Showing posts with label #gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #gardening. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Color of the Year: “Peach Fuzz” Steps into the Spotlight for 2024 ~ My Peachy Plant Suggestions for Home & Garden


The trend setters at Pantone announced its 2024 Color of the Year: Peach Fuzz as a “velvety gentle peach whose all-embracing spirit enriches heart, mind, and body.”

If there ever was a year for a nurturing, emotional tone, next year is shaping up to be one that will welcome this lovely, calming pastel.

It is a peaceful ambassador color that plays well with others too. 

Here’s some pretty plant suggestions for your Home and Garden.


Monday, March 14, 2022

How to Ignite Your Garden Beds for Spring: "Fire Farming" Ornamental Grasses & Pruning Perennials

       

Oh the Sunlight!  Just when you think you can’t take the darkness anymore, we turn the clocks. Happy Daylight Savings Time. 

With the days getting longer; the ground starting to thaw, it’s only natural that our thoughts turn to gardening. 

But before you start planting anything, especially annuals ~ I recommend you follow my planting guideline that I practice for my gardens and with my garden design team at the clients’ ~ and that is to refrain from planting until after Mother’s Day. There could be an overnight frost.

For now, it’s key to prepare the plants and the beds. 

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Garden Design at Hacienda Cusin in Ecuador: the Fragrance Garden



A Hacienda Cusin Garden View
Picking up (the trowel, so to speak) from the last Garden Glamour post about this year’s garden design project at Hacienda Cusín - here I'm sharing our work in the garden.

This follows the process of design, research, approval, and then the seed propagation EunYoung Sebazco, horticulturist and founder, Live Rice brought for the micro-greens, and the acquisition of local/native plants and seeds to fulfill the design concepts.
EunYoung at the local nursery where we shopped for plants, Photo courtesy of Sarah Owens











El Grupo Duchess securing plants at the local nursery, Photo courtesy of EunYoung Sebazco


The nursery purchases for the Fragrance & Edible Garden now back at Cusin! Photo courtesy of Linda Tejpaul





















Getting our new fragrance plants to the gardens.  I fell on my bottom pulling these babies up thru the garden gates. Photo courtesy of Sarah Owens
Now we were ready to dig into the soil. Consider the beds in Ecuador. First up are the garden beds - later for the sleeping beds :)

But first - it was time for lunch.
El Grupo lunch on one of the terraces at Hacienda Cusin. Delicious food and glorious dining! 

Here in Cusin, near Otavalo (probably the best food and craft market anywhere), in the Imbabura Province, the days are pretty warm - idyllic, in fact, in the 70-degree Fahrenheit range - clear and warm - no humidity. At night, the temperatures drop to a cool 50F or so. The range is ideal for plants and people. As a matter of fact, the area has become a kind of burgeoning haven for US retirees looking for a slice of heaven - a very affordable heaven.

Given the vagaries of climate chaos, it has affected Ecuador in a way that is idiosyncratic to their region and place. Here that means the rains have not come with their usual frequency. Often referenced as the “land of the eternal spring” due to the climate of rain and the cool temperatures, there is much less rain lately than is “normal.” Cusin’s owner, Nik wrote me just before we left for our work project there that it hadn’t rained at all from December to New Year’s Day. Not a drop. It rained a few afternoons when we were there - a real downpour the one day we were not prepared and at the market in Otavalo… But the true lack of rain had to figure into the garden designs...

By the way, if you don’t know, Ecuador is the most biodiverse area in the world. The country's three climate areas are very distinct: the coast where the Galapagos are, the Amazon, and the sierra, where Cusin is located. Most tourists to Ecuador readily visit all three locales as the distance is not great between the three areas and the exotic plant and wildlife is a too-exciting, must-see - - especially as most of us are increasingly, urbanites and don't ever get to see this much nature - let alone the variety that graces Ecuador.

Cusin is located about 10,000 feet above sea level. And still, every day we looked up and beyond, stopping to admire the Andes’ cloud-kissed mountains that hug the hacienda and nearby towns. It's an enchanting work site, indeed.

So, after we accumulated our fragrance plants for the new Fragrance Garden and all the edibles we could get our hands on, it was time to prepare the beds.

