Mrs. Peasant's Homemade Coffee Can Flower Pots

 

An Old Woman Holding a Flower Pot.
After Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681)

When the world wearies

and society fails to satisfy,

there is always the garden.

MINNIE AUMONIER

Somehow, Spring is almost here. I have lots of flower seeds, and no pots to start them in. Luckily, I had some metal coffee cans and some old paint. This project isn't the most amazing or creative which is precisely why I want to share it. Gardening is supposed to be fun. I kept telling myself that while making these pots. When did gardening become so serious? When did gardening become so expensive?

When I would garden on my balcony at our apartment, I never felt ambitious. Gardening on my tiny balcony felt fun. Growing was rolling the dice, experimental, and nothing but joy when ANYTHING grew. Now that I have a large yard, I have bigger ambitions. I have lost that sense of wonder and awe of creation. So, in the spirit of using what we have and enjoying gardening poorly, let's make some coffee can pots! 

You will need: 

-a metal coffee can (save the lid for the bottom)

-a hammer

-a large nail

-newspaper or paper bags

 -acrylic paint

-a paint brush

Both IGA brand coffee and Chock Full O Nuts use metal cans.

These sweet paper butterflies were a gift and have wildflower seeds in them.

Is there anything more nerdy and fun than a good old fashioned experiment? I am doing an experiment to see which method is faster for growing sweet potato slips. I have two sweet potatoes sitting in a jar of water and two potatoes in soil. I'll let you know the results.  I planted my Christmas gift wildflower seeds from a dear friend. I am starting Mission Yellow Marigolds seeds, too. I am also using up old flower seeds. I had a very old pack of coleus seeds and snap dragons. They may or may not be any good. I intend to finally use them up and uncover that mystery. Everything I am planting should come up within 7 days. If they don't come up, then I have enough time to start new ones. 

I encourage you to use what you have lying around for pots. Start some old seeds that you've had forever. Maybe start an experiment. Lets get back to gardening that isn't so serious. Try to have a little fun, relax, and enjoy the process. After all, my friends half the stuff will be a failure. So, let's enjoy gardening poorly. God bless you and your gardens. Thank you for reading!

Mr. Peasant On Garden Speed

Emile Claus - The Old Gardener 1885

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, 

everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. 

Gardening is an instrument of grace.

MAY SARTON

I don't move fast anymore. I am a traumatic brain injury survivor which has diminished my energy to levels seen only in centenarians. I have tested my work limit, and it is 1 hour and 40 minutes. I don't go to that level because it will cost me a couple of days trying to recover. I have learned to keep it at one hour per day. This allows me to do another hour the next day. I have learned from the brain injury websites and forums to always remain under your threshold. The brain grows and recovers from repetition like practicing scales on the piano not like lifting weights at the gym.

For some reason, we have an internal taskmaster driving us to be more productive. I have had this taskmaster my whole life, and I would obsess on getting things done. Speed and quantity are what mattered most. I don't see anything wrong with this because productivity is the seed bed for prosperity. The problems come when you are no longer as productive as you were in your prime. Everyone slows down. Slowing down is not the same as stopping.

Hermann Kern, Old Man Shelling Peas 1880

Garden speed is the speed old people have as they putter in their plots. The work is never finished, but things get done at a leisurely pace. There is no clock to punch. The nature of gardening forces this leisurely pace of labor. If you are someone used to city and corporate life, this downshifting of the gears is a difficult adjustment.

What happens when you apply city speed to the garden? You rapidly become exhausted and end up accomplishing very little. This is true if you are able bodied and not suffering from old age and injury. Ultimately, gardening is a cooperative effort between God, you, and Mother Nature. Your part of the partnership is to put together the conditions for garden success. The rest is waiting to see what comes out of the ground.

The biggest fruit that the garden produces is patience. A lot of time passes between the sowing of the seed and the harvest. It isn't a factory turning out X number of widgets each hour. Garden speed forces you to calm down and live with the seasons. Do a little bit each day, and you end up with something good.

Thank you for reading.

An older man with two children and a dog, sitting in a garden. 1890 Canada 

Mr. Peasant On White Trash Gardening

The Gardener. Johannes Hubertus Cuypers, 1858

The plants love these beds just as much as beds with borders. Why make cedar raised beds or square foot garden beds with pressure treated lumber when you can just dig mounded beds like these? It’s so easy – and I find these easy raised beds are better when it comes to weeding as well. There’s no wood for the weeds to work themselves in around.

