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Hands in mudra, hands in prayer, the Sunflower's perfect Sun Salutation.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, happy 4th of July!

Boss of Your Garden

This is my Yoga post. I have a friend who started Yoga about a year ago and she is absolutely beautiful. I know I needed to exercise more, so I started doing Chi Gong again, and added Yoga, so I am doing them both, and they meld beautifully and I like the results. I mention this because I bend incorrectly. I guess I always have. I bend at my mid back and my back hurts. I lift incorrectly too. My husband yells at me to correct me all of the time. So as we must not overlook the lovely faint violet cast to the petal's tips, we must not overlook to bend properly even though we are hard core gardeners.

Here is a lovely form of as rose with violet cast, as we continue the subject. Consider placing your hands on your hips when you are crouched over and you are preparing to lift yourself up. Just by placing your hands on your hips you rise from the hips and your mid back is not used like a fulcrum. Then walk around with your hands on your hips because you are the boss of your garden!

And stand upright and breath deeply and when you bend over exhale, and when you come back up, hands on hips, inhale. I would recommend one week of yoga just for gardeners. You can continue with it if it suits you, but your back would greatly benefit, and the impression of how to bend and breath correctly is invaluable to us because gardening is back breaking work they say.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!

Cat Scratches

Once I posted about sowing mesclun lettuce in a clear plastic "To Go" box, and here is a photograph of the next step which is to transfer the seedlings from the box by gently lifting them out of the soil-less starter medium (butter knife is perfect) and transfering them into 6 packs that can then grow until they are ready to be placed into the soil.

And while doing just that this striking Blue Lobelia caught my eye a couple of times from across the garden and don't you just love granite?

In fall, the Purple Iceplant started as cuttings placed directly into the soil a few months ago takes on colors of magenta and pink with it's new green growth.

The days are chilly now and Symba is growing his winter coat. He has taken to sleeping on the Grape Hyacinth in the sun and there is nothing we can do but wait and hope for the best. Once when the wind was trecherous, a child's play surface foam square about 2 foot square resembling a puzzle piece flew into our backyard, and the neighbor denied it was theirs. Symba liked to sharpen his claws on it, and eventually I tossed it because it was always in the way and was puzzling. So I bought him a gardener's knee pad 2 ft.by 7 inches and he has been tearing into that with delight all summer, I catch the handle under the patio chair leg to secure it least it get in the way. Well, two days ago, I brought home a lovely new yoga pad and laid it out on the floor upstairs in the studio and went off carrying about, and later discovered that it too is perfect for a cat scratch pad, regretably. But then it is the color of his eyes and it still looks almost as good as new except where he scratched the hell out of it! So when you take up yoga again, (tickle, tickle) and purchase your new yoga mat (one week is enough time, don't you think?) please consider your pets and store it when not in use.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!