Monday, May 8, 2017

Garden and walls issues

I was finally able to get some Roundup.  So today after I got home from work I sprayed the pea gravel paths, which had already started to get decorated by Nature with weeds—this type of a weed that looks like a sea star with flimsy arms that stretch out in the four cardinal directions and, which I profoundly dislike because it is a hustle to remove by hand due to the way it grows—flat and sealed to the ground.




I also sprayed all rose bushes with Neem oil; soaked them to their pores with it to prevent the roseslugs to reduce their lovely green leaves to lace.  This annoying pets, which aren't really slugs at all, but actually the larval stage of a sawfly can turn an entire Knockout garden into lace skeletons.  They skeletonize leaves by chewing tissues between veins, leaving foliage lace-like.  It may sound pretty, but it really isn't at all.  



I've found out that this only tends to happens with the Knockout variety, and although the tea roses can still be under the attack of any other garden 'terror', they are safe from becoming skelotonized.

It is hard to keep up with the wild south when you suffer from OCD of the garden variety, and I need to learn to relax a little bit, and leave 'some' things the way they want to be...  hard.  Very hard to do thought.

At the beginning of the year I transplanted my favorite Chicago Peace to a sunnier spot, and I'm so happy I did.  After two years in the garden this rose is finally doing as wonderful as it should. This rose it always brings to memory that long-ago garden in the roses I once had.  Is disease resistant and the loveliest of blush-pink roses grow on long, sturdy stems.  They are perfect for bouquets, big and small, and have always loved them.



Inside the house it is always a transformation of some sorts going on, as I keep changing things around and decorating and redecorating.  I have a fascination with gallery walls.  Love them to the core, and yet I cannot seem to have them in my house.  It is too much of a thing to my eye, too much for the soul, which it always is in search of peace and quietness.  Thus, this weekend I finally got to the task of taking down all the dozen plus paintings decorating the walls in our second bedroom.  





I knew what I was getting into when I decided to create a gallery wall and, although I did pay attention to that wise inner little voice inside me telling me not to, I went ahead anyway and had it up... an entire wall from ceiling to floors decorated with more than a dozen painting and creation, many of which I did myself.  Like all my Frida Khalo art.    



As much as I loved it, all those months I had my gallery wall up I felt uneasy about it, and my soul couldn't find its peace.  I was very well aware that my lovely gallery art had to be taken down at some point. You see, I made so many holes on the walls they almost looked like my skeletonized Knockout roses, or even worse.  Hanging all those frames also caused some major marks and wall paint disaster, and I knew this had to be mended up soon. 

We had to completely fill in all those holes, and spackle the walls.  Matching the right paint was an ordeal too.  I got the wrong one to start with, and had to go back and figure out which was the correct paint used by previous owners.  But what a relief it was after everything was done and back into place!


 No more hanging on walls for me!  

OK, at least for now! ;) 



I hope you all are doing lovely!



5 comments:

  1. Your garden is so beautiful, Cielo. I had a problem with those pests when I lived in the south as well. I wish I would have known about neem oil.

    The bedroom looks beautiful both ways. I'm a gallery girl, but I can see how too many paintings wouldn't let the soul rest and you should always be happy in your own home.

    I love visiting you.
    rue

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  2. Thank you Rue... It is always so nice to see you here!

    Cielo

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  3. I like the look of gallery walls but not in my home, like you , I feel restless with some many things hanging on the walls. The bedroom looks beautiful and your home is beautiful too.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much... glad to know there are others out there just like me...

      Cielo

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