Before our nursery shopping expedition, we had already worked the beds around the casita at 25.
Here, we planted the new, low-growing alstroemeria whose burgundy color we chose to complement the the flecks in its taller, sister plants, and surrounded them with the new strawberry plants we got at the local nursery. Their white flowers and red berries were chosen to further the color theme there. Besides the obvious benefit of harvesting sweet berries for the homegrown Cusin recipes, we wanted the strawberries’ low-growing runner stolons to also fill in the garden beds around the other plants.

A "before" at 25, Photo courtesy of Linda Tejpaul





Other side of "before" at 25, Photo courtesy of Linda Tejpaul


"After" 25 garden work, Photo courtesy of Linda TejPaul 

"Afters" at 25 - Clean, edited plant compositions!  Photo courtesy of Linda Tejpaul 
Sarah working hort magic at 25, Photo courtesy of Linda Tejpaul 
















Fragrance Garden

It is still a mystery to me that in a land with such an overwhelming abundance of plant material that there aren't more fragrant plants readily available. Oh, there are the colorful, edible Fuchsia - that made a lovely dangling earring for me! And the hummingbirds just love these bold, blooming beauties.

And there is the Brugmansia, a native fragrant Ecuadorian beauty that I adore.  The blooms on this upside down trumpet look like a dramatic kind of "hanging chandelier." Brugmansia is a genus in the potato family (Solanaceae) that has five species, all from South America. The fact that this native charmer is in the potato family is not a huge surprise given that potatoes originated in this part of the world. Drive to Quito and there are more potato trucks on the road to the market than you care to pass…

I searched to find an example of Brugmansia to show that Ecuador's Andean region lies within the potato's area of genetic diversity.  I found that a particularly rich diversity of wild potato is found in central Ecuador. However, there is also now much discussion that Ecuador and Peru, in particular, may suffer from the same kind of trend toward commercial monoculture - meaning the potato diversity in this part of the world can be under threat. "No" to corporate farming…

Further, in my research for fragrant plants in Ecuador, I came across this quote from Jane Percy -- another Duchess (!) - the very real Duchess of Northumberland. As background, I had the pleasure and honor to meet the Duchess and participate on a guided tour when she visited Brooklyn Botanic Garden during the time I worked there as Director. I attended her lecture later that day at Sotheby’s, where she did a book-signing and a talk about her redevelopment of the enchanting Alnwick Garden. This special garden tells the tale of poisonous, deadly plants.
Here is the quote about the fragrant Brugmansia, commonly called "Angel’s Trumpet" -- (more like a devil, really!) :
"One of the duchess's favorite plants is Brugmansia, or angel's trumpet, a member of the Solanaceae family (which includes deadly nightshade, potato) that grows in the wild in South America. 'It's an amazing aphrodisiac before it kills you,' she says, explaining that Victorian ladies would often keep a flower from the plant on their card tables and add small amounts of its pollen to their tea to incite an LSD-like trip. "[Angel's trumpet] is an amazing way to die because it's quite pain-free," the duchess says. "A great killer is usually an incredible aphrodisiac."

I digress a bit - but it is fun, a nice memory, and germane to my research on Ecuador’s fragrant plants. Plants are transporting!

Back to the Fragrance Garden.
The existing Cusin garden - that was soon to become a Fragrance Garden - is more of a transition garden. A kind of basic quadrant design with a low fountain in the middle, with lush, yellow and orange canna plants in the center and Osteospermum or Cape Daisies around the fountain’s spherical sides.
Fragrance Garden fountain, at the crossroads of Mexican Sage & walkways, Photo courtesy, EunYoung Sebazco
The beds that hug the walkway around the fountain are filled with a profusion of water-wise Mexican Sage (Salvia leucantha). These beauties are pretty dramatic, showing off bright purple calyces, laced with white flowers. They can grow to three or four feet. It’s written, “The effect is magical, especially when butterflies and hummingbirds join the colorful display. The Mexican sage bush is an easy-care wildflower requiring only minimal pruning.”

