Hydrangea care, a winner, and an announcement!

Hello Everyone!

I want to thank all of you who stopped in and left me a comment on my hydrangea post.

I wanted to take the time to answer a few of your questions about my hydrangeas.

I want you all to know I do not claim to be a hydrangea expert, I have experienced a lot of difficulty getting mine to grow too.

I wanted to share a few things that I have learned about this beautiful plant.

If you want to learn more about hydrangeas from an expert I really recommend you visit this site

HYDRANGEA HYDRANGEA

It is a very informative website, it provides you with everything you need to know about hydrangeas!

What I fertilize my hydrangeas with~

I fertilize my hydrangeas once to twice a year with compost. We live on a horse ranch and have a very abundant compost pile.

We first of all dug up all of the existing dirt and replaced it with compost from the ranch before planting the hydrangeas.

After you see new growth then you can start to fertilize on a weekly basis.

I do fertilize with a miracle grow that is specifically formulated for hydrangeas.

Never fertilize your plants if the soil has dried out. Always fertilize your plants when they are well hydrated.

Never plant your hydrangeas in afternoon sun!

They thrive when they receive morning sunlight.

It is best to plant them where they will receive morning sun no later than 11:00 a.m.

Like I said in my hydrangea post, my hydrangeas will now receive sun until 1:00 p.m. and I live where it is very hot! So they will burn very quickly. I am hoping to come up with a solution before that happens.

Pruning~ this is a very important topic when it comes to hydrangeas, if not done right it can determine if your plant will bloom the following year. I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to prune my hydrangea shrubs until I stumbled upon this website~

Hydrangeas Hydrangeas

It is important to know what type of hydrangea you have, as there are two types, and type one shouldn't be pruned, and type two can be pruned.

Type one~Mophead and Lacecaps (macrophyllas - usually pink or blue)

This is the type of hydrangea I have.

Buds are produced on old wood.

If you prune these after July then you will be cutting off the blooms that are forming on the old wood for the following summer.

Most likely pruning your hydrangea (mophead and lacecap type) after July will cause your hydrangeas not to bloom the following summer.

However the endless summer hydrangea is known as remontant, if pruned it will regenerate the bloom bud and bloom as usual.

If you have type 2 (Anabelle types and Pee Gee types hydrangeas), then there are a different set of rules for pruning these types.

If you would like to read more on pruning your hydrangea and finding out what kind of hydrangea you have you can click on the link below.

Pruning Hydrangeas!

How to change your hydrangea color from pink to blue~

Last year my hydrangeas were all pink and were turning green.

When I bought them they were blue, they are called Nikko Blue, and I thought they would always stay blue. That isn't the case.

A year ago I added aluminum sulfate to the soil. I was told it would take a year for them to change back to blue. I was excited to see so many of my blooms were blue this year. It worked!

If you would like to read more about how to change the color of your hydrangeas you can click on the link below.

Hydrangeas Hydrangeas

I purchased my hydrangeas from a local nursery.

They were the Monrovia Nikko Blue Hydrangeas.

I fell in love with hydrangeas after I had read an article on them in Martha Stewart Living.

I hope I was able to share some helpful information with all of you.

I know I have spent the past couple of years being frustrated trying to get mine to grow.

There are a lot of helpful tips on this website,

Hydrangeas Hydrangeas.

A Winner

Also there is a winner for the Cabbages and Roses Giveaway!

Congratulations Jeniffer from the blog, Piney Flats Style, she chose the pale raspberry pattern!

It turns out Jeniffer is making over her reading room.

She has Christina's new book, At Home with Country, and

Cabbages and Roses is her inspiration for the makeover!

I hope you enjoy your tablecloth and napkin set Jeniffer.

Thank you Cabbages and Roses for sponsoring such a generous giveaway!!

Thank you for everyone who participated in this giveaway!

I really appreciate it!

An announcement!

I also wanted to share some exciting news with all of you.

I am in the process of starting an online store. I have been working on it for the past few months. That is part of the reason I have been so absent from the blog world. I will be stocking my store with things that I LOVE!

I owe so much to all of you!

I am not a very confident person, and because of all of your encouragement you have given me, I am chasing some of my dreams!!!

THANK YOU!!!

You guys are the BEST!!!

Before I go though I want to share a link to Shannan's garden.

I have been waiting for this girl to share some pictures of her garden.

The name of her blog is Flower Patch Farmgirl!

Her blog is one of the first blogs I found and she inspires me in so many ways!!

If you guys would like to leave a link to your garden in the comment section, I would love to see some of your gardens and if you feel like sharing a gardening tip, I would love that!!!

Have a great weekend!

Maria

p.s. These are photos of our family room, there is a giant t.v. that sits right to the left of the couch. I will share this entire room with you someday!

Jana from Twig also has a special announcement she wants to make about her Vintage Whites Market she holds in Somers, Montana, you can read more about it here

Hydrangeas

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Today I thought I would share another one of my favorite flowers.

Hydrangeas

Three years ago, I planted over twenty hydrangea shrubs.

I planted them all along the east side of the house, that way they would receive morning sun and not afternoon sun. The idea was the porch was supposed to protect them from that hot afternoon sun.

I never expected them to grow so big so fast.

Hydrangeas do well with filtered sunlight.

They don't do well in the hot afternoon sun.

They burn very quickly when exposed to the afternoon sun.

So that is why I need my husband to extend the porch!

Not Really, however we do have very hot summers here, and beings they are no longer protected by the porch we are going to have to create shade for them.

They really shouldn't be exposed to the sun after 11:00 a.m.

Now the outer edges of the plants are exposed to the sun until about 1:00 p.m. because they have grown outward a little more than I expected.

