Lots of flowers on a Slow Sunday...

Hello and Happy Mother's Day!!  By the time you read this I will have indulged in a Mother's Day brunch at my oldest son's house and if the weather holds, my younger son will be helping me plant up my window boxes... see the pretty petunias I got... pink, lavender and yellow... a nice color scheme for this Summer.

I didn't get a lot of crafty stuff done this week... and I just realized it has been at least 2 weeks since I even turned on my sewing machine... sigh... but I have been busy with flowers... buying them and planting them... I've visited several garden centers... some I've been to multiple times... the fear of missing out on the good stuff  is very real!  LOL

Fingers crossed the threat of frost is behind me and I started with my shelf of petunias... and as I'm a big fan of indoor decorating, I'm also a big fan of outdoor decorating... and my plan for the petunias is color blocked shelves... yellow, orange, pink, purple...  here's how it is starting out... make the pics bigger for a closer view... 

I was surprised that I found five different shades of orange petunias ... and to celebrate that find I got some new orange pots for them... they are shinier than I thought but I do love the look! By my count there are 21 different varieties of petunias on the shelves... some pots got 2 different varieties stuffed into them... and I haven't decided if that is the final spot for that big pot of yellow petunias but I couldn't leave them at the garden center... I just couldn't...

Then I moved onto playing coleus... there are sooooo many varieties of coleus... from limey green to coppery red to burgundy and purple and I want one of everything!! Here's the ones I did bring home...

and there were at least that many different varieties I left behind. 

I always do a big pot of coleus in my front yard ... and again I play with the colors of the plants like I play with fabric ... and in this case I started with the limey green and then gradated with the ones that are green and red and ended up on the other side with the ones that are all red... 

After that I played with the area on my patio that fences it off from the yard... and this year I'm trying out a peachy-pinky vibe...

that large petunia on the left is such a pretty color...  I forget what the name of the spiky plant is but I tucked in some peachy coleus at the base... and in the tall planter I have Peachy Keen lantana with a coppery coleus in the middle and basil in the back... underneath the planter I put limey green coleus and some rosy pinky petunias... to the left that pink/green/cream striped plant is a cordyline ... and on the end (which got cut off )  some peachy dahlias and peachy osteospermum.  Like I said... outdoor decorating!

By my count I've potted up 75 4" pots and on Saturday Nick helped me plant about 20 1 gallon plants... cannas, foxglove, guara and some new stuff  I've forgotten the name of... however I still need to clean out the beds of the fading daffodils ... and then Nick helped me plant about 3 and a half flats of marigolds totally lining the beds... I think that works out to be about 120 individual little plants... Nick dug the holes and  put in some fertilizer and I put the marigold in and tamped it down... we ended up spending about 4 and 1/2 hours working and we were both pooped. In the past I've planted little tithonia flowers, but the garden center I usually get them out didn't have any... and it is the one garden center I drag my feet to go there as the parking is atrocious ... one trip to that one is all I have the patience for. We shall see how the marigolds work out...fingers crossed...

I haven't started planting the dahlia tubers ... I think the ground is still too cold and I'm waiting for the sprinkler company to come and put in the drip irrigation in the beds before I plant stuff... they are coming on Wednesday to turn back on the sprinklers and drip that I have now but I don't know if they are going to do the new stuff ... I'm happy to wait a couple of weeks as I have plenty of other yard work to do. 

Now I did stitch some more on The Red Bird Sampler by 3 Sheep Studio but not until I had to frog a whole lot of red... the chart calls for DMC 814 and 815 ... but there is very little contrast between them  and if you look at the picture the wings are definitely a brighter red... in fact I think there is an error because I frogged the 815 and replaced it with 816 and now it looks like the picture... here's where I was...

here's where I am...

And I am going to start Bobby by Kathy Barrick some time today...  here are the flosses and the linen I'm going to use... 

Next week is super busy... I have at least one  and sometimes two appointment every day ... and sometimes I think I should try to do more things in one day to free up another, but I'm always afraid that I will be late for the 2nd appointment if I do that... so I don't... 

And speaking of appointments... I spent Friday with a new orthopedic surgeon talking about a total knee replacement (TKR)... I've watched a ton of videos about TKR and while I definitely need it in my left knee (and probably in my right knee too but we aren't going to think about that right now) and last week I found out about a different procedure for the surgery ... it has been in practice for about 20 years but I never heard of it before.... so if it is new to me, it might be new to you and a lot of us are getting to the stage of having to replace different joints. The procedure is called Jiffy Knee (and yes my boomer brain immediately thinks of Jiffy Pop Popcorn)... here's a link to the website... jiffyknee.com... 

Instead of cutting the quadricep muscle and the tendons, this procedure moves them aside to do the joint replacement... it is less invasive and results in reduced post-operative pain, decreased swelling, and speedier recovery times. Patients are up and back to driving in 10 -14 days! And  the surgeon says I should be able to get back to my garden within a month!  Now I did a ton of research on this technique... a deep dive into AI with Grok... I found out about the technique and the background on my surgeon... as with any surgery there are still the issues of possible infection or blood clots but it isn't any more prevalent than traditional TKR. They also use this technique for hip  and shoulder replacement. 

As you can surmise I am seriously thinking about using this technique ... I could have the surgery on July 1 at a hospital that is less than 5 minutes from my home and right around the corner from my older son's house. I had myself pretty much convinced about the Jiffy Knee, and then had breakfast with a friend who's husband is a retired doctor (urology), and he's in the process of having a TKR and he didn't support the Jiffy technique... which has me internally debating my choice.  I'm going to discuss it with my older son as he is a very logical thinker... the idea of less pain and quicker recovery is at the forefront of what I want.  We'll talk more about this when the time gets closer but I'll definitely be asking for your prayers and positive thoughts... I'm not looking forward to it but it needs to be done. 

So I hope you are having a nice day and that the rest of your week is a good one too ... I will link up with Kathy's Quilts... and like I said I want to stitch a little and get the window boxes planted up... there is still a lot of cleanup I need to do in the yard... and lots of stitching and sewing I want to do... but Rome wasn't built in a day, right?  

happy stitching-

carol fun