A Pink Tea

Welcome friends for tea this week.  The Royal Doulton Store has a summer sale on right now and I purchased a single luncheon plate of the Royal Albert 'Confetti Roses' to mix and match with other plates and my teacups.  Isn't this a pretty pattern!

A couple of teacups that I'll use with the plate.

Victoriana Rose

Pink Brocade

And, a few squares to enjoy with our tea.

 A new antique store opened in an old church from the 1800's that we pass on our way to summer theatre.  Being a little early, DH stopped to let me browse.

Loved all the butterflies on the doors.

I picked up this pink etched glass piece for a very good price but I'm not sure what it is intended for.  Do you know?

A trio of peonies is happy in it at the moment.  I'm not even sure if it is pink depression glass, the colouring seems to match another piece I have but without knowing what it is, I wasn't able to Google for information.

I'm linking with these lovely ladies for tea this week, and I hope you'll visit them and their guests:

Rose Chintz Cottage

Tea Cup Tuesday

A Delightsome Life
Antiques and Teacups

Tea in the Garden

A Tale of Two Peonies

Two peonies, each with their own story.  When I first saw yellow Itoh peonies, I knew I had to have one.  As luck would have it, there was a sale, and a coupon; since I couldn't decide, I bought 'Bartzella' and 'Sequestered Sunshine'.
This is the third year for each in the garden and they are loaded with blooms.

I desperately wanted to show the stunning 'Bartzella' in our flower show but no flowers had opened by the night before.

'Sequestered Sunshine' had a couple almost open so I cut one and conditioned it.  By the next night at the show, I was very proud of how it looked.  And so was the judge!  I won the 'Judge's Choice' award.

The second peony comes from humble beginnings.  One day while I was at our local arboretum, I glanced off into the wooded area by the pond and low and behold saw what looked like a peony in bloom.  Yes, there in the dense shade was a spindly looking white peony.  We know there was a house down by the pond at one time for we found the remnants of a foundation over 10 years ago.  It has since become grown over with trees and grasses.  Knowing that someone loved that peony maybe 50 years or more ago, I dug a piece out and brought it home.  It struggled last year but had one bud that barely opened and was white.

This year there was one bud again that opened, but happily to reveal the secret beauty and name.

'Festiva Maxima', a peony from the 1850's I've been thinking of buying!  

 'Bartzella' on the left with 'Sequestered Sunshine'

 A pink peony that I think is 'Better Times' from 1940 was a division shared that has come with us through each move over 30 years.

The proud moment with my first place ribbon and 'judges choice'.

I'm linking with:

Saturday Show Off

Macro Monday 2

I ♥ Macro

Mosaic Monday

Cottage Garden Party

Fertilizer Friday

Shady Ladies

Every so often a garden needs renovating from tired plants or ones that like to gallop away throughout the bed.  This was the case for my woodland garden, a small area behind the shed which is densely shaded by the chokecherry grove the birds planted for me.
Recently I attended a seminar called 'Shady Ladies' which prompted me to take stock of the plants and introduce some new ones.  A woodland setting has rich humusy soil with the degree of shade full to partial so the first thing I did was cut back overhead branches to let in more light.  Then I pulled out almost all of the plants because they were already elsewhere in a shade garden.
I introduced some native ferns; ostrich, marginal wood and maidenhair.

The soft and lacy looking maidenhair

A non-native fern for us but native to Japan and China is the Japanese Painted fern.  There are several named varieties with silver/green foliage and burgundy stems.

Japanese painted 'Silver Lace'

Barrenwort (epidmeium) will naturalize into a colony in dappled shade and I purchased E. x versicolour which is clump forming with copper flushed leaves. Small yellow orchid-like flowers around appear about the same time as the leaves.

Web source

I also picked up wintergreen, a 10-15 cm tall native plant that will spread to a nice sized clump.  The red berries overwinter and are edible as are the wintergreen flavoured leaves.

