I'm Still Here

Tru Hotels feature murals like this showing the location
Notice the cool looking couches and little tables.
Notice that the Salt Lake mural features beer!

End of April! That's to long to stay silent. But as I think about things to write about I keep coming up empty.

I did spend nine days in May back in Salt Lake. I wanted to keep up being a volunteer at Red Butte Garden. 2017 was my tenth year. I'm aiming for 20 now just like for Sundance. So I did an intensive week+ of volunteering, and put in enough hours to qualify for another annual membership for 2019.

Retirement Planning - Part III - Places

 I am pretty sure I will not stay in SLC as my winter home for more than a couple of years after I quit working. But if I were to move away, where would I go? What am I looking for in a new place?

I need some criteria!

The Blue Lady Contemplates What the Next Couple of Years Year Will Hold

Jul is over, and soon New Year's will old hat. I performed taiko again at the Salt Palace on New Years Eve, and on New Years Day I joined some friends for knitting. I'm already tired of the whole Christmas thing....sooooo glad it is over for another year.

Hygge Time

Smokey Rose knows how to get cozy

(I am feeling ok now. Others are getting sick all over the place, but I am better. Just have a cough sometimes still)

Jul is over and none too soon. While there is certainly a lot to like about the holiday, it is usually too much for me in the end, and I don't even have kids or a big house, don't entertain, don't bake things (for Jul anyway), don't have seasonal music playing all the time, don't travel anymore to be with loved ones, don't do a lot of things one is supposed to do at this time of year.

Red Butte Garden Now

Fall 2013

I haven't put up many pictures of Red Butte this season. One reason is that I found that this years' pictures are a lot like last years' One rose alone IS a lot like any other rose pictured alone, after all.

Red Butte Garden - end of May 2012

I have left Salt Lake City in order to spend the summer in the Black Hills, but before I left, I put in a lot of hours doing gardening at Red Butte. I will miss going there, but I'll be able to return in August. Meanwhile here are some pictures of how things looked during the last couple of weeks in May.

Daffodils were gone. We had spent a lot of time deadheading the spent flowers, and when I left, we were beginning to cut back the foliage which was starting to look crummy. Instead of daffodils we had irises.

White irises.

The always classic purple ones.

All yellow ones.

Bi-color yellow ones.

Orange ones.

Bronze-red ones

And my very favorite pink ones.

The fragrance garden was looking filled in and lovely.

But I know it will look quite different when I return, because we did a lot of planting in here, and I know that much of what you see is destined to be torn up pretty soon (most of what you see here that's yellow may already be gone, for example.)

We also got the herb garden all planted, but it still had some growing up to do to fill in the spaces.

Roses were beginning to show up.

These are in the amphitheater where the concerts are held. Concerts began last weekend.

I was surprised to find this beauty.

But these are just the best because they are an old fashioned variety that still has the most beautiful fragrance. It's named 'Souvenir de Philemon Crochet'. When it emerges, it has a pink blush to it that eventually fades so the bloom ends up being all white.

I can't have too many photos of it. I hope it will remain in bloom a long time. My friend Layne will see that all the roses get deadheaded while I'm gone so that they will continue to bloom all summer.

But I have to say that my latest favorites that were doing well just as I was leaving were the columbines.

There were lots of lovely yellow ones.

And finally the classic blue ones, that state flower of Colorado...one of my favorite places to have lived in.

That's it for now. Next time around I imagine you will see lots of rose photos. Don't forget to go visit the garden this summer and see what I will miss in June and July.

Red Butte Garden Ready for Winter

I walked at Red Butte last weekend, checking out all my gardens. A lot was all torn up, not looking that good, ready for winter.

Here's part of the rose garden, for example. You can see there is some snow that has stayed because of the elevation that's higher than the city.

Right now you have to find the beauty in the shapes and textures.

Many grasses still look good.

The hardscapes and art are always lovely.

 And the vistas are mighty fine, as usual.

I was fascinated by the look of the roses blossoms that had frozen on the plants. We did not cut off all the flowers because that encourages new growth which we did not want towards the end of October, so there were plenty of these really interesting rose flowers to check out.

Some of the red roses really retained good color.

There WAS color throughout. Some yellow things,

the evergreens, of course, (and talk about interesting shapes and textures ...look at the cones here)

but the predominant color was red. Red leaves,

red berries,

red branches

red bushes,

red thorns on roses. This IS Utah, after all, the red state in so many ways.

The pond was frozen, the geese gone.

Even though it's not exciting right now, I still love to spend time there.

There's always something interesting to see.

Red Butte Garden, End of October

I have finished with my volunteer gardening for the year at Red Butte. My gardening clothes are washed and put away. My tool bag is stashed in the back of the car. I threw away a hopeless pair of garden gloves. I won't be back doing any horticulture work until March or April next year. Much as I love doing this work, I'm ready to stop for the year. I think they will have a few extra days where volunteers can work next week, if the weather holds, but it's getting to be so cold in the mornings now, it's not that much fun anymore for me.

Over 100,000 bulbs have been planted this year. I did a few. The last few days we've just been cutting back and digging up. many of the gardens are looking rather bare now.

I am amazed at how many of the roses are still looking grand.

We have plenty of fall color now. It's probably at the height, or just a bit over.

Here's the view in the four seasons garden now. We chopped down all the grasses last week so there would be plenty of room for the spring bulbs.

Pretty leaves are everywhere.

So here are just some more pictures of fall colors.

It's hard to stop taking pictures.

I have plenty more.

But maybe I'll quit here.

Time to go see the garden before winter really sets in.

Red Butte Garden in Early October

Folks at Red Butte Garden have decided that we will set some kind of record for the number of spring blooming bulbs. To that end we are now planting 100,000 of them. That's about all we are doing, sitting on the ground planting bulbs. Sometimes we do get up and hack things to the ground (aka cutting back perennials for the winter & throwing away spent annuals). These activities do not make for good photos.

Before we started all this, I did take some photos of the lovely things that were happening in early October. We are no longer deadheading roses, but there were plenty that were at their height in early October, especially yellow ones.

Thought that many of the rose blooms were especially large.

We have some special fall flowers like colchicum.

I always love the grasses,

and many have changed color for fall.

The red garden was looking pretty good.

And the four season garden is fine in this season as usual ... notice the beautiful grass.

There were some early signs of autumn color,

although only a few trees had actually turned colors.

Here are some more grasses.

It's hard to resist taking photos of the roses.

There were just so many beautiful plants.

I could go on forever, but I won't.  Well one more....

Welcome to Red Butte Garden. Autumn is a great time to visit.