Wedding DIY - Bride's Bouquet

The bride's bouquet was very simple... a dozen white tulips wrapped in white organza ribbon.

The corsages for the groom and special guests were also home made, but once again very simple...just a few flowers and foliage wrapped with florists' tape.

Wedding DIY-Bride's Jewelry

I have excellent taste... the jewelry I like tends to be rather expensive. Also, I like quality materials, and so much of the jewelry I can afford is made with cheap materials.

For the necklace, I crocheted fine gage Argentinian silver wire with pearls of several sizes, Swarovski crystal beads, and quartz nuggets. There is a matching bracelet.

The earings are pearls and a cast sterling silver lotus flower charms that I found on Etsy, hung on a handmade sterling silver earwire. The lotus flower is often given to the bride in Chinese weddings as a gesture of good fortune.

DIY - Silk Flower Hairpiece

The flower hairpiece is made out of layers of silk organza and tulle, sewn together, in a manner similar to this tutorial. The center stamens were made from seed pearls string on wire, and a feather was added instead of a leaf. A spray of crystals on fishing line from the craft store was also added. The flower was hot-glued to a hair clip.

One thing I didn't do myself was my hair! I indulged on this luxury... I even had a full-on trial run the week before. I've had hair disasters in the past, and I didn't want my wedding day to be one of them!

DIY Wedding - Table Centerpieces

Centerpieces were created from lots of recycled glassware of various sizes and shapes, lit with dozens of candles. The candles included floating candles, votives and tealights, all in off-white. The glassware came from the local Salvation Army... I just filled up a cartful, significantly clearing up space on their shelves.

DIY Wedding- Decorations

I haven't made tissue paper pom-poms since I was a kid. I thought the idea of snipping the ends of the tissue paper so that it looked pointy like chrysanthemum petals was very cute. I made dozens of these oversized pom-pom flowers, large and small, and hung them at different levels using fishing wire.

I also bought yards and yards of cheap tulle and organza ribbon and draped it all over the venue.

The lights and green garlands were left over from the venue's Christmas decorations-- we requested that they leave them up for us!

Helleborus Seedlings in January!

I have made a rather embarrassing new gardener mistake. Like the wren that raises the cuckoo, those seedlings below are weeds. I'm not sure which ones... perhaps garlic mustard? But the observation stands that they are some pretty hardy weeds to be coming up in the middle of winter!

Sadly, I didn't get a single hellebore seedling in the dozens of pots I had out on the porch. It could be that the seed was too old... it was purchased in early August. I already submitted my order in for fresh seed this season at Winterwoods. I did end up getting three precious seedlings from a few reserved seeds that I put in coffee filters in the fridge. I nearly forgot about them... I'm unsure how long the radicles were languishing on that moist filter. It is heartening that this method works. However, all three seedlings failed to get free of their seed caps, and my attempts at helping them had no effect (tweezers, misting, droplets of spit!). All three put up sets of true leaves, but they seem to be a bit stunted... we'll see how they do. But at least I KNOW that they are true helleborus seedlings and not pretenders!

After a spell of particularly chilling subzero weather, it suddenly dawned on me that the bit of green in the pots on the porch was no ordinary weed. The helleborus has germinated! There are several vigorous looking seedlings in the 4-inch Helleborus Foetidus pots. No signs of life in any of the other flats, at least not yet.

Then, I remembered the 1 gallon pot where I had put the extra seed (red/purple x. Hybridus). I had left it under a bush by the front porch. Sure enough, under 3 inches of snow and a bunch of fallen leaves there were several tiny seedlings!

What an incredible plant-- the fact that its tiny, tender seedlings don't freeze solid seems to defy laws of nature.

Beautiful Birthday Gifts

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Dinosaurs

We had hours of tv-free entertainment on Thanksgiving, thanks to Ad Tech's "Cool Tool" hot glue gun, a box of supermarket brand dixie cups, pipecleaners and felt. The Lost World was recreated on our kitchen table!

Fall Bulb Planting

Asarum Canadense roots. I ordered 12 from Prairie Moon Nursery, and they sent big, healthy looking rhizomes... I was surprised at how alive they looked!
I also ordered some Trillium grandiflorum from Prairie moon, and they were also huge, healthy looking clumps of roots and shoots.
Here are some of the bulbs... Fritillaria Meleagris (Checkered Lily) and Erythronium Pagoda (Trout Lily), if I remember correctly.
My (first) order from Van Engelen. Here is what I planted this year:

10 Erythronium Pagoda (trout lily)

100 Allium Sphaerocephalon (drumstick allium)

100 Fritillaria Meleagris (checkered lily)

100 Iris Blue Magic

100 Muscari Armeniacum

100 Narcissus Ice Follies (daffodils)

100 Crocus Flavus Yellow Mammoth

100 Crocus Vernus Flower Record

100 Crocus Biflorus Spring Beauty

In addition... from Praire Moon Nursury

12 Asarum canadense (wild ginger)

2 Trillium grandiflorum (large white flowered trillium)

And from American Meadows:

15 Crocus Sativus (fall blooming saffron crocus)

3 Trillium Erectum (Red Trillium)

1 Paeonia lactiflora Karl Rosenfield (Peony)

1 Dicentra White (Bleeding Heart)

That makes... 810 spring blooming bulbs, 15 fall blooming bulbs, and 19 other plants that will supposedly show their heads for the first time this spring. I did give away some bulbs to friends and neighbors, but I planted at least 700. I sure hope some of them come up next spring!