Well, these salvia needed heavy pruning. They were kinda’ bending from the burden of too much beauty. Sarah -- Sarah Owens, horticulturist, author of Sourdough: Recipes for Rustic Fermented Breads, Sweets … and baker and owner:  BK17 Bakery and EunYoung artfully trimmed them back and soon they were standing proudly upright, happy to be the stars of this garden room.  Sarah's artful hort eye extends to the glamorous too, of course.  She bundled some of the pruned cuttings into a door decor swag.  Sweet. The pruned salvia can also be used in the rooms for guests' pot potpourri.
Door Decor - Salvia, photo courtesy of Sarah Owens
At the same time, the salvia’s purple and white color fashion helped us color-coordinate our new fragrant plants, utilizing a Complementary color scheme. This color design takes one color - as in yellow - then uses its complementary color at the other end of the color wheel. Here it is purple/violet to the opposite yellow and orange.

The white is a needed neutral, as is the green of the garden.

   


The fountain is located in a sunny spot, at the kind of center of a 4-way path circuit that leads from the walled Edible Garden and the main part of Cusin, to other garden rooms, and to a main “lawn” or concourse off the Biblioteca and on to the Island Gardens I wrote of last year.




The intention was to make this garden more of a destination rather than a pass-through garden.
The fountain is charming. The poppies and the Cape Daisies in the beds that line the pathways offered the yellow and orange colors, along with the purple/violet and white of the salvia from which we would build upon for the Fragrance Garden.

El Grupo Duchess was able to secure purple heliotrope at the local nursery in Otavalo. Heliotrope is one of my all-time favorite plants. It’s an annual in the New York area. I use it in my garden, (it got to about 2-plus feet this year), as well as my clients' gardens. The color is deep and rich. The fragrance is intoxicating. It is redolent of vanilla. The warm sun releases the fragrance. The Heliotrope will be a spectacular addition here.

We also added low-growing, fragrant, purple alyssum. It can take the heat and provides a delicious scent not unlike jasmine.

We located a white, Diamond Frost Euphorbia plant - a kind of newish hybrid that sports continuous white flowers. Some say it replaces Baby’s Breath in the garden. Up north, this is a great annual filler in the border or container. In Ecuador, it is a non-stop bloomer and a workhorse companion plant.

We were also able to secure some heat-loving, fragrant white gardenia shrubs. Gardenia is in my top-three favorite plants. I so love the fragrance; I wore them in hair for my senior prom. I think I was channelling Billie Holiday…

Now that we had the plants, we needed to edit and prune the existing Cape Daisies and poppy plants that line the walkways. They were leggy and dark at the bottom. It was rather arduous, especially in the heat of the day. Yet, we were happy for the opportunity especially when we thought of the cold weather back in Gotham. Plus, EunYoung and Sarah finally lassoed their first scorpion.
Scorpion Score: gardener's badge of honor! Photo courtesy of Sarah Owens


They were so anticipating this garden critter experience. EunYoung and Sarah were much more kind than I was last year when I experienced this lusty land lobster in my room. They, on the other hand, were so zen-like and took the critter to the outside wall. (In my defense, they were outside with their encounter!)  
The huge grubs are another story! Boy are they big there.
Heavy with grubs - EunYoung is in control of the Cusin namesake. Photo courtesy of Sarah Owens

We each worked one quadrant and EunYoung and Sarah worked the last one together, while I worked another task.


Later - over a timeframe of two days, we team-mulched the entire plantings from the Cusin homegrown compost.





We did have to hand water the new plantings a bit due to the lack of rain. I’m praying to Mother Nature/Pachamama goddess, that rain comes to the gardens…



Next post: Edible Gardens and…
Oh - and the beds for sleeping?  With a fire every night and a hot water bottle in the bed, and the magical, local, handmade artisanal blankets ... sigh...

Sarah's room & blanket, Photo courtesy of Sarah Owens

My room & that glorious fire 

Friday, March 20, 2015

If Walls Could Talk: Garden Design in Ecuador's Hacienda Cusin





 The stone garden walls at Hacienda Cusin are not unlike powerful arteries that silently pulse -- coursing throughout the body of the jardin, giving life  – while at the same time, outlining the bones of the various “garden rooms.”

So it was with great reverence that we garden designers from The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) Landscape Design Alumni Group  (LDSA) artfully removed the “over stimulated” Ecuadorean plants that were teetering in their version of “wall conquest.”
In this scenario, it might be said there IS too much of a good thing.

In our passion for good garden design and healthy plants, the Garden Team edited out plants, pruned back the “Hort Bullies” to reveal walls that nature has favored with her master brushstrokes. 
The gently aged look speaks volumes.  Not unlike the rambling stone  walls that grace the English countryside. The walls’ compositions could well make Pollack pea-green with envy; a dash of moss here, “drippings” of sea-foam green lichen streaked here and there, and colorful random plants perched in all manner of nooks and crannies hugging the walls and hanging on for hort companionship.

