Mums the Word

Here are the promised mums. I wonder, do the British (or English only??) call these flowers mums like we do, when they use that word for their mothers too? "Hello, Mum, here's a mum for your porch." Yesterday I bought a white one (yellowish white) and a burgundy. They are not fully flowered yet.

I tried to get some height/structure with the white plant stand.

I really wanted a lavender-colored one ... sigh! ... they are so deliciously beautiful! But the only lavender one she had was massive, in full bloom, and cost $20. So ...

Meet Mr. Pumpkin. He came from the grocery-'round-the-corner. He's nicely plump. I do not carve my pumpkins. I try to keep them from freezing and thus rotting. He will come inside before the first frost. I kept one pumpkin a whole winter that way.

Some of you have asked for a tour of my "garden." You are mistakenly assuming that because I'm a stay-at-home, baking-crocheting-knitting-homeschooling woman (who also wouldn't mind working a loom and spinning wheel), that thus I will also be a gardener. You're wrong. Well, I have gardened. But we're living in a small rental shaded fully with pine trees and full of shrubs, in terrible soil that I'm not allowed to dig up anyway. All my plants are in pots. I have two of these ferns I'm babysitting badly. They used to be church ferns.

I wish they were pretty enough to go back to the church sanctuary, but they froze once, and have had a hard recovery.
These are my other plants. On the right, a lemongrass I have not succeeded yet in killing. On the left is a lovely plant my mother gave me. I've almost killed it three times. I'm sorry to confess I forget its name.

Lastly, my ailing rosemaries. The one on the left is mine. For some reason it's stopped growing. It used to be taller. We snip it often to cook with, but not these days! I think it wants to be in the ground, which I can't do for it. Oh, the lush rosemary hedge I had growing in Statesville! And the one on the right is Philip's, which was healthier when he was here. It's pining for him, I suppose. It had some spidery/filmy illness that I cleaned off, and it seems to be recovering.

I have another large fern I'm trying not to kill, and a few African violets that wish they lived with another mistress. What can I say? Gardening is not my gift, or at least gardening in this particular home. If we move elsewhere, I'll let you know if my skills improve!