If you’re looking to try something new in your spring gardening and haven’t built this style of mounded bed before, I encourage you to give it a try. This is about the easiest garden you can make and it’s free. I don’t see the need to spend money on borders anymore. I just make neat mound gardens and plant them up. The vegetables make them beautiful.

DAVID THE GOOD

Once upon a time, I gave my brother a visit. On this visit, I took a look at his microwave safe dishes. They were actually the plastic bowls from store bought microwave meals like Lean Cuisine. He would take the bowls and wash them out and reuse them. I was impressed with the ingenuity and frugality of this "white trash option."

I also use white trash options in my life. Mrs. Peasant uses my empty peanut butter jars as containers for other things like instant mashed potatoes and grits. With the lasagna garden method, we use cardboard from Amazon boxes and brown paper grocery bags from town as the weed suppressant layer. The Peasants are all about deriving treasure from trash.

David the Good has a similar mindset on these things. For instance, he eschews raised beds for gardening and prefers borderless grocery row gardens. This method is much cheaper than buying raised beds from Vego. Wanting to save some money, I put down two lasagna garden beds straight on the ground. The results for us were lackluster. Weeds and grass quickly took over these ground beds. We got a couple of watermelons, but the whole thing looked horrible and chaotic. It was an educational experiment, but I have resolved to stick with those raised beds from Vego even if they cost a fortune.

Mrs. Peasant needed some trellis options for her tomatoes and cucumbers. The white trash option for trellising was to take sticks and make teepees with the ends lashed together. These worked fine until the winds kicked up and blew the homemade structures to pieces. I had to go out every time after a storm and reconstruct those teepees. It was aggravating.

They have a saying on CB radio. "Stop crying and start buying." This is what they say to each other when their rigs are giving less than the desired results. Similarly, we were crying until we started buying tomato cages. I don't play with the sticks anymore. Those cages have done awesome for us, and we have resolved to always buy them and use them. They are expensive because they are worth it.

I appreciate David the Good's tips and whatnot, but I need my gardening to be easy. I don't have a surplus of time and energy. I consider the money spent on proper tools and structures to be good investments. We believe in the motto of "buy once, cry once." White trash gardening is a cheap way to go, but you still end up paying for it in frustration, aggravation, and wasted energy.

Thank you for reading!

Briton Riviere - The Old Gardener, 1863

An End Of Summer Lesson: Plant Something Beautiful Among The Disasters

Fausto Zonaro: Young Girl Carrying a Pumpkin 1889

You can learn a lot of things from the flowers.

 — Alice in Wonderland

I hesitated making this post. I wondered whether it was important enough to share. It's a very small update. But I decided I want to share my life even when it's small. Our summer garden was a huge failure. No watermelons. No cucumbers. No sweet potatoes. No eggplants. No zinnias. Only three squash. All the heirloom tomatoes quickly yellowed, died and produced nothing. We were in heaven over the 20 tomato sandwiches we ate this summer (all Early Girl tomatoes.) The four Sunshine Blue blueberry bushes we planted 4 years ago are now gloriously productive. We harvested so many blueberries.

My view of Rudbeckia blooming from the back of our yard.

Mr. Peasant has been suffering an IT band injury, and I have been suffering a shoulder injury due to trying to get the heavy lifting tasks done.  Both of us have been sidelined, and the yard and garden show it. The backyard is covered in tall grass like a highway strip in August. Every time I'd stare out my back door, I was confronted with our failures and inability to tend to our property. The property we prayed and saved for now made me feel overwhelmed.  

But something really amazing and small happened. Two years ago, I dug up a piece of a rudbeckia from the front yard. I planted it near the walking track and forgot about it. This year the plant grew almost 5 feet high! And then, one October day I peaked out the back door window and saw 50 bright mustard yellow flowers. It was incredible. 

Here is the point I want to share. Once that rudbeckia plant bloomed, my view changed.  I'd peak out the back door, and all I saw were those happy yellow flowers swaying in the breeze. It might as well been a Christmas tree with how it lit up the whole yard. I never noticed our awful yard after that rudbeckia bloomed. I only noticed the huge beautiful flowers. 

