Vintage Pottery in the Garden

A great way to add interest to container plants is to decorate with vintage pottery and ceramics.

Here a bulb pot of miniature hosta and babies' tears plays host to a screaming orange mushroom figurine from the 1970's.

The color is so loud that it almost looks poisonous -

but luckily this is one shiny, ceramic, safe mushroom.

Bloom Day August 2011 - Giant White Flowers

Seems that most of what's blooming in my San Francisco garden right now is big, white and fragrant!

There is Impatiens tinctoria.....

The 30 year old Brugmansia.....so fragrant in the early evening -

And the Burmese Honeysuckle (human hand for comparison).

Fragrance, to me, is such an important component of a garden, that I'm just really happy that these three guys are doing so well.
This is my first contribution to Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and I hope to have something to share from my small garden every month.

Jewel Box Colors

The sun finally broke through the relentless San Francisco fog today, and I cut this magnificent cluster of butter yellow lilies from the back of the garden - the stalk was over six feet tall!

Their fragrance is so powerful that it is even detectable all the way up here on the third floor...

And the fresh yellow flowers are just the right accent for the saturated, jewel box colors on our kitchen sideboard.......................

Don't you find the late summer garden a little bittersweet?
Mixed in with the riot of color, flowers and fruit is the subtle but distinct undercurrent of things winding down.

But today I refuse to be distracted by thoughts of autumn, now that our fickle summer sunshine has finally returned!

Will be sharing my sweet-smelling lily with everyone over at
My Romantic Home
French Country Cottage
The Charm of Home
No Minimalist Here

this week.

Real Life Work Table

Here you have this week in a snapshot.....

- Scattered piles of client paperwork - check!
- Laptop - check!
- Framed pieces and vintage wreath to list on Etsy - check!
- Overall gray tones from the relentless SF fog - check!

- Emma, under the table, taking it all in.

This is my real life, not the tidied-up blog version.
Sometimes there is a really wide gap between the two worlds - I suppose that's pretty common.

I will be sharing my reality-check over at My Romantic Home .....