My little sanctuary all ready to go

I am utterly amazed at how wonderful this looks. I'll be honest... I have never been good at picking colours, but I LOVE the way the colours of the walls and floor look together. 

Here is a photo of this room before. 

One of my garden favorites. Peony’s.

Last year I didn’t get a single peony flower. We were hit with a blight/fungus that really stopped the growth and flowering of almost all of my iris and peony plants. It was such a cold wet spring. This year is more than making up for it. Here are a few of my remaining peony’s today. 

Iris ‘Edith Wolford’

A perfect birthday gift. A road trip to my favorite garden nursery.

My new birthday rose opened within the week. 

“Olivia Rose Austin”

Today we took a road trip to Dinter Nursery. It is truly my favorite nursery. I went with a list. From my wish list I found the following… I cannot wait to get planting!!!

Lupin - Salmon Star

Purple azalea

Dahlia - Cafe Au Lait

David Austin rose - Olivia Rose Austin

Foxglove - Dalmatian Peach

A mature Olivia Rose Austin rose bush from the David Austin website. 

Surprised that my favorite David Austin rose, Abraham Darby has been discontinued.

I am madly in love with Abraham Darby roses. This may not be the best staged photo ever, but I really love this photo of my precious roses in my little Waterford vase in my old house in Sidney. I now live in the Gulf Islands, and below are my first flowers up here at my new place. Next year I will definitely have lots to pick and share. I’m a happy girl. 

I feel bad that David Austin has discontinued them. So many people will be deprived of the beauty of this amazing rose. That said, I will be selecting two new varieties for my garden next year. 

Front door makeover

A couple years from now, on the renovation schedule, we will be moving the front doorway forward and putting a westcoast style beamed entry over it. This will of course include a new door and lighting. In the meantime though… we ordered a piece of safety glass and decided to turn the existing very outdated western horseshoe/English Lion knocker/bizarre carved panel combo door that created a claustrophobic and dark look to this part of the house, into a simple glass door. Win win. More light and not so oddly a 70’s, western and English style combo door. Also, the door bell didn’t work and there were wires dangling from it. All in all, it needed a bit of love. 

BEFORE