Pale blue hydrangeas in bloom have always signaled the arrival of summer for me. From my mother's home in Alabama, and now in my own French Country inspired home in Texas, hydrangeas bring back nostalgic memories of long summer days. 

Growing hydrangeas in north Texas is much harder than growing hydrangeas in Alabama. Maybe that is one reason the beautiful pale blue flowers bring so much joy. 

Beautiful Outdoor Ivy Topiary Growing Tips

Ivy topiaries are a beautiful way to add greenery to your home and garden all year. But, unusually prolonged freezing weather can damage or kill an ivy grown in a container outside.  

Ivy is fairly drought tolerant and cold hardy, easy to train on a topiary frame, grows into shape within a year or two, and looks good during every season. 

Ivy grown in containers are excellent plants for decks, porches, and structured gardens. 

Bulletin Board Inspiration No. 2 | Moody Blue Flowers

A Paper Series Post

No wonder Bulletin Board Inspiration No. 2 has moody blue flowers. Blue flowers have been my favorites for years which means my collected clippings include dozens of articles about blue flowers. 

If you are new to the blog, you may have missed the previous articles in this series of bulletin board inspiration on a rejuvenated old bulletin board painted ink blue. Links to the previous posts are at the end. 

Recommended varieties with botanical names, how to prepare beds, information about bulbs and seeds, and show-stopping photographs of gardens and flower arrangements are all part of my magazine clippings of blue flowers. The bulletin board inspiration for April is only a small part of my clipped collection of blue flowers.

Spring Gardening With New Flower Pots and Lavender

The call of gardening comes each Spring not only in the form of new bedding plants, but also with the lure of beautiful new flower pots. 

Large blue and white flower pots for alluring blue, pink, and lavender colored flowers fill the top of the pine chest against the stone fireplace that separates the living room and kitchen. 

Winter Botanicals | What to Grow

Deep in January is the time to look around for ideas about what to grow for Winter botanicals in your yard and in your containers. Look beyond the everyday Winter trees and shrubs for ideas about garden structure when your garden is covered in snow. Then think beyond evergreens and structures to think about adding beautiful blooming flowers that thrive during cold Winter days, even under snow. 

The backbone of every garden includes trees, shrubs, and garden structures. Evergreen trees and shrubs provide color when most of the garden is dormant. Bare, small accent trees around flower beds offer interesting shapes and visually help connect ground level plants with towering trees at the garden's edges. Stone borders around flower gardens and stone bird baths define garden spaces in every season. 

Pink Crepe Myrtle | Why Southern Gardeners Love Them

A stunning pink crepe myrtle tree grows on a small farmholding down a country road near me. The tree is an example of why crepe myrtles have been staples in Deep South gardens and yards for generations.  

For over twenty years I have admired the beautiful tree covered in fluffy pink blossoms as I travel from my home to the closest town for shopping. 

Home Grown Summer Tomatoes

Nothing tastes better than home grown tomatoes in the summer. Vine-ripened until ruby red are the best tasting of all. Yet, sometimes unripe green ones have to be picked. 

Read about ideas on how to choose which tomatoes to grow, how to decide when to harvest them, how to store them until ready for eating, and how to help tomatoes to ripen when picked while green. 

Start with where do you keep fresh red and green tomatoes until they are ready to eat? Storing fresh tomatoes is a topic for both store bought tomatoes and home grown tomatoes. So, even if you don't grow your own tomatoes in a home garden, you may find this question useful anyway. 

Fading Pink Hydrangeas | Reminders of Mother's Love

The first pink hydrangea blooms of summer are fading, but there are more blooms to come on these Nantucket Blue® hydrangeas. Seeing the profusion of hydrangea blooms reminds me of my mother's love for hydrangeas and of her love for me. 

Nantucket Blue®, a new hydrangea variety on my shady open deck and porch last year, blooms on new growth as well as on old growth. There is the promise of new buds to sprout as summer continues. 

Pink Hydrangeas | Containers On Shady Deck

Hydrangeas planted in containers on a shady deck were blue last summer, but are pink this year. Although we added aluminum sulfate to the plants earlier this spring, we added it too late for the first blooms to be blue. 

Over the years I planted hydrangeas in the ground without any success. The plants always eventually died after struggling during the long hot, dry summers and heavy clay soils in north Texas. Then I discovered hydrangeas kept in large containers on the shady deck and porch not only survived, but bloomed! 

Spring Porch Window Box Basket

Window boxes are not just for windows. This spring we moved a basket window box from the front entry to a railing on the back porch. 

Reasons for moving the window box basket include a better location to see the plants. The window basket was in the small front entry garden visible to all who came and went by the front door, but was too far away for a good view of the plants. 

After thinking about the possible move, other reasons convinced us the move was a good idea.

French Country Spring Potting Table

The potting table on the back porch has a French Country look for Spring this year. Ivy wreaths, vintage French zinc seed pots, and a wire mesh birdcage remind me of authentic garden tables in the French countryside. 

Morning sunlight reaches blue lobelia bedding plants on the potting table, but the covered porch shades plants from the late afternoon sun. 

