Celebrating another Floral Friday with a nice hydrangea centerpiece in one of my ikebana flower vases. Thanks for sharing your flowers Heather!

Another favorite flower… purple echinacea very similar to my other favorite black-eyed susan! Always fun when they bloom & the butterflies find them in time to spread the lovin’!

Celebrating another Floral Friday… with my Glenview art fair booth flowers from last weekend that are still holding up really well. And looking great in an oval vase that “spreads them out” a bit more so you can see more flowers!!!

After several years of trying & failing, I’m so excited to FINALLY have a black-eyed susan plant come back for a second year… and have its very first flower in my garden!!! One of my favorite flowers that everyone says is the easiest of plants to grow… but not for me. So many variables, varieties & garden locations… thrilled that I might have FINALLY succeeded!!!

My cousin Kim was outside enjoying her garden… and decided to take a few blooms to enjoy inside as well. Good thing she had one of my flat textured ikebana vases to put them in… using the small pin frog inside to prop-up the flowers! Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden Kim!

Celebrating another #FloralFriday with some pretty flowers in one of my stamped & soda-fired oval vase. One of the benefits of an oval vase it is keeps the flowers tight, and spreads them wide so you can see more of them. Enjoy… hope they brighten your day!

An early morning hike out in the suburbs to start my day…
wandering aimlessly… enjoying my road to nowhere.

Just noticed this morning that my favorite plant is blooming already!

It’s a crazy-cool plant that I got a few years ago as a cutting from my plant pals in Peoria. They call it Bear’s Breeches… but I think the real name is Acanthus Spinosus. It’s got really cool leaves… but the flower spikes are AMAZING!!! So excited that it has really taken off & grown so much over the years. I love it!!!

Before the morning rain… a little early morning pollinating on the purple larkspurs currently blooming in my garden! And they’re breathing a big sigh of relief after a bit of rain… they weren’t so happy during our heatwave drought days last week!