Web source

Having several varieties of dogwood already, the 5-15 cm high bunchberry which can be found in wooded areas also seemed a good choice to add to this garden.  It has tiny white flowers in summer that turn into red berries in July.

Web source

The woodland garden; newly renovated with starter plants, and once it fills in will take care of itself.  The hepatica stills has a few wayward leaves before it disappears for the summer and I may move a few more small native plants back here.

Any tantalizing shady ladies in your garden?

I'm linking with:

Cottage Garden Party at Fishtail Cottage
 Home at Rose Chintz Cottage

Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie Time

High Tea

Welcome friends for tea this week.  Previously I shared a tour of a garden centre called Pathways to Perennials (P2P) here and this is also where the high tea for this post took place.  P2P has a really nice home and garden boutique which I'll briefly show you before the pictures of the tea.

Lots of pretty things to choose from, and I bought a new tea strainer which I'll show another time.

Here's Lorraine, owner of P2P starting the tea tasting.

 Finger sandwiches, biscotti and lemon squares were served while we tried a number of teas.

 Hoda Pariposh owner of the Sloane Tea Company gave a history of the beverage and the features of each of her sommelier-selected teas.

As the 30 or so of us moved outside to the Garden Cafe, I glanced at all the pretty teacups we'd we drinking from.

The chef-wife team of Ron and Betty with their daughter.  The couple sold their restaurant in Tonga and in 1986 Ron became the Sous Chef at Sooke Harbor House on Vancouver Island.  Ron and Betty joined P2P this spring and we knew from the introduction that lunch was going to be wonderful, and that Sloane teas would be incorporated into some of the food.

 Asparagus and beetroot salad with a creme fraiche dressing.

 Pork scallopini with pickled blackberry and Earl Grey glaze.

 Vanilla bean ice cream with Heavenly Cream sabayon; coconut banana scented with Marrkesh Mint; and chocolate dipped strawberry with Crimson Berry glaze.

Hoda came around with a dish of sugared flowers from France to either put in your cup of tea, or tuck inside a cheek then drink the tea.

I came home with a canister of the Heavenly Cream tea; such a pretty pink tin and my favourite of the teas I tried.

I'm linking with:

Tuesday Cuppa Tea

Tea in the Garden

Tea Cup Tuesday

A Delightsome Life

Four Legs in the Garden

It is not uncommon to look out the window from our kitchen  and see one of these in the garden...

But then she got up on her hind legs and started to eat the leaves from the weeping pussy willow.

The old saying 'build it and they will come' is so true with a backyard pond.  We started out with a couple of frogs and now have over a dozen living happily here.

Sometimes they sit on the big blue lily pad with the ceramic frog.

This one (I've named Stumpy) is missing part of its back right leg but it doesn't stop him from getting out of the water to bask on the rocks.

This is the third year Stumpy has been in the pond and I've found him all over the yard in search of food.

I'm linking with I ♥ Macro, Macro Monday 2, and Mosaic Monday.

Personal Photo Challenge for June

I have to confess, I forgot to put the photo challenge on my calendar and I'm away babysitting grands.  But, I always carry my Canon Powershot point and shoot with me so I can at least achieve the challenge by changing where I stand and camera angle.
My grandson was concentrating while playing a fast paced game on the kitchen computer.  He seemed the perfect test subject.

From this angle, his little corner was too dark and I felt the patio doors added too much background distraction.

Much better lighting to show more detail, and I moved closer to him too.

This time I moved the camera even closer to catch the concentration on his face as he played the game. The reflections on the computer screen were a problem so it took a couple of angle shots to get rid of them.  Up close and personal with the camera facing down more than right at his sweet little face!

And, a note to self to put the July challenge in my calendar so I can use my trusty Canon that that I paid the big bucks for.  

Our host for the Personal Photo Challenge is Donna from Cottage Days and Journeys.  The challenge blog and participants can be found here and I hope you'll visit as we all try our best to meet Donna's monthly challenge.