All the flower seeds I planted in the ground in spring were quickly gobbled up by rabbits. I planted a new bed in August. I didn't think anything would grow so late in the season. I planted the new bed with chocolate cherry tomatoes, an early girl tomato cutting I rooted, candy roasters, basil and zinnia seeds. We got 3 more tomatoes and a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes. Everything in the bed failed except the Zinnias. I've gathered vases full of colorful flowers all month. I'm so glad I sowed more flower seeds. It was the best Zinnia harvest I've ever had. 

Planted 3 tiny clearance mums under each tree of the allee.

Plant the flower seeds late, find a spot for a dying mum from the clearance rack, divide a perennial for next year, and plant a bulb for Spring.  Plant beautiful things in the middle of the disaster. One lovely thing can lift up your soul and your heart. One candle can light up a room full of darkness. Bake some oatmeal cookies, play a happy song, and put a vase of flowers on your sticky kitchen table. We will always have the weeds with us. Remember to plant the good. Remember to plant a beautiful thing. 

I set the Lord always in my sight:

for he is at my right hand, that I be not moved.

Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: 

moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope.

PSALM 15:8  DRA

Mr. Peasant On Homesteading Versus Backyard Gardening

An Old Man's Garden, Mary Dignam. Painted before 1938

Sow the seeds of victory! Plant and raise your own vegetables.

VICTORY GARDEN POSTER

One of the things you learn from watching YouTube videos is that there are many make believe preppers and homesteaders on that platform. The biggest myth they perpetuate is that they make a living by homesteading when the reality is that they make a living from YouTube earnings. Now that YouTube is cutting back on those earnings, I expect to see these fakers start to vanish.

Prior to 2018, I was drinking the Kool-Aid along with everyone else. I dreamed of owning my own homestead with a minimum of 12 acres of land, but I would take 40 acres if I could get it. Those were mighty big ambitions, but I was chomping at the bit to get after it. Then, I had the accident that damaged my brain, took my eyesight, and took my energy. I got back my eyesight, but I never got back my energy. God took a baseball bat to my homesteading ambitions. I am actually grateful for that. People need a dose of humility, and that includes myself.

Victory Gardens for Family and Country, Frequent watering of the Victory Garden is Necessary. 1943

Mrs. Peasant pointed out to me long before my accident that injury, illness, and old age were the Achilles heel of the modern homestead. What do you do when you get sick? What do you do when you get cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, or MS? What do you do when you are old and tired? Being a man, I put these considerations completely out of my mind. My attitude then was to go big or go home.

Post-accident, I learned the virtues of the humble backyard garden. You don't need 12 acres of land for this or a tractor. There are videos on YouTube of people in their 80s and 90s working their small plots. Those old people have more energy than me. Mrs. Peasant is the primary gardener in our household. That's OK because the backyard garden expands and contracts relative to needs and resources. I am very happy that we chose this modest path. We went small.

A Citizen Working on Sunday Morning in his Victory Garden. Oswego, NY 1943

I won't say that homesteading is stupid. What I will say is that I don't think homesteaders think it out fully. The reality is that a homestead takes a large investment of time, money, and energy. I have tried to wrap my brain around the economics of homesteading, and I don't get it. For instance, I don't understand how raising chickens saves money on your grocery bill when you have to buy feed for those hens. The same goes for goats, sheep, hogs, and cattle. You basically have to buy groceries to feed to your groceries.

I do not eat meat, dairy, and eggs. Consequently, I don't need to raise animals for me to eat. The backyard garden is for the organic vegetables that cost a fortune in the grocery store. The non-organic vegetables are not as tasty or nutritious as the produce from our garden. Combined with the exercise that we get, the backyard garden has been a winner for us.

I know people who supplement their gardens with meat from hunting and fishing. I can understand the economics of that. These people will kill some deer that will provide a year's worth of meat. They fish the rest of the time. Except for equipment and a hunting/fishing license, this is free food. Plus, hunting and fishing are fun. I think this makes more sense than having livestock you have to feed on a daily basis. I am not into hunting and fishing because of my plant based diet, but I appreciate those who do hunt and fish.

Citizen Working on Sunday morning in his Victory Garden Oswego, NY 1943

I don't think you need a homestead to feed yourself and your family. Unfortunately, this does not provide enough content for the YouTube audience. I also don't buy into the self-sufficiency myth. If you have to buy feed and fuel for a homestead, you are not self-sufficient. I also think it is a good idea to hang onto that day job even if your YouTube earnings are large. YouTube has proven itself to be an unreliable source of income.

