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Rosehaven Cottage
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The Rosehaven Cottage blog is about the adventures of creating and maintaining a garden as a certified wildlife habitat and our journey of restoring the 1940's bungalow that we call Rosehaven Cottage.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'garden'
Another of my life\'s paradoxes
The weather has finally cooled enough for me to venture back out into the garden in earnest and do the necessary trimming and cleanup after a long hot summer. Without a lawn to mow, I can let things go for a couple of months.As I was pruning things,...
Sunday Evening Discovery in the Garden
The new deck across the back of Rosehaven Cottage(construction clean-up is set to happen this week)With the major construction on the deck completed, I spent Saturday hooking up and updating the disconnected drip mist irrigation system for the back g...
A new discovery...
I received an email from my mother today. It was one of those that you forward on to everyone you think would care. It contained a link to The Breast Cancer Site where all I had to do was click the big pink button, and my simple click made sponsor ...
Are you a "Food Production Facility"?
Our 2007 Roma tomato harvestIn the United States, a new piece of legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives that probably you either haven't heard of or don't think it applies to you. It is H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization A...
October Blooms Around Rosehaven Cottage
Since the garden has decided to act like it's spring instead of fall, I decided to just embrace it, photograph it, and share it.Just last week I commented on Jeanette's photo of her wild iris that I haven't been able to get a good photo of ours that ...
Autumn Reflections
Jodi at bloomingwriter has written a post for the first day of autumn that has caused me a great deal of reflection today. I like when someone else's writing does that for me. Thinking and reflection are good. Jodi wrote about the passing of summe...
A Gardener's Surprise in Downtown San Francisco
Last Saturday Hubby, my mom, and I drove into San Francisco to see the Ming exhibit at the Asian Art Museum. The museum is located in the heart of the civic area of San Francisco, and one can see the beautiful historic San Francisco City Hall from t...
Autumn Please Come Soon!
The past couple of weeks have been oppressively hot around here (hovering around 100 degrees F) which makes gardening a dangerous activity for me. Trust me... heat stroke is not pretty. So I've had to bide my time waiting for autumn's cool temps in...
Tell me...
Tell me,Little Missy Oreothe wild garden kitty...How do you get your nose so dirtywhile your paws stay so white?I know you patrol the gardens when I'm not there,sniffing each corner and every twig to detect who's been there before.Is that how your no...
Whispers Between Hollyhocks
When hollyhocks whisper amongst themselves,What is it that they say?Do they discuss the unfurling of a Blue Ribbon rose...Or the Irish Cream's new bloom for the day?Do they talk of the mums warm autumn tonesgrowing small and demure at their feet?Are ...
Around the Garden...
There are many things happening around the garden...An "Irish Creme" rosebud begins to open its caramel-dipped petals.Like the round cheeks of a freckled schoolgirl,the pomegranates blush. "Autumn isn't so far away," they say.Nature has placed the su...
Stop to Smell the Roses
The past couple of days have been full of a lot of deep soul-searching on my part. I think creative types go through this regularly, so I'm beginning to see that feeling the need to do this isn't really earth-shattering. Mainly, I'm just trying to ...
New Plants and More of the Spirit of Aloha in the Garden
Above: The "beach" of the pond where I already have touches of the spirit of Alohain the canna lilies and potted palms (squirrel-planted seedlings now in pots)Yesterday, I was left with the instruction from Hubby that I should do something that "feed...
Roses, Roses, Roses
Time for a rose parade in July! Without further adieu... Above: "Our Lady of Guadalupe" Above: "Ronald Reagan" budding and then full blown Above: "Disneyland" (left) and "Janice Kellogg" (right) amidst mint blossomsClick the box above to follow me ...
The Garden: Up Close and Personal
Some days in the garden are days when I want to look at little details. Okay, maybe not just some days... most days, I do that. I am fascinated by the small things that are so beautiful because of their diminutive perfection.So today's post is a ph...
Seed Packets, Brugmansia and Friendship
Yesterday at church as I was sitting down for Sunday School, my friend Kathy casually mentioned that I should come over some time this week because she just got a big shipment of seed packets. As a horticultural instructor at our local college, distr...
Secrets Within My "Secret Garden"
Continuing on from the last post...There are nooks and crannies everywhere throughout the front garden that hide little pretties here and there. I love taking a slow stroll through the garden and spying new discoveries that are growing on their own-...
View from the Kitchen Window into my "Secret Garden"
Click on any of the photos to enlarge them.Hubby is the king of the kitchen around here. It's his domain. I don't complain, since he lets me have the garden shed all to myself.Our kitchen isn't big--perfect "cottage size". Hubby likes it that way....
Life's Little Pleasures From the Garden
Yesterday evening, I ventured out into the garden before the sun went down to do "garden patrol". "Garden patrol" consists of watering things that aren't on the drip-mist irrigation system yet; checking on produce to see if it's ready for harvesting...
Front Door, Back Door
Kate at Our Red House tagged me to share the views from the front door and back door of Rosehaven Cottage. She mentioned that when she was tagged she felt a bit embarrassed to show her "ordinary" views in comparison to the person who tagged her. Well...
The Miracle of the "Elsie Poppies"
If you haven't read the post"The Poppy Seed Experiment", reading it first will provide the context for the following post.Click here to go directly to"The Poppy Seed Experiment" Left: The packet of Shirley Poppy seeds that were dated for the growing...
After the heat is over...
After the heat is over as the sun slips over the western horizon and the moon comes peeking through the branches of pomegranate blossoms......the garden remains awake and alive for every last second of light.The bees take their last sips of water at ...
The Intrigue of Artichokes in the Harvest Basket
With records temperatures hovering at over 100 F (38 C), there isn't much I can do in the garden. The San Francisco Bay Area is under a health advisory because of the heat that is upon us. Even if I could stand working in the heat, it would be extrem...
May's Parade of Roses and Blooms, Part 2
May is the month of roses here in the Rosehaven Cottage gardens, particularly in the front garden where most of the rosebushes reside. Over the next couple of posts, let me take you on a photographic tour of our front gardens in all their May splendo...
May's Parade of Roses and Blooms, Part 1
May is the month of roses here in the Rosehaven Cottage gardens, particularly in the front garden where most of the rosebushes reside. Over the next couple of posts, let me take you on a photographic tour of our front gardens in all their May splendo...
You know you've been working hard when...
You know you've been working hard when the head of your sledgehammer flies off the handle. The term "flying off the handle" has a literal meaning for me now (hee hee). I was swinging away at the "acres" of concrete slab I have to remove, and voile! T...
Act Two of Spring Begins
Around here, by the time mid-April rolls around spring has been underway for a couple of months. February usually kicks off spring with the early spring blooms like the crocus and daffodils. So by now, all the bulb blossoms have bloomed and faded le...
Cool Flowers on a Hot Sunday Garden Walk
Above: The view today of the front garden path leading from our front door out to the pergolaThis weekend is unseasonably warm in our part of the world. The sun is bright and the air is bordering on oppressively hot. We're having to run the air-condi...
Houston, The Shed Has Landed!!!!
Well, it's time for a garden update.In a previous post I wrote about my sledgehammering activities and how I was building a well-draining foundation for a new shed kit that we were going to put in on at the back of the garden.I also wrote in a more r...
Mute Monday Montage of What's Blooming in the Garden Right Now
Click on any of the images below to see the photo larger Above left: Dutch irisAbove center: NasturtiumsAbove right: Lantana Above top left: Pink WeigelaAbove top right: Purple tulipsAbove bottom left: Golden Pacific Coast Native irisAbove botto...
