Garden Annuals

Good morning, my friends. How is the first full day of summer treating you? I celebrated the summer solstice by getting outside and planting my annuals. It was the last task for me to feel as if I'd caught up on my share of the yard work. The squirrels kept us entertained for a while in the morning.

After I finished my slow-stitching, I donned my garden apparel and went to work. In these three smaller terra cotta pots, I planted verbena, dahlias and celosia (which I've always called "cock's comb").

In the larger pots that line the sidewalk, I planted geraniums. We used to plant petunias here, but the deer would eat them down to the ground. Geraniums do only slightly better.

Usually, I plant marigolds here, but I decided to try growing some gerbera daisies. I love the gerbera daisies, but they are picky about where they will grow. 

I forget what this next one is. It's in a pot that gets almost full shade. I was getting tired of looking at flowers when these went onto my shopping cart. I've had a hard time getting anything to grow in this pot, so I figured I'd give them a try. 

Finally, in another full shade pot, I planted impatiens. I had good luck with these last year.

With all the planting finished, I took a walk around. Nothing new was blooming, but I noticed the cherries were turning red high overhead.

The blueberries are starting to blush purple.

Sadly, I found about 1/3 of them eaten. The deer have discovered them. Seeing this, I wondered how long the flowers would last against the deer and squirrels. Not long, as it turns out. Keep reading.

Back inside, I was ready to finish quilting the embroidered blocks on the Blackwork Baskets quilt. These were the three I had left.

With those blocks finished, I switched to this pretty variegated Valdani thread on top. (Thank you, Ila.)

And then I went to work quilting the colored blocks in the quilt's center. I did the same design on all of them. This is one of the designs I learned from the quilt along with Angela Walters.

Here's how that looks from the back. I'm continuing with the smoky monofilament thread on the back, and so it doesn't show very well.

When all four of the center colored blocks were finished. I spread the quilt out on the floor to have a look. All that's left to do now are the setting triangles and the borders.

There was no kitty help with anything I did yesterday. They were busy hunting squirrels and mice. When I went downstairs after finishing my quilting, I found them both snoozed out in the living room. They were tired kitties.

It was then I discovered the squirrels had already bitten off one of the geraniums.

And two of the three colors of gerbera daisies. The fact they didn't actually eat the flowers makes me hope they just didn't like how they tasted. Maybe they will leave them alone. (Dream on.) The pinwheels are our lame attempt to discourage the critters, but they only work if the wind is blowing.

Today I want to do a little more work in the yard...continuing the never-ending battle against the weeds. Also, I need to spend some time grooming our rose bush, and I need to deadhead the peonies. Maybe I'll find something else blooming out there. There's one housekeeping chore on my list today, and then I can get back to my quilting. I doubt it will be finished today, but sometimes I surprise myself. If not today, then almost certainly it will be ready for binding by tomorrow.

Okay...time for some breakfast and some slow-stitching. Have a good day, Everybody!