I would urge the Gentle Reader to consider being just a backyard gardener. I think you will find it a better and more economical fit for you and your family. I suggest taking advice and tips from the long tradition of victory gardens from the old days when people supplemented their rations with what they grew and canned at home. These people didn't have 12 acres to plant. Yet, they had a surplus of vegetables from their modest plots. If they could do it, you can do it, too.

Thank you for reading!

Dig for Victory, Peter Fraser between 1939-46

***

Taking care of chickens?

http://bethunecatholic.blogspot.com/2025/06/taking-care-of-chickens.html

Mrs. Peasant's 10 Small Things for a Cozy Summer at Home

Summer Evening, 1886.  Frederick Childe

People Say Nothing is Impossible but I Do Nothing all the Time. 

-WINNIE THE POOH

It is hot and humid here in South Carolina. Summer is here, and Mr. Peasant is still recovering from his leg injury. This injury has forced me into an accidental, four month long, no buy challenge. I still go to the grocery store a few times each month. I've watched the weeks go by and have calmed down all my urges to go shopping at the thrift store or garden center. I have made do with what we have here at home. This post isn't about swimming at the beach or the joys of a vacation in the mountains. I'm tired of feeling influenced by women showing off their incredible flower gardens, beautiful homes, and expensive dresses. I'll be basic and show what a simple person does for summer smiles. Most of these things don't involve spending and shopping. This post is about tiny ways you can have a simple cozy summer. I don't think summer gets the attention it deserves. And when we do talk about summer it's always linked with trips, travel, busyness, and events. I think summer has a low key vibe that doesn't cost anything. Here are some ways I'm enjoying summer without spending money or going anywhere. 

1. FLOWERS FROM MY YARD

Every spring I long to go to the garden centers to buy some beautiful plants and mulch. Every year, we never make it to the garden center. A brain injury really makes small tasks way harder to accomplish. So, I have had to enjoy the flowers in the yard. Big shout out to DAY LILIES. The downside is the flowers only last one day. I cut off stems with three buds on them and I get a few days of flowers. I grabbed some Nasturtium seeds at the Food Lion produce section kiosk, and they are so lovely. And, of course, we have the very neglected and beautiful gladiolus. 

Knock out roses and Veronica (Speedwell). I love purple and red together.

2. PRISM LIGHT CATCHER RAINBOWS 

I finally found a place to hang my light catchers. The sun hits the prisms around 5:00 pm which is perfect. I'll be cooking dinner, and the prism covers the kitchen in rainbows. I also watched Pollyanna last year, so the prisms have even more meaning to me. If you have never seen Pollyanna, you must. Summer would be a great time to watch it.

3. BOX FANS

The sound of fans blasting is the ultimate summer vibe. Hang your laundry in front of the fan, and it cools the room. Hang your sweaty clothes and scarfs to dry after working in the yard.

4.  BLUEBERRIES

One of the first things we did when we bought our house is plant 4 Sunshine Blue Blueberries (13.00 dollars each at Lowes.) At the time, I had to push through the pain of spending 50 dollars on them. Four years later, I am glad I bought them. They are finally pumping out serious amounts of berries. I think I've picked a gallon so far. I have them right next to the tomato plants. Their stories are night and day. I have started the tomato seeds in March, hardened them off, pruned them, and caged them. I check daily for bugs and disease. Even with all that babying, half of my tomato plants look yellow and terrible!  As I picked from the bounty of my entirely neglected blueberry bushes, all I could think of is that I need to plant more! If you live in the South get some blueberries growing today. They are so easy.

I love the color of my thrifted vintage avocado green colander with the blue.

5. MUSIC

This is some of the music I am listening to as we stay home. There are lots of local oldies radio and 80's on my kitchen boombox. I try to keep the music upbeat and sweet.

Frank Sinatra Easy Does It Album This album is so sweet and lovely for summer.

 Van Morrison Moon Dance Album This and the Motown below are great cleaning and cooking music.

 Motown Sound AccuRadio  Great Motown oldies Radio Station

1.FM Love Classics online radio box This one is SO SO good. It's just like an easy listening radio station from the 90's with artists like Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, and Debbie Gibson. We are talking about hearing songs like "Eternal Flame" and "More than Words."