Post cleanup, er, garden makeover, the stone walls now can boast a bit more of their distinguished, sylvan yet “fuerte” heritage. 

How did we do it?
In the beds bordering or fronting the stone walls, we created plant compositions to highlight a “borrowed landscape” -- which is a natural garden design composition that captures the look that is just beyond, and usually more of Mother Nature – – known here as Pacha Mama.

  
With Amy as point person here - we employed the borrowed landscape garden design technique along part of the wall beginning nearest the Biblioteca and Salon, bringing the yellow of the canna plant to the corner access wall where more than a few paths meet.  
Amy editing out garden beds to create an artful borrowed landscape - & reveal the walls



It was agreed that the elegant calla lilly needed more of a presence so we transplanted enough for a few swaths of repeated plantings.  (We couldn’t help but “hear” Katherine Hepburn’s quintessential multi-syllabic cinema reference to this goddess of the plant world: “The Caaa-la-li-lil-lies aarre in bloo-um.”  
 
Peggy & Linda working to reveal Hacienda Cusin's artful garden walls
We later learned from Pablo, a favorite waiter and educated plantsman here at Hacienda Cusin, that calla lilies are ideal plants that do well in the Ecuadorian Sierra, despite not being a native. 
And just for the record – what hotel have you ever stayed in where a member of the wait staff is a knowledgeable, trained gardener and plantsman?  Yet another foot soldier for Pacha Mama – and a resource for the “green magic.”

We artfully edited some of the sweet looking and favorite, Forget Me Nots (Myosotis) whose periwinkle blue hue dot the borders’ front. 
See, plants have curious and powerful adaptations.  So despite it’s pretty blue blossoms, the Forget Me Not, too, is rather a hort bully – in that it sends out a kind of toxin to the other plants so that it can take over – even stealing nutrients from the soil…
One of our garden team members reacted to its toxicity on each of several days before we isolated the culprit plant and she subsequently walked to town to the pharmacie for relief.  It was truly a "forget me not – as in - unforgettable experience!

The red geraniums, that are almost as tall as me, were also revealed with the team’s plant editing – happy to be front and center.  These red stalwarts of the annual container and border gardens in the States, grow as tall as can be here – like a Jack in the Beanstalk curiosity. 
(Same for the impatiens!) 

We re-planted the multi-petaled eschevarria to show off her poised, Armani-like sculptured couture leaves in the front of the boarder where guests could surely appreciate the plant’s design.
Peg, Becca, and Linda cleaned the front of the wall area and put in calla lilies in the bed.
Left to right: Peggy, Linda, & Becca creating captivating garden art compositions from  the exuberant plant growth along the walls
Red and purple fuchsia, and well, fuchsia-colored orchids, and Datura and Bella Donna are the eye-popping seductive garden gems that adorn the borders and the handsome stone walls.
Plants soon learned they were no match for the "Plant Whisperer:" Becca!















Monet’s Water Garden in Ecuador

The piece-de-resistance of our garden work arguably is the water garden fronting number #10 casita (be sure to reserve this for your honeymoon suite  -- or second honeymoon, as we learned Mel and Peggy did a few years’ back!)
This is the first water garden one encounters after having descended the grand staircase from the Biblioteca and Salon Simon Bolivar.

There is no doubt the water garden and its center island – with its newly christened moniker, “Bellar Island” so named for Mel and Peggy -- is exquisite and eye-catching. 
It and the walking bridge were already captivating.  Here again, we were doing our “garden makeovers” – getting the garden rooms ready for their close-up – and in this case, specifically for the big wedding taking place on Saturday night.
Peggy & Planca!  The before "Bellar Island"

I daresay when we were finished, not only were we all thrilled, but the plants also seemed to be smiling back at us. The fish in the pond were literally jumping for joy; nabbing the newly-acquainted hordes of buzzing dragon flies who were all elated we netted out pond debris and lots of the asparagus fern growing below. 
Mel launched the pond skimming clean up

The cleaner clearer pond created a visual delight for them – and created a canvas for the nearby plants and trees.  

