{texas in bloom}

A little glimpse of our flower bed, happily growing and blooming.

The giant coneflowers were for Mother's Day just a few weeks ago -- huge and daisy-like, with petals that fold back and down to make unusual cones. The garlic, we have yet to work out if we'll actually be able to eat, but the flowers are nice nonetheless! The borage -- only just sprouted -- came back with us, as a packet of seeds, from England, and should give lovely blue flowers to put in our summer drinks. The achillea only came in packets of "mystery colour" and so I'm rather pleased to see it coming out white.

Patiently waiting for the next planting season, we have fennel, marigolds, nasturtiums, "demon" peppers, Thai basil, and red spring onions... and I'm dreaming of a big purple buddleia to bring in some serious butterfly action!

{diy: cross-stitched garden markers}

Thanks to the lovely weather, we got planting last weekend, and have set ourselves up for a rather tasty year with some favourite herbs. (That's hhhhh-erbs, just to be clear.) To be sure we remember who is who, and don't end up eating our flowers, I made each plant a little marker out of clay.

All you need is a packet of modeling clay (I used Sculptey), some alphabet stamps, and a needle and thread. A 2oz packet of clay (which costs 30 - 50 cents) makes 4 garden markers.

The trick to adding the cross-stitch is to sew through the clay just as soon as it's cool enough to handle (about two minutes after it came out of the oven). Be careful, it's rather hot at first! If you wait more than ten minutes, though, the clay might be too hard already. My advice -- bake them in batches of three or four, to allow yourself enough time to sew them all before they harden.

I'd love to know what you've been planting this year, and am eager for any tips about what grows well in Texas!