Lavender & Sweet peas

Things have finally calmed down, I have sprained my ankle and time to sit at the pc again. My dear daughter has arrived in Melbourne safe and sound and the old au pair is showing her around until she leaves and goes back home to New Zealand next Friday, then my daughter starts to take her responsibilities. The weather is cold and rainy in Victoria now, but my daughter is just happy that she saw no spider yet. Thank you all for the good wishes you've sent her under my last post. We have appreciated them very much!

Now back to the garden, heavenly scenting sweet peas are blooming in my garden now, I sowed them in March and it was so worth it for this gorgeous colors and scent:

Also my Lavender bushes, like this one, are ready to get harvested:

After weeks of gray skies and rain the summer sun finally came back to us this weekend:

I just had to snap a picture of my garden princess again, with the freshly picked lavender bouquet:

In my front garden the petunias are blooming beautifully:

When I sit at the black iron chairs above in my front yard I look at beautiful pink hydrangeas:

Now back on my patio with more Lavender harvest pictures:

Also another one of my fave summer flowers, the Monarda, is in full bloom now:

And one more summer fave, the Astrantia major, is also blooming in July:

One of my Dahlias, which I had planted in a pot has survived the mass snail and slug attackes during the wet weather period and is already blooming now:

More sweet pea photos:

And lastly I had to bring the french Lavender in the house where I can enjoy it's "Parfum de Provence" all the time hmmmmm


Hope you liked my little garden update!

Enjoy your weekend everyone! I'm looking forward to catch up with your blogs now!

Carol(a) xox

A good mixture!

Oh my goodness like every time I can't decide what to post on my blog. I'm torn between pictures of my garden, decorations, swaps and crafts. What is it that you like to see best/mostly? Well for this time I decided to make this post a good mixture out of it all lol

Okay so I've started with a decorated corner of my deck in the picture above!

Followed by a photo of a wonderful royal mail parcel that I had in the mail last weekend from Chantal of the blog http://celestinemusings.blogspot.com/

Chantal e- mailed me through flickr that she saw a comment that I made weeks ago under someone elses picture of a book called "The Country diary of an Edwardian Lady" and that she had a spare copy of that book which she'd like to send to me just because she loves my blog and cause she wanted to share it. Wow random act of kindness (RAK) or what? Of course I was delighted and I still am! :D Thank you so much Chantal, you and another kindred soul have made my weekend! I was suffering from a bad migraine and couldn't do much, so your parcel was very soothing for me!

It is such a beautiful nature diary through a whole year with the most enchanting pictures of plants and butterflies etc.pp all hand painted by the author Edith Holden back at the beginning of the last century. Im so happy to have my own copy now! The gorgeous foxglove below is just one example of the prettyness of the pictures, I'll sure post more pictures out of this treasure book from time to time:

See the beautiful metal birds in my fave colors hanging from my blue parasol?

Well they came in another wonderfully lavender smelling parcel last weekend from my dear friend Nature Girl from Canada. We had a magazine swap and the sweet heart that she is she has popped some more goodies in the envelope. I love everything but the birds really make me happy! I so love birds and she just knew it! Thank you so much NG! xox

Click on picture to enlarge and see more details!

Further I like to share with you some pictures of what is blooming in my little garden at the moment:

Above you can see "Lavatera arborea" a real big plant, almost to big for my border, but it has so many beautiful blooms!

Above is Clematis "Cardinal rouge" which is still blooming pretty as well on my blue trellis and my "Augusta Luise" rose in the photo below is still having pretty flowers too:

Then there are the magnificent sweet peas blooming in my border close to the rose arc now:

The collage on canvas below I've made for Jenny's bits and pieces swap. It's going out to my swap partner Anastasia in Sydney this week. If you are interested to see the collages of all the other participants of this swap go have a look at the flickr group here

See a bigger more detailed version of the picture above here!

And I made another crown, or this I think it became a bit more tiara like. My swap partner Ele had the choice between 3 crowns now and has decided she wants the golden King crown I've shown in my last post though. I'll show you pictures of what I'll get from my swap partners when I've received their parcels. There is also a flickr group for this swap of Holly Doodle, see here

See a bigger more detailed version of the picture above here!

Lastly can you spot me in the next picture?

Sure you can lol

Have a fabulous summer time everyone oh and winter time of course for those of you living down under! And leave me some comments please so that I know that you were here! Thank you and see you in July!

Warmest wishes

Carol(a) xox