Now, the lantana (Lantana montevidensis) and fuchsia (Fuchsia triphylla) and California Poppies (Eschscholzia californica)  – to name a few – shimmer their mirrored double exposure in the pond’s now-glistening water.

Gus continues pond clean-up while Mel works the border & Becca contemplates next plant patient!                
See, Gus had moved silt and stuff “upstream” from the gravity-led rill powered by a recirculating pump so that it now bubbles and gurgles with renewed aplomb – adding to the garden art’s sensory sensations. 
Later, I cleaned out the garden bridge and got that element of the pond’s egress to counter-point the flow, allowing the water’s exit on to the contiguous pond beyond the bridge. 
That the bridge’s garden-side entrance is beribboned with jasmine is just too good to be true. 
I carefully pruned out the unwanted vine stems and “interlopers” (aka leaves, sticks, etc.). 
Me pruning the bridge jasmine

The heady scent of jasmine there will leave you swooning with rapture. 
Now a bride and her groom can waltz through the jasmine–festooned bridge entrance and pose on the arching bridge for wedding photo memories, while they and the bridge mirror their image in the pond.  Double the pleasure. (Take that, Dorian Grey!)

I further scraped off the built-up moss and weeded out the plants who’d set up residence on the bridge and stone.  No more plant squatters!
Now the presently-named Monet Bridge is clean and visible because its happy reflection conjures the French garden setting for Monet’s water lilies.
However, we are coming up with an appropriate moniker for Hacienda Cusin’s own garden art.  After all, local, homegrown inspiration has its unique cachet…
Any suggestions? 
I can’t stop taking photos of the beauty of this water garden.  I’m sure you will be equally smitten and inspired after one look.  Please let me know your thoughts about what we might call it…
I’m thinking the “Millhouse Mirada” in homage to Nik, Barbara, and their artist/illustrator sabrina, Bek to honor their passion for all things artful…  Their name is Millhouse and “mirada” in Spanish is “look.”  It works, no?

Nik con poncho on his reclaimed bridge in Millhouse Mirada Garden 


The beds bordering the pond were weeded and re-arranged.  Snip, snip; here.  Snip, Snip; there.  A few of the purple and pink Margaurite Daisy (Osteospermum fruticosum) plants were staked for the wedding so that their blossoms could be enjoyed now.  Others were pruned back for a more robust regrowth, as they were getting too leggy.   
Before pond beds
Not that we don’t love a plant’s “gams” it’s just that we want more blossoms – and pruning back is the way to get there.  Gus brought new, homegrown, composted soil to the beds to nourish she soil and feed the plants.  Plus that black gold looks so darn good and rich!
Mel (L) & Gus on plant debris removal duty; Compost!

New orange canna plants were planted to even out the stepping-stone walk across the border to the Bellar Island in the middle of the pond.  (It had been covered over with plant growth.)

Anchored by the tall yucca and too many” plant squatters” – the island had become more of a battlefield adventure than a focal point.  
So with Peggy at the helm, she and fellow garden pirates Linda and Mel, helped turn that ship around – weeding out the invasive hort bullies and those seeming to abandon the ship by dipping all the way into the water.   
Peggy & Linda weeding & editing Bellar Island 

  

The island got a complete clean-up, makeover.

The day at the spa for the Millhouse Mirada and Bellar Island Garden was a resounding success. 




Soon, guests too were beguiled.  They couldn't stop taking pictures or painting the garden composition -- inspired by Pacha Mama / Mother Nature -- and Hacienda Cusin - and LDSA "Gringo" gardeners...

 







After the LDSA team all left to return home, I began my solo work in the garden. I stayed the extra days because I LOVE it here – but also because I came later than the team due to me and my husband’s vacation in Aruba, as I think I mentioned in the first blog post from Hacienda Cusin.

Initially, I planned to start on that contiguous pond, working the same garden makeover magic as we achieved with the Millhouse Mirada.
Yet, looking back at the water garden – transfixed by its bewitching beauty, I couldn’t help feel my sensibilities were a bit off or offended – by the site of all that brown, spent stems and bulbs from the crocosmia border beds that led out from the rill’s fountainhead.
Why, you could hardly see the wise, moss-covered walls there, hidden beneath encroaching, unwanted plant growth.

Something had to be done.

