Hi OK!!!!! Great to see you here!
Sorry to hear your roses didn't make it through the winter. I love roses though I have only one, and it's an old one :) Hopefully it will last for a few years more.

I should be in bed right now, it's 1.45 am here.

Teen, a greenhouse!!!! I wish I had enough room for one. I love growing food related stuff. It doesn't always work out but hey, it still is fun.

Oh, OKsewglad....that is awful. So many rose bushes gone. Not sure what state you are in but such a tough winter for so many regions in US. My property is a riot of color right now but it had nothing to do with my care. Lol...mild winter with more wet than normal. I did lose a few of my bougainvillea but the nursery just told me to cut back and water them and may sprout again. Only one so far has done that. It seems every time I get them to the size I like, winter comes and I start all over. Ugh!

I'm really not a gardener, per se. I've tended a few food gardens in my time but not disciplined enough with working fulltime. Now that I am part-time, I'm finding it more enjoyable. Plan to grow more foodstuff...store bought tomatoes are awful.

I only eat tomatoes when they don't taste like tomatoes....:D :D :D
Like in a sauce with so many herbs you don't taste the tomatoes anymore. So I don't grow tomatoes haha!

I had an extensive flower garden at my first house (in suburbs) since we moved rural, I've not had a lot of time for flowers, but have a very large veggi garden.

In Minnesota, I had a lot of roses and "tipped" most of them for the winter. Only way to have them survive the winters. That was before the age of digital, so I only have a few pictures that were scanned and saved online. I hope when I retire and we move, I'll be able to grow flowers again. It's too harsh where we live now.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...sota/Scan2.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...sota/Scan1.jpg

After moving to SD, I got interested in growing and processing my own food. Went overboard and I still have stuff that was put up in 2010! With two of us, I put up a lot less now, and only every couple of years.

I had a green house for a while here in SD, but it was too much to keep warm enough in the winter and cool enough in the summer. We took it and the building it was attached to down, and used the slab to build a home for the LA.

I hope to spend quite a bit of time with the LA over the weekend. Since DH and I aren't from this area, we have no connections or family to spend time with over the holiday weekend.

Got to thinking, during the time I had the flower gardens, I did almost no sewing. But that was after living in apartments for 11 years so I think I just went a bit crazy once I had a bit of yard to play with. Sewing was my main passtime before we owned property, and it's been my main passtime for the last few years, after we got done with the remodeling. But for the 15 years between, I hardly used my machines.

Beautiful gardens, Macybaby. I've always had a garden here in NE Iowa, but has gotten smaller as the years have past. Overboard in preserving...LOL one year I put up +200qts of tomato products. In my defense we had four growing children. Tomato blight is an issue, too. In addition to all the other beans, corn, apples, etc. Now put up enough to eat fresh and tomatoes for a year of usage. I now freeze more...have about 5 quarts of asparagus and the same of puree frozen up.

The drift roses were supposed to require less care. Recently we go from nice fall weather to a cold cold blast...then it tapers to warmer weather..then a blast of bitter cold. So hard on so many perennial plants. I try to plant carefree plants...hostas, peonies, cone flowers, lillies, day lillies and a few tulips. Garden is calling...getting a pickup load of mulch this afternoon...

Wow what a beautiful garden Cathy!!! I'm green...........mine is just stamp size compared to yours.

Yes, gardening takes time, just as any other hobby. You can only do so much! When the kids were small I was sewing all day every day but as they grew older not that much anymore. Like you I hardly used my sewing machine for a long long time. Then I started quilting and now I'm addicted again.

Lovely garden, Cathy! I love flowers, but I don't have much luck beyond bulbs. I would like to try a veggie garden next year in our new home.

My SBS book arrived today! I can't wait, but i think I'll start on it after the move. (Maybe... This weekend might see otherwise! :D)

I was originally thinking of making it with a variety of scraps, but then my DH saw one online done as in red, white and blue patriotic style. Now he wants me to do it that way, and actually I like the idea too. I just checked my stash and I do have enough to get me started.

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh soon we'll have some more eye candy :D :D
Why don't you make two? One scrappy and one patriotic style?
I'll shut up now......hehehe