French-Inspired White Bird Cage for Spring

A French-inspired white wire bird cage has landed on the white shelves in the kitchen sunspace for a fresh look this spring. Previously, the white bird cage sat on a table at the end of the sofa in the living room. 

Why this bird cage and the two myrtle topiaries? 

  

As always, I look for ways to bring more French design into my country house. If you also love adding French Country style or garden style to your house, read on to see how a bird cage and topiaries could bring a fresh look to your house this spring. 

Dried Narcissus Spring Bouquet

Fresh Spring narcissus bouquets are not unusual for February through April, but a DRIED narcissus bouquet was a first at my house in early February this year. 

The blossoms not only dried, but they also retained their delicate yellow colors.

French Country Winter Bulbs Promise Spring

Deep in Winter, bulbs emerge with a promise of Spring. Even before bulbs sprout outside and their blooms appear, bulbs potted inside in a French Country urn brighten our Winter-weary indoors while we wait for Spring to appear outside. 

Cold, dreary Winter days can be depressing, but indoor flowering bulbs work wonders to lift our spirits. 

Fall Front Entry Garden

White chrysanthemums brighten the front entry garden this fall. Boxwood shrubs and trailing ivy are the foundation of the tiny garden, and seasonal flowers add the bright spots during the year. 

Fall arrived late and is leaving early at my house this year. 

Peach French Tuteur Trellis

This spring peach French tuteur trellises are the biggest change in my flower gardens. We had them in the vegetable garden for the past few years, and they were burgundy before being painted peach. 

As I looked at the narrow flower garden strip below the covered back porch, I realized the peach French tuteur trellises would fit nicely in the space and would help hide the dark open area under the porch. 

How To Grow Texas Bluebonnets

Texas bluebonnet wildflowers require five things to grow. Alkaline soil, rhizobium bacteria, water, sunshine, and seed are the five things you need to grow Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) and have a spectacular wildflower garden next spring. 

With those five things, you can grow bluebonnets in your  backyard, in your garden, or in your open countryside fields in Texas. You may also need a sixth thing, patience. 

Now is the time to make plans to grow bluebonnets this fall. Seed companies frequently sell out of bluebonnet seeds; May is a good time to order bluebonnet seeds. This spring's plants will have gone to seed, and companies will be harvesting their crops to sell the seeds. 

Afternoon Tea In The Bluebonnets

Afternoon tea may bring visions of an English "high tea" to your mind, but afternoon tea also can be a break from spring gardening to enjoy a glass of iced tea and a blueberry muffin in a bluebonnet patch in your backyard. 

Thanks to Amber of Follow the Yellow Brick Home for hosting It's a Spring Tea Party Blog Hop with 25 bloggers. I am excited to be part of this beauty-filled event. 

See all of the links to the others who are sharing their visions of a Spring Tea Party at the end. You are certain to find some wonderful ideas for celebrating GLORIOUS SPRING at your house. 

Welcome to everyone coming from one of my good blogging friends, Katie at Let's Add Sprinkles. Now, I consider all the bloggers on the Spring Tea Party good blogging friends, but Katie and I have a special blogging friendship. We co-hosted a weekly linky party with another good Texas blogging friend before Katie began hosting Keep in Touch. If you are missing The Scoop and Wow Us Wednesdays for connecting with others at linky parties, head over to Let's Add Sprinkles each Tuesday to join Katie's linky party. 

In fact, several of my blogging friends on this Spring Tea Party Blog Hop co-host weekly linky parties and would love to have you join them each week. See a list of Linky Parties to join each week on my sidebar. 

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Thank you for coming to read about an afternoon tea party here in Texas. 

At my house, we are celebrating a favorite time of the year with iced tea and blueberry muffins in the patch of bluebonnets in our backyard.    

Afternoon tea in the bluebonnets is a way to enjoy joie de vivre (exuberant joy of living) during an exuberant time of the year in Texas ... the time of bluebonnet blooming season. 

Backyard Meadow | How To Grow Through The Seasons

Growing a rye grass meadow in the backyard is easy and looks good through three seasons of the year in north Texas. See how to begin and to grow a grass meadow with no pesticides, with no fertilizers, and with little supplementary watering. 

The backyard meadow shown is part of a two-acre lot in the countryside outside any city limits in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Where you are located has a major impact on what your yard must look like. City codes regulate yards, and close neighbors in housing subdivisions expect lawns to look uniform. 

French Lavender in a French Market Basket

Artificial French lavender (lavande) in a reproduction French market basket evokes scenes from an earlier era in France and provides authentic vintage French style for a French-inspired garden and home in Texas. 

You see French market baskets on wheels all over France as shoppers actually do use them to cart home their daily grocery purchases. You may even see a bouquet of flowers sitting on top, perhaps a large spray of lavender stems. 

However, most modern-day French market baskets are just that, modern. Light weight, sleek open metal design, rectangularly shaped, state-of-the-art wheels built for traveling on sidewalks, up-and-down stairs, carted onto the metro, and folded up for storing once the contents are emptied. 

To find a reproduction French market rattan basket with wheels fires my romantic fantasies of how France was in another era.