So two days of hacking back at the sterile mounds of bulbs, roped in by the menacing roots of the cursed St. Augustine grass, ensued.  I’ve tangled with this hated beast back in the States.  I knew my enemy.  I looked fearlessly ahead and knew it would succumb. 


Gus started the rill - circulating water fountainhead

The 15” or so of brown mounds did not go down easy.
Half-way - or kinda -- cleaning up the rill area to reveal garden walls. Foot-high bulbs were muy fuerte!
But eventually – all was removed; creating garden beds around the stone walls and rill; creating garden beds. 
I redirected the water, adding in grey stone boulders to match the medieval-looking water walls.
I envisioned a piece of marvelous garden art from Nik and Barbara’s collection here.
What Nik brought from the Salon Boliver salon exceeded my garden fantasy.
It is a two-foot or so wooden statue of Santa Barbara! 
Nik explained it used to be a rooftop ornament. 
She looks best in the new garden, gazing reverentially at the water flowing at her feet.

I re-purposed ferns to surround Santa Barbara so that they radiate a lush, green backdrop for her “statuesque solemnity.”
Nik noted she needed color.  I observed and dreamed a bit, all the while looking around like a soldier on watch.
I spotted those weeping California Poppies beyond in the Bellar Island and I knew I had the color we needed, along with a continuing, repeated garden narrative.  That the leaves are a soft bluish-hue is the icing on the cake.  We had a yellow and blue and green color palette.
Now we needed some structure.
With shovel in tow, and the two llamas assistance (I will swear their eyes led me to the plant when I asked them for their suggestions) – I came upon the succulent of choice.  Plus the tall, “mother” plant needed pruning.
The low-growing architectural succulents worked gracefully to highlight the Santa Barbara composition.
Newly-designed Santa Barbara garden

I wanted the much-acclaimed calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) to front the new garden. Their pristine white flower is elegant (a nice nod to our Saint, even though it’s bold, stamen is a kind of in-your-face-sexual wahoo!) 
Plus the height of the calla lily helps better engage the guests.

It already looked good.  Moreover the guests, the staff, and especially Nik and Barbara were enthusiastic, having watched the garden room’s transformation.  Many offered suggestions for protecting Saint Barbara from both the elements – and sticky fingers…

The next day, Nik invited me and Bek to accompany him and Cesar to the nursery to buy plants. (More on that later.)
For the Santa Barbara garden, we got two kinds of ground cover plants: bluish-purple, fragrant alyssum and the white, daisy-like ground cover that is an annual by us. 
I also got two white gladioli-like beauties for either side of our Saintly gal. 
The white blooms of these new plants, along with the calla lilies suggest a purity that is so spot-on for a garden room watched over by a saint. 
Plus the white will “glow” in the evening dark.

Despite the heavy rains, I planted the newly-acquired plants, introducing them to their new plant companions. 
The entire plant composition is now a splendid hort community.
The integration of the elements: water, stone, plants, art; along with height, texture and color, combine to produce an enduring garden design.
Thank you, Hacienda Cusin – the perfect garden design inspiration and palette.

And about those garden walls conversation skills, here?
Well, they in fact do talk.  They are a bit of the gossip too. 
I have it on the best authority that none other than famed gardener, Penelope Hobhouse  preceded our team in doing garden work here. Wow.  This garden is a magnet for all garden lovers to be sure.
The Hacienda Cusin’s garden walls also whispered that the “Domestic Diva,” Martha Stewart, was a guest here, along with naturalist, David Rockefeller, and the Pulitzers.  I would swear too, that the walls told me famed garden art curator, Barbra Israel, also is a Cusin enthusiast.
Shhhh, pass it on.

NY Garden team post Bellar Island makeover: top row: L-R: Gus, Becca, Peggy, Mel, Nik - Cusin's owner & inspiration - Nik wanted an "American Gothic" photo memento;
Bottom: Me/Leeann, Amy, Linda
Nik, and Me/Leeann with happy, garden grins


Having fun "fanning" our leader, Nik, with Papyrus plant on the reclaimed, made-over bridge in "Millhouse Mirada"


Plants now are mirrored in the pond


We had a lot of fun in the garden too:
Linda, Gus, & Mel sporting fashions of the garden!



Some critters looked more "fun" from a distance:
Gus & a "cusin" the area's BIG beetle and the Hacienda Cusin's namesake!