6. USING UP EVERYTHING 

Since I am not going to the store often, I have been forced to really dig deep into my pantry and freezer.  I am pulling out all sorts of goodies and not so good things. I am really enjoying using things up as a form of decluttering. I am pulling out frozen blocks of fruit and making smoothies. I am using up frozen bread, and almost empty bags of vegetables. I am using up cans of pumpkin from fall and just plain throwing out the bad stuff. Here is the truth. You don't know it's bad until you go through the freeze pile. Some of it was junk after being thawed and refrozen during a power outage. Here is another truth. Eating the stuff you already bought is being a good steward of your money. For frozen fruits and veggies, rinse off the ice first. That gets rid of that bad freezer taste.  

I've also used up a face mask gift from Christmas. I finished a jar of lotion I didn't like by keeping it on my nightstand and putting it on my hands nightly. I used up some cleaners that are not my favorite. I've been drinking more hot tea in hopes of going through my stash. 

7. GARDENING POORLY

I also bought zinnia and cosmo seeds from Food Lion. I dumped the two packs into the ground and watched many pop up. Slowly, I realized the 100 zinnia sprouts were being eaten by rabbits. I know. I love rabbits so much. But they completely killed my flowers. So I picked up some plastic forks at the grocery store for a dollar. They are working. I have to guard my 3 surviving zinnias. The tomato leaves look terrible from the downpour of rain we've been getting. The lawn is 2 feet high. I spent 15 minutes pulling thorny brambles from the front of the house. I am gardening poorly. But we do have North Georgia Candy Roaster Squash coming in and blueberries. The summer garden is the lottery, and you are going to lose a lot. But you can only win if you play. 

8. PROPAGATION CUTTINGS

Cuttings in the window show the vibrant green of the vitamin bottles. 

It is almost July, and I have not gone to the Garden Center. I decided to try making my own plants through propagation. Surprisingly, in theory, a lot of my plants can be propagated through cuttings in water. What the heck, I have nothing but time. I have hydrangeas, mums, salvia, knock out rose and even a few tomato cuttings in water. The tomato cuttings are a plan B back up if the tomato plants succumb to disease. 

I really like using the emerald green plastic vitamin bottles for root cuttings in the window. I love the way the light makes the colors pop. I think brown vitamin bottles would be pretty too. 

9. DOING NOTHING

We have also spent a lot of time doing nothing. Mr. Peasant works on a word find puzzle every night. The topic was celery. Ha! Doesn't get more exciting than this folks. We are reading books we already have, decluttering, identifying bugs in the yard, catching up with family on the phone, and making a Sunday peach cobbler. This peach cobbler is not with fresh farm stand peaches or peaches from your back yard. These are peaches from an old dusty can that was about to expire. The cobbler was delicious.  

10. SITTING ON A STOOP 

Lastly, it's nice to just watch things on a stoop. I like to watch the mockingbirds beat up other birds. I like to watch the doves and the robins. I like to watch the butterflies, the planes flying above, the clouds or the flowers moving with the breeze. I like to hold hands with Mr. Peasant and just watch the yard. 

I hope you are enjoying your summer without spending a dime. I hope it's lovely, small, and imperfect. I want to de-influence us from all the grandiose vanities and expensive vacations society tries to push on us. Enjoying the sweetness of summer does not cost us anything. You don't have to go anywhere. Thank you for stopping by and may God bless you. Please pray for Mr. Peasant's healing. 

Do what we can, summer will have its flies: 

if we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitos: 

if we go a-fishing, we must expect a wet coat.

                                                                                       -RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Summer Sunlight, 1894. Louis Paul Dessart

Mr. Peasant On Sunshine And Slobber

H. A. Brendekilde 1896 Spring. A young couple rowing a boat on Odense

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.

CHARLES SCHULZ

I heard someone say that if we could translate the birds chirping we would find that they were all screaming for sex. That makes sense to me because I notice the birds chirping mostly in the spring when birds and bunny rabbits are looking to make more birds and bunny rabbits. Nature is obsessed with reproduction.

Spring is naturally a romantic time when flowers bloom. These lovely weeds with their multicolor petals set the tone and the mood especially in the hovel of the Noble Peasants. Mrs. Peasant grows and collects these flowers all season long. Tomatoes and sweet potatoes may or may not grow, but there will always be zinnias and daffodils in the kitchen window.

