Random 5 for April 19, 2026 – Plants, rain, beach, DIY, renewal

Gallery

Posted on by

Just starting to leaf out — Bloodgood Japanese Maple

Plant bargains – Several years ago, I was walking through the Home Depot nursery (strictly for therapy – cheaper than Xanax but only if you don’t buy anything!). It was late June. Home Depot plants are best if you buy them soon after they arrive. Their watering schedule doesn’t always match what the plants need and things get knocked around. There were two little (and I mean little) red Japanese maples on clearance sale. No warranty, take your chances! They were mostly sticks with some broken branches. The price was right (Japanese maples are $$$$ around here for anything taller than a foot!). Here is my clearance Japanese Bloodgood maple after four years of love. Pretty awesome. It’s over six feet. I also bought a few other plants for peanuts that have done well. It’s always worth a look.

I love a rainy day! –We are in a drought here. Today is rainy and it’s a slow rain. Hopefully we will get enough to make the plants happy. I watered some of my young trees yesterday to keep them growing. Rain was predicted but rain has been elusive. Sometimes it rains 10 miles away but not at my house. I was sure that it would rain if I watered. Isn’t that the way things go?

Speaking of things that are off schedule – My neighbor is going to the beach today for three days. Last week our temperature bumped around 90 degrees (32 C). Today will be maybe 50 degrees (10 C) with a possible freeze frost Monday night. Her timing was off by a week. “Our” beaches are about 3 hours drive from here and have more moderate temperatures so maybe she won’t need her snow suit! 😊Still, lucky! A bad day at the beach is not really a bad day.

A wonky DIY – I wanted to make window treatments for the cat room. I bought the fabric years ago when I saw something I liked. I bought enough for what I had in mind at the time. That has changed. I switched up plans and last week proceeded to cut the fabric for another concept. I ran short. Fabric is out of stock. I have some pieces left over so I’m going to try to “MacGyver” this by strategically sewing together scraps. Will it work? We’ll see. I hate when I do this, but a DIY is guaranteed to bring surprises.

A busy season – Spring is always busy here. Yard cleanup. Replacement of plants that died. Scrubbing down decks and flowerpots. Bring out summer items and put winter things away. The weather is warming up and this week I tried to take the time to philosophically “smell the roses” (which are not blooming here yet). Breathe in some fresh air and let go of old stuff. It’s a great time for renewal however that looks for you.

So how was your week?

 

 

73 thoughts on “Random 5 for April 19, 2026 – Plants, rain, beach, DIY, renewal”

    • The leaves are more open now than when I took the picture a week ago. She is just lovely and didn’t ding with the frost. One of my best bargain finds.

      Like

  4. Yay for your Japanese Maple! We had them in our yard when I was a child. Lovely trees.

    Yes, our weather has been crazy! Not beach weather now, but definitely agree bad day at the beach is still better than not being at the beach.😊 My friend and I still walked the beach in the rain one year. LOL!

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Your maple tree is so lovely. I love the burgundy color. I’d like to have something like that in my front yard but it probably wouldn’t do well in our climate. Oh well… I’ll just enjoy yours.

    Good luck with your curtain project. The good news is that – with enough catnip – your kitties won’t notice that it was scrapped together.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. So basically you bought a Charlie Brown Christmas tree that has grown beyond its original look. Well done, you. It looks beautiful! Your buying it at Home Depot reminds me of a time we bought a spider plant there, brought it home, and within an hour we were swatting an infestation of flies in our home. It took us probably three hours to get to all of them. No knock against Home Depot because it would have happened from any nursery probably.

    We had 80 degrees here last week, but today we woke up to sub-freezing temps again. 😩

    Liked by 1 person

    • I stopped getting cat grass for a similar reason. It would be covered in fungus gnats within three days and then the cats didn’t like it. We are having similar weather. Totally bi-polar!

      Liked by 1 person

  8. It went from 81 degress Saturday to like 40 degrees yesterday and lower today, here. We are supposed to get some snow this morning, too. Ugh. At least I haven’t bought any ferns or flowers yet!

