August 31, 2013 -- green tomato

This is a beautiful green tomato I knocked of the vine by accident. It deserved display (and I love the leaves and stem that came off with it) so I put it on this upside-down bowl on the windowsill.

July 30, 2013 -- seriously altered coneflowers

I'm really struggling with new camera. Want to go back to old one, even though its lens is scratched and I have to open it with a fingernail! This is photo taken with new, un-understood camera. The flowers are coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea cultivars).  I have lots of these flowers because I bought some coneflower plants at a fire sale at a local big-box store. Before I planted the plants, I cut off most of the flowering stems. Hence, these flowers. The photo is overexposed because I had to alter it in the computer.

July 28, 2013 -- celosia

This is celosia I harvested from the vegetable garden today. I actually pulled out a wheelbarrow-load of very tall, happy, blooming celosia plants, but they were shading out my veggies, so they had to go. I snipped these short stems from the discarded plants in the wheelbarrow.

I spent part of today trying to learn how to use a new camera, with limited success. Can't quite figure out how to focus it, and on the the automatic setting, the colors seem to cool. Oh, how I hate reading an owner's manual!

July 27, 2013 -- roses and gourds

These are the same red Meidiland roses from a couple of days ago, now combined in one vase. And at their base are three decorative gourds I picked today. If I'd waited longer, they'd probably have gotten a little bigger, but I couldn't resist!

July 24, 2013 -- roses & copperheads

You'd think, as I did, that going outside to pick roses for a windowsill arrangement would be a nice, relaxing activity. Not so today. On the way to the roses I encountered a dead copperhead in the street (run over by a car). That wouldn't have been all that unsettling, except that my husband killed a copperhead in the garden a couple of weeks ago, AND while out picking the roses a neighbor drove by and told me another neighbor who walks his dog down our street had encountered 5 copperheads his summer. Chilling. So I came inside with my roses less relaxed than when I walked out. Still, here's the arrangement--little red Meidiland roses combined with some wild sumac foliage.

July 23, 2013 -- salsify

I actually did this "arrangement" while on vacation and forgot to post it.  I found these wonderful salsify seed structures on a roadside, picked a few, and displayed them on the windshield of the car. They look like gigantic dandelions but they're actually wild salsify.

Here they are on the car "windowsill."

Here they are growing wild.

July 20, 2013 -- black-eyed Susans, etc.

With these black-eyed Susans are some hydrangea foliage and some springs of a grass called 'Frosted Explosion.' I like the way the black-eyed Susans are facing all sorts of different directions and all their heads are at different heights. That makes the arrangement look more natural to me.

July 19, 2013 -- Bouncing Bet

Love this wildflower, even though it's weedy. Encountered it both in Idaho and Virginia this week. I call it Bouncing Bet, but it's also called Soapwort, because the leaves have a lathering agent. Dropped it into this old bottle with a big Ligularia leaf.

July 18, 2013 -- white sweet clover

This is one of the rewards of going on vacation: white sweet clover blooming in the lawn. Usually we cut the grass too soon for the clover to bloom. And the backyard smells so very sweet. At first I didn't know where the fragrance was coming from; then I put my little clover bouquet up to my nose and realized it was the clover.

The cucumber is a consequence of going on vacation, too. All the veggies are oversized, because no one was around to pick them smaller.

July 17. 2013 -- tent windowsills

Took these photos a few days ago, but only now have I found time to post them. It's hard to find a windowsill when you're sleeping in a tent, but this was my best attempt. I rolled the window flap down then sort of stretched it tight using the zipper. First photo is nightshade in a beer can. Second is Idaho wildflowers tied to one of my granddaughter's sneakers. If you look hard, you can see the Snake River through the window in the second photo.

July 15, 2013 -- Idaho wildflowerse

Picked these wildflowers on the Idaho ranch where we're staying. See the aspens reflected in the window? The wildflowers I can identify include cinquefoil, Indian paintbrush, lupine, sulfur buckwheat, butter 'n eggs, common mullein, skunk cabbage, yarrow, wild geranium, dock, but it's the six I can't identify that interest me most. Hope to have figured out what they are by the end of the day.

Date ? -- Aspen

I honestly don't know the date. I've been rafting on the Snake River in Idaho for several days and just re-entered semi-civilization. I photographed some fun arrangements on tent "windowsills" while rafting, but they'd take too long to transfer from camera. I'll upload them later. For now, here's photo I took with my iPad a minute ago. This is the windowsill if an Idaho cabin where I've been sitting on the front porch enjoying the sound of the wind in the aspens. Love the broken windowpane (upper right) and the coffee mug, but without the sound and the motion, the aspen twig seems sort of static. WITH the wind, it's a thing of beauty.

July 9, 2013 -- hosta flowers

Hosta flowers, river oats, and Queen Anne's lace--so summer.

July 8, 2013 -- grasses "going by"

I pulled these grasses out of another arrangement because the flowers they were with had died, and, in truth, the stems of these grasses were getting a little mushy themselves. But I liked the way their leaves were fading to yellow, so I decided to give them one last chance to shine, on the windowsill.

July 5, 2013 -- wee pine

I pulled this tiny pine seedling up while weeding Tuesday. Its roots came up intact and the little seedling was so perfect, I dropped it into this juice glass, where I've enjoyed looking at it.

I actually like the simplicity of my little pine-tree-in-juice-glass better than some large arrangements I did yesterday for the Fourth of July. Here's a detail from one that was particularly over the top. The green droopy stuff is love-lies-bleeding.

July 3, 2013 -- veggie leftovers

This is the tip of a Swiss chard plant I snipped from a larger plant today. Love the red stem (wish I'd cut it longer) and pretty whorl of leaves. Bought the bottle recently at the Ivy Creek Nursery near Charlottesville, and I love it although the neck is so narrow it's going to be really hard to clean.

And here are a couple of other things sharing the windowsill with the Swiss chard: a vase of garlic scapes and grasses leftover from a few days ago (left) and the top of a lettuce plant ready to go to seed (right).

July 1, 2013 -- gall gal

This is an oak gall a friend found on the ground this weekend. I thought it was a particularly pretty one because it had some tiny oak leaves still attached.

I couldn't seem to find a way to display my gall that kept the focus on the gall, but it looks pretty interesting on top of this little brown jug. Reminds me of a girl with a spiky new haircut! 

June. 30, 2013 -- American witch-hazel

This is the most amazing July 1 I've ever seen in Virginia. Everything is lush green, no need for watering (in fact we could do with a little less rain) and all gardens are full of flowers (and weeds). I could almost reach in any direction to pick a flower, but the growing thing that most interests me right now came from the woods. I picked this little twig yesterday in Augusta County, because it was a stage of witch-hazel I'd never seen before: the stage between yellow flower and brown fruit. Gorgeous.