Forcing Bulbs

Confession:  About this time of the year I get the winter blues.  I just get so tired of endless cold days and cloudy skies, staying inside and chilly feet.  I get antsy and cranky.  So I look for ways to brighten up the gray in my life.  One of the ways I do that is by forcing bulbs.

Photos Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

 Have you ever forced bulbs for some spring color?  Its not as daunting a task as it sounds.  It is a great way to add color and sweet fragrance to a dreary winter day!

You can buy bulbs at any garden store.  Bulbs that work best for forcing are amaryllis, hyacinths, miniature daffodils, paperwhites and tulips.  The bigger the bulb, the more flowers you get.  You can put them in potting mix and cover them with a light sprinkling of soil, or you can buy special bulb-forcing glasses available at any garden center.

 Bulbs need to be chilled for a specific time period.  You can set them in a cold utility room or garage, or if they are small enough and you have the storage space, the refrigerator is the perfect temperature.  They need between six and eight weeks of chill time, less for smaller bulbs.  So if you start now you can have lovely bulbs just in time for Easter.

A little bit of springtime chases the clouds away!!!

~Amber

Landscaping Tips for Small Spaces

So you don't have a backyard that allows for swimming pools, water features and lush rolling areas of soft grass.  That doesn't mean that you have to sacrifice landscaping and flowers to brighten your garden or welcome guests to your front door!  There are some great tips for maximizing space and impacting your small yard with lovely landscaping.

Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

Large container gardens make a big impact but can also take up too much space.  By using smaller containers, that are also portable, you can make a statement wherever you need color!  

 Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

 Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

Use vertical space!  By using plant stands, lattices, and even fences to train plants to grow vertically, you can create beautiful focal points without taking up a lot of ground.

 Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

 Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

Patio furniture can easily eat up all the space on a deck or porch.  Keeping outdoor accessories on the small side helps to make the most of your space.  Don't be afraid of color or using one large piece of furniture, like a lovely table for an eating area or a settee and ottoman to lounge in the sun!

  Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

While a full-grown spruce can get more than 50 feet tall and 30 feet wide, columnar varieties such as the one pictured above get no more than 6 feet across. Look for these narrow types to save space.  There are many varieties of trees and shrubs that grow tall and narrow to accommodate small areas.  

 Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens

Play with color!  By painting doors, shutters or even patio furniture in bright and cheerful colors, you can allow for beautiful focal points even on winter days when nothing is in bloom.  

Landscaping and lush foliage doesn't have to be relegated to the large-scale gardener.  Using a few smart tips can help create a lovely landscape for your home!

~Amber

Winter Gardening

Time to start all those gardening jobs that have been put aside for "winter". The list is long but today will be cold and sunshiny - just perfect for being outdoors in the garden!  Enjoy your day.

Friendly Fridays

Welcome to Friendly Fridays!  Each Friday over the summer we will tour a 'real life' smaller house or space.  Today I'm excited to show you my neighbor Monica's house where she lives with her husband and three children.

Aren't these great colors she chose for the outside of her home?  The brick is a natural red, the siding is taupe and the shutters are black.  Classic is always in style!  This house still falls on the smaller side - under 2000 sq. ft. - but there is an addition over the garage and in the back.  Let's go inside.

 

Here is the living room.

And the dining room.

Notice the french doors to the family room.  These are always wonderful in a smaller house as they add light and create more visual space.

This is the family room, an addition to the back of the house.  How about those red walls.  Nice!

Here is the original galley kitchen. 

The master bedroom is part of the addition over the garage that created a bedroom suite.  Again, notice the french doors into the bathroom.

I'd love to have this bathroom.  Again, this is part of an addition.

Here is the girls' room.  How cute is this!

And the boys room.  Monica did a great job with decorating both childrens' rooms.  I wouldn't change a thing.  And notice that the children share rooms.  Which as far as I'm concerned, is the only way to go.  For my tips on raising children in a smaller space you can click HERE

A small very functional and practical study.  I love the colors and the serene feeling.

Down to the basement.  The perfect place to put the kids and all their stuff.  For more about where to put the kids when you have a smaller home click HERE

This work/play area in the basement is a great idea!  The overhead shelving is brillant.

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This laundry room is part of the addition.  Wish it was mine!

And since it's Friendly Friday let me also welcome you into my back garden.

I have about nine feet of space between the back of my house and my neighbors' yard.  As you can see, there is not much room for planting.  But I have managed to cram a lot into the three foot strip of soil that is not paved over.

I have pear trees...

and peach trees...

and cherry trees with ripe cherries. 

I asked the neighbors to help pick the cherries before the squirrels and robins ate every last one.

The little boy on the bottom rung of the ladder is my next door neighbor.  He speaks fluent Chinese and English!

Buddy also enjoys the garden.  He likes to look out the back fence and see what is going on.

And sometimes he goes out to play with his friends.

Have a great weekend!

Genevieve

The Jewel Box Home: Scenes from the Garden

Espalier Pear Tree Outside my Kitchen Window

This is the scene out the kitchen window of my espalier pear tree - a tree that grows flat against a wall or fence, usually in a very small area. As with the Jewel Box sm Home, small is not a limitation, but an advantage. Espalier trees are trained to grow in tight spaces, this automatically produces an abundance of fruit because the branching is limited.

View of Pear Tree from my Kitchen Window

Although my garden area is small, I love to cook with fresh herbs, so I plant my favorites in pots outside the kitchen door. Below is the potted rosemary which I can easily reach by opening the screen door and snipping a piece while standing inside the back kitchen entrance.

Potted Rosemary Outside Kitchen Door

I also like to "branch" out and try some exotic gardening. These plants are always in pots which I bring indoors when the weather cools. Here is my very tiny lemon tree, which as you can see, does have lemons. These should ripen by the end of September.

Potted Lemon Tree

Until next time!

Genevieve

Its Memorial Day Weekend, Time to Garden!

The cone flowers in the picture above are from a small perennial flower garden I keep outside my kitchen door. For those of us that live in the Midwest, gardening begins over Memorial Day weekend. Its possible to plant before then, but the soil is not warm enough for plants to make any progress. This weekend I put in both my vegetable garden and flower garden and I'd like to introduce you to a little technique I like to call "clump gardening". I don't recommend this for vegetables, but it is wonderful for flowers, especially annuals. The idea is to group clusters of plants together to create high impact accents of color in selected areas of the garden. You can get a feel for this in the photo of my garden from last year. I "clumped" the geraniums so there would be splashes of red through out the green foundation plantings. The cone flowers shown above were also arranged for pops of color along my fence. I far prefer the bright showy shocks of color that you can achieve with "clump planting" to lonely flowers scattered sparsely throughout a bed.

Until next time,

Genevieve