Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

April Delights


I wish I had a video camera so I could take you on a virtual tour of our yard.  Everyday seems more spectacular.  Trees are leafing out, many things are budding.  Crab apple, redbud, dogwood, deciduous magnolias, and azaleas all blooming at once! 

We've just come inside from covering up plants.  The weather today is to be first crazy stormy and then the temps to plunge from 70 this afternoon to 29 degrees tonight.  Many things may be too tender to endure.  But we only have so much remay fabric.  We covered the strawberries, in full bloom, the potatoes newly sprouted and quite tender.  And the spring veggies and salad garden, probably could take it but very tender.

Yesterday in the sunshine:
 Taters on the right, beets, spinach and garlic in the middle, salad to the left
 Baby salad greens and peas on the trellis
It has been a strange spring weather wise and I guess this is the new normal in our days of climate change.  Lots of wild extremes and tough storms.  But plants just go on and do their thing.  We hope the blueberries will not be harmed, nor all the brand new leaves on trees, but there is nothing to be done but wait and see.
We did cover this little maple (to the left, yes, that is a dwarf tree), its been nipped in years past.  Always the Japanese maples seem to be among the first trees to leaf out.  Here you can see Davids big project from last weekend.  He moved this path that previously went to the left of the dogwood in the center of the frame past that little maple.  He so carefully moved everything around that you can hardly tell!
One last thing to share, this flowering cherry Hally Jolivette.  This has been its best season ever.  Right outside my office window the tree has gotten fuller with the dainty pink and white flowers everyday for two weeks and now is starting to wind down.  I imagine the cold nights will be the end of the flowers for this season.  But what a joy it's been.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Monday, April 7, 2014

The Creativity Collective

My new business cards

I've been meeting every two or three weeks with a few of my most creative friends.  Artists, musicians, writersWe're calling ourselves the Creativity Collective.  

It has been a supportive and motivational process.  

Each time we meet we discuss issues we are facing in trying to move our work forward, in getting marketing done, building business and clientele, organizing various projects we each are working on.  We help each other set goals and provide a venue for accountability to meeting those goals.  

One of mine is marketing to launch my new business Playful Nature.  One of the gals helped me with graphic layout for my card and then another came up with the snappy idea of stitching together seed packets into a patchwork to back the cards, making each one unique.  Yes, you read "stitching" Peg is a fabric artist so thinks of sewing everything.  Click on the photo above to get a closer look. They are very cool and memorable, not something I want to produce thousands of, but they should make an impression on folks when I hand them out.

The website is coming along but not quite ready to launch, though I've set a goal for this week.  I'll keep you posted, taxes still need to get finished...  

I do have a really good gig tomorrow presenting on gardening with kids to a group of childcare center directors and staff through the Natural Learning Initiative at NCSU.  This is the sort of thing I hope to get lots more of. 


Spring is here and along with it come lots of new opportunities and new beginnings.
 
Camellia Kujacku Tsubaki

Every day there is something new in bloom.  I LOVE April.