Good morning everyone! It’s a gorgeous, sunny day and it’s wonderful to feel the warmth on the old bones! I can’t get over how busy the little birds are right now! My backyard is full of them – eating, bathing, foraging in the freshly cultivated earth and getting nests prepared for their babies. Have you got an abundance of life in your garden right now too?
One thing I noticed was how many bumblebees I have in the garden this year. Did you know that the very first bumblebees of the season (those really big, furry ones) are all new, young queens? The young queens are the only ones from their colony to survive the previous winter. When they emerge in the early Spring, they straight away look for a place to lay their eggs – usually in an old mouse nest or in bird houses that still have last year’s nests in them. As I failed to clean out our birdhouses in the Fall, guess where they nested!? Yep, right in the two bird houses that I usually have Swallows or Chickadees nesting in. So…. last weekend my husband and I gingerly took down the two bird houses, removed the bases and carefully took out the nests, with the queen bumblebees inside protecting their egg sacks. Our intention was to transfer the nests into two older birdhouses that we no longer used for the birds, and then place them near to where they had nested before so the bumblebees would find their way back. If anyone could have seen the two of us, they would have been in hysterics! Here we were, trying really hard not to disturb a couple of queen bumblebees, and of course, as soon as we gently lifted out the nests, the bees angrily zoomed out and we both let out a yelp and just about jumped out of our skins! Luckily, the transfer went well and the Queen bees have found their respective nests and all are happy again. Now we are just waiting for the Swallows to return to the now cleaned bird houses meant for them. Has anyone seen them yet??
Apart from noticing what’s going on with the birds and the bees, it’s a lovely time for planning and designing your plantings for the outdoors. At this time of year, some of us tend to neglect the greenery we have indoors. Over the winter months, indoor plants can become tired looking and sometimes, we just give up on them. It’s nice to replace them with fresh, new plants from the nursery but some of the smaller pots are difficult to keep looking nice. It’s also nice to have fresh flowers in the home too, but they don’t last and often drop pollen, petals or leaves and make a mess. It gets expensive over time to replace fresh flowers unless you have an abundance of them in your garden to pick from.
You know how much I love real plants and flowers. I’m sure you all do too. However, I’m not against a little bit of cheating every now and then and sometimes just can’t resist the many wonderful faux flowers and plants that are available. They are just SO EASY to care for, and look fresh and wonderful all year long! We just got a shipment in last week of some wonderful, real looking plants – flowers, grasses and greenery. I just have to show you how pretty they are. I’ve even noticed some customers sniffing the gorgeous red and white poppies expecting some fragrance from them! That’s how real they look!
We have these adorable little pots of white geraniums, white orchids, topiaried tea trees and real-looking lavender. Perfect for a window sill in a grouping or on your dining table as a centrepiece.
We also have some picks of greens, grasses and flowers which are great for arranging in vases or using as extra special touches on your dining room table as pictured below. These are very popular Lily of the Valley flower picks and they are really pretty and fresh looking.
We also got some willow branches and screens which are great to fill in an empty corner or even to act as a visual room divider. They come in different heights and are either white (as shown) or natural brown. I’m already imagining them at Christmas time with little white mini lights threaded through them…..
It’s also fun to have some fake fruit (real tastes better!) in a pretty bowl on your table. No fruit flies to contend with! Ha! You could really fool them!
It makes such a difference to have a bit of greenery around the home. The added bonus to having fake greenery is that we don’t have to spend any time on them (except to dust them every now and then!). I get to spend more time in the garden outside on my REAL plants! Actually, I do have lots of real plants indoors as well, and at this time of the year I can’t resist buying a couple of bunches of tulips or daffodils when I pick up the groceries.
I’d love to know what your favourite flowers are – either cut, bought or fake! How do you like to bring the outdoors in? Let me know!
Until next week! Check out the birds and the bees!
