’t grow. Of course we didn’t winterize our garden last fall. We are in zone 5b and it was a mild winter so I would have thought that the lily bulbs would have been ok, but something happened.

We had our Oriental Lilies for about five years and this was the first year that they didn’t bloom or grow. Does anyone know if oriental lilies only live for a certain length of time?

Do you grow Oriental Lilies? Their scent is heavenly and as you can see from this photo they are absolutely gorgeous.

Well if I’m going to replace them and perhaps purchase other spring and early summer bulbs for the garden now is the time. Home stores and nurseries should be selling bulbs now. Of course, I could always wait and order them from one of the many nursery catalogs that I get through the late autumn and early winter months.

Have you purchased tulip, daffodil, lilies or any other type of bulb for your garden yet?

Green Thumb Sunday News:

I just wanted to add a little shout out here for MsGreen “Thumb” Jean. Jean was kind enough to help out by going through our long list of GTS bloggers. She made a list for me of all the blogs that either hadn’t posted anything at all for months or hadn’t made a Green Thumb post for two+ months. I just finished going through that list and it was correct so those blogs have been removed and the bloggers notified.

If you notice that a listed blog hasn’t posted a GTS post for at least two months I’d love it if you’d let me know.

The preference, of course, is that everyone make a GTS post every week, but I know life gets in the way sometimes. Therefore I’d like to say that GTS members should be making GTS posts at least once every two weeks, once a month at the bare minimum (that’s iffy). Stretches of longer than a month are not good and those bloggers will risk being removed from the list for non participation.

Thanks!

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

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