Women love flowers. This is because flowers represent love. And love leads to slobber. Pick some flowers for your wife, and she will repay you with kissy lips wet with slobber. This is kinda gross, but I have managed to put up with it. There's a rumor floating around that I like it. Mr. Peasant will neither confirm nor deny the rumors. He just knows he has a weakness for putting a dimpled smile on her lovely face.

P.S. Krøyer - Roses. Marie Krøyer seated in the deckchair in the garden by Mrs Bendsen's house 1893

Sitting on the back step and holding hands while watching birds is also known to happen. The Peasant backyard is a wild kingdom of activity. The war between the robins and the mockngbirds never ends. We root for the robins because mockingbirds are the thugs of the bird world. I like to watch the bumblebees bumble their way from flower to flower.

As the sunshine increases, it will get hotter. Mr. Peasant has lizard blood, so he acclimates to the heat which makes him feel better. Mrs. Peasant has bunny blood and turns red and miserable. She prefers the winter to the sunshine. Winter is Mr. Peasant's kryptonite.

For a handful of days in the spring and fall, we have pleasantly cool temperatures. You have to take those days when you can get them. They are gone before you can check the thermometer. Those are good days for hand holding and slobber. Make them count.

Gentle Reader, I hope this post finds you in pleasant times and pleasant weather and pleasant company. Thank you for reading.

Luigi Monteverde Ertappt 1888, Caught

The No Effort Spring Cutting Garden: Flowers that Don't Need You

Herbert Wilson Foster, 1846–1929

Ain't nobody got time for that.

MS. SWEET BROWN

To be honest, I haven't been very enthusiastic about the garden.  All my hopes of planning the perfect vegetable garden stopped when Mr. Peasant injured his IT band. My garden dreaming was derailed by life which is exactly how life goes. I still did my have to do's. This would be the minimums. I started my tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds indoors. I also started some sweet potato slips. 

I've been labeling, watering, and planning. Some seeds sprouted and others were duds. The past few months, God has given me comfort through flowers coming up in the yard. These are flowers that I have done NOTHING to help grow. NO watering, NO planning. Life indoors has been colored gray by Mr. Peasant's painful recovery that seems never ending. Having beautiful flowers indoors has brought joy to both Mr. Peasant and I. Best of all, I didn't have to do anything. These are literally no work, no hassle flowers. So, for all the regular ladies out there who love the dreamy English country cutting gardens but don't have the energy or the hired gardener, there is hope. I have been cutting spring flowers from the yard, and I didn't do anything. Here is a love note to the cutting flowers that don't need you--daffodils, azaleas, and irises. With an honorable mention to purple salvia as a great filler. Our purple saliva has been blooming since March here in South Carolina (zone 8).  

Walter Grane, 1902 From the book Flora's Feast

DAFFODILS

First week in March, the very first flower to come out was the small 'Tete-a-Tete' Daffodils, and then the Slim Whitman.

First week in April, we have the Yellow Cheerfulness Daffodil. The Cheerfulness Daffodil is my first scented daffodil. I didn't know what to expect. These smell light and green exactly like walking into a florist shop. They are not sweet smelling but have a little note of spice. The smell is not strong. so I have to put my nose right in there.

AZALEAS

These came with the house, I don't know the names. I never thought of Azaleas as cut flowers before this year. I actually was considering removing the bushes because I thought trimming them after bloom was too much work. I never trim them properly, and they still always bloom. I love them. They last 5 days in the vase. Cut a small branch off and watch it slowly unfold into blooms. It's like a firework show. One bloom will fall and another will open. It's lovely. And the leaves round out the bouquet perfectly, so that one cutting feels complete. I even like just one azalea flower in the bathroom.

IRISES

These came with the house. I do not know the name. Our iris is a show stopper. The coloring is a homage to God's attention to detail and beauty. These are elegant. The color shimmers, and they have a smell similar to a Stargazer Lilly. I don't do anything to help them outside. She just has a will to live. 

I hope this inspires you to consider adding some easy no work flowers for cutting and enjoying. I think loveliness doesn't have to be so hard. I always appreciate you stopping by. Thank you for reading and God bless you. 

Consider How the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin.

Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor 

was dressed like one of these. 

LUKE 12:27

Francesco Saverio Altamura, Young Lady with Boquet of Flowers 1891