    Liked by 1 person

  13. That tree is gorgeous – such a good deal! I bought a pale pink Dream Cloud Shrub Rose that way at the end of the year – it was $1.00 and I had it for decades until the guy that laid the mulch tore it out … I was bummed as it was a prolific bloomer and I had it since 1985 and it survived the bad Polar Vortex of 2013-2014 when I lost my butterfly garden. I went for a walk around the neighborhood with the camera today – we had low 80s temps for six days and tonight we have a freeze advisory as it’s going to 23 degrees. I figured all the Tulips that just opened a couple of days ago, not to mention the Magnolia trees, may be gone tomorrow. For sure the pink Bleeding Heart I saw at the volunteer garden will be shot.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Sometimes tulips can weather well but the magnolia blossoms will brown. I have a star magnolia. It’s beautiful and fragrant and very early. It has already bloomed. Most years it gets hit by a frost and the beautiful white flowers are all brown. I won’t plant early magnolias any more.

      Liked by 1 person

      • I didn’t realize Magnolias came in white – I Googled to see one. That is what happened with my neighbor’s pink Magnolia. This morning it was withered and brown and most of the petals had scattered from the 30 mph winds we had yesterday. That’s a real shame for both of you.

        Liked by 1 person

  14. Lucky Japanese Maple got a good home! I hope we get to see the window treatments for the cat room🙂
    Our week was uneventful… thankfully… boring almost. The shelves in stores are staying stocked and the traffic is back to normal.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Your Home Depot tree looks lovely. Japanese maples are expensive here too. They’re worth it, though. My neighbor across the street has a beautiful mature one that I can enjoy from my kitchen window.

    I hope your DIY window treatments are a successful. Either way, I hope you’ll enjoy the challenge.

    Liked by 1 person

    • :) When you have multiple cats (and I had 4 at one time), you need a place to isolate a sick one or a new addition. I was lucky to have an unused small bedroom. I set it up with water bowl, cat tree and fleecy blankets all the time. All the necessary stuff from food, litter and cleaning supplies were in the closet. Easy peasy. It was used many times for isolation but mostly the door is open and they sit on the cat tree to look out the windows. There is a tree with birds (no, I didn’t plan that) right outside.

      Like

  20. Spring is springing here too – it’s the time of year when it’s hotter than heck one day and coat weather the next. People have colds OR their allergies are bugging them like mad. It’s a no win situation. I’m going to Home Depot for my Spring plant shopping this week so I’ll see if my store has an “orphans” department – your tree is gorgeous that you found there! I like rescuing…..maybe I’ll score a winner like you did. Make sure and share those cat room drapes you’re making…..I wanna see!

    Hugs, Pam

    Liked by 1 person

    • We’ll have to see how the cat room windows turn out. I made the same treatment for the office and it looks nice. It was also easy (most important as I am too old for fussy).

      Like

  21. I’m entranced by your Japanese Maple. It’s so beautiful. You’re so good with landscaping. You never take any bows, so I’ll bow for you. Once again like every year I think of your beloved pond.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Yay, I’m glad you received some rain. A slow rain is the absolute best thing for a spring garden. Be prepared…you’ll like need to mow the grass by Wednesday. ;) That maple tree is gorgeous. What a bargain that has totally paid off. Bravo, Kate! Happy Sunday.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Haha! I call it “priming” the rain. I don’t know if you are familiar with old hand pumps, but the leather in the plunger would dry out and you would have to dump in some water to soak it up before it would provide enough suction to bring the water up out of the well.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Good find on the Japanese Maple. Such pretty trees. And hooray for the rain. It isn’t a huge amount but I’ll take what we can get. Our neighborhood is doing a yard sale in a couple weeks, so we need to get busy here pulling together all the stuff we no longer need.

    Liked by 1 person

      • We did a lot of kitchen stuff when we redid the kitchen almost two years ago. It was so nice rehoming or tossing things we no longer needed.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Yes and to get more room. The trick (at least for me) is to NOT BUY any more. I keep thinking about an air fryer. My oven is convection which is the same thing but it would be nice to have something smaller for just the two of us.

          Like

Comments are closed.