One thing we have thought of doing is planting climbing roses along the porch to create shade for them.

I am sad to say they will not look like this for long, beings the hot summer days are now upon us. Until I can come up with a shade solution I will have to cut them back very soon, so I thought I better snap a few pictures before that has to happen.

The name of the hydrangeas I planted are called Nikko Blue,

Really they are very low maintenance.

I fertilize mine once a week and water everyday during the hot summer months.

You can read more about hydrangeas here

They make the prettiest cut flowers!

Hope you all have a great week!

Take Care,

Maria

P.S. There is still time to enter my Cabbages and Roses Giveaway, by clicking here!

Cabbages and Roses is so generously giving away a beautiful table cloth and 6 napkins, to one lucky reader.

valued at $185.00

Vosges Paris

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are all having a great week.

I wanted to share someone special today with all of you.

Her name is Desiree.

She is the girl behind the

Vosges Paris Blog.

After Lori, from White Flower Farmhouse (more on Lori in the near future, she is the one who introduced me to blogging ), so kindly featured my home on her blog, Frugal Farmhouse Design, Desiree was one of the first people to email me and tell me she liked my home.

I couldn't believe I was getting an email from someone in the Netherlands.

Then after I started my own blog,

Desiree was then so kind to put a picture of my home on the side of her blog, Vosges Paris, and introduced my blog to her readers. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that someone who didn't even know me would do this for me.

This is something Desiree does for new bloggers.

I think this is so generous of her to do.

Desiree has been such an inspiration to me.

Desiree also sent me this very nice package in the mail.

When Desiree was featured in this magazine at Home she sent me a copy of the magazine.

I had left a comment congratulating her for being featured in the magazine, so she offered to send me a copy, since we don't get this magazine here in the states.

I wish we got At Home here, as it is filled with so much inspiration.

Congratulations Desiree on your magazine feature!

Desiree sent me these cute wooden letters that spells out the word Reve, which means dream in French.

She also sent me this french document as well.

I love it.

Thank you Desiree!

Desiree, as you know, I love everything you sent me.

I asked Desiree if she would let me do a little interview with her and she kindly agreed to answer a few questions.

All of the pictures below are property of Vosges Paris.

Where are you from?

I am born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and still live here and to be honest I could not think of living anywhere else ... I absolutely love my town! I live in the old Harbour of the city surrounded by water and lots of history... You might see something of my neighbourhood when in August this year Sail 2010 is taking place just around the corner from where I live. I feel like having the best of two worlds, The tranquillity of the harbour, doing my daily shopping in a former warehouse of the KHL (Royal Holland Lloyd - Founded in 1899 to carry cattle andcargo between Amsterdam and South America) where coffee and tea was being stored and being really close to the city centre with its canals and narrow streets.

What inspired you to start a blog?

I have always been interested in interior design and photography. Fifteen years ago I bought myself a new camera and started to take lots of concert pictures I sold on eBay and by advertising in magazines. Some of them ended up in Music biography's and it was a great way to finance one of my greatest passions I have next to interior design .. 'music'.

Long before I started a blog of my own I made pictures of my DIY projects and Flee market finds that I shared in Picasa albums with a group of women. We 'met' at an interior forum that I still visit daily. A great group of people with the same passion for interior, flee markets and DIY. From time to time we also meet up at some place, have workshops, shopping trips. Some great friendships have been started there.

Later on I started to read blogs. I was really impressed by the French weblogs (there is a whole list at my blog for those of you who want to discover them). There were so many beautiful 'Mis en scenes' (still life's) as the French call them to admire. I started to make more and more pictures and decided to publish them on a blog as it would give me the change to write some more about them.

What is the story behind the name of your Blog?

The name of my blog comes from a silly nick name I once made as Mr.Google was rejecting all kind of names I wanted to choose. It comes from 'Place des Vosges' in Paris, It is the oldest square in Paris. It was the easiest way to just keep that name.

How would you describe your style?

To be honest I find it very difficult to describe my style.. there are so many things and styles I like. I truly love industrial things as metal cupboards, tolix chairs and tables with big wheels. But my heart also beats faster when seeing a shabby cupboard painted in white. French medici vases, zinc baskets or a garden table with rusty legs and a wooden top. I just love to combine the things I love.

On my blog I get reactions on my posts as: 'this is so you' and many times about the contrast in my home and pictures. So I guess, my style is combine things with a bit of contrast. Such as a modern white vase with an old crate painted with chalk paint to show my collection of strange iron finds. I definitely like to surround me with things you can't find in every shop.

So I often switch things around in my house. The concrete wall with zink ornaments has now been replaced by a white wall with an old table from the antique shop. But there can easily something else coming up in my mind that asks for another changing if decor.

Do you have a favorite room in your home?

I think changing and decorating your house is all about the inspiration you have at that moment and the picture you have in mind with that certain room. And like a painter who likes his last painting best I like my latest projects best. I love the serene atmosphere of my bedroom with the old white shutters and the touch of violet and I love the wall with the Industrial table in my working space. At the moment I am chanching things in my living room and added some bright white IKEA furniture and added a grey and white kelim.

Interiors grow by living in them , so who knows what will be next.

Who is your favorite designer?

That will be Frederic Tabary, I discovered his Picasa photo albums a few years ago, he now also has a weblog.

He is an interior designer and architect. He renovates and builds houses, shop interiors and all kind of unusual places

You can recognise his work by the amazing industrial and smart gadgets.

He uses all the material I love such as concrete Iron and wood.

Once you know his work you will regonice it in the magazines such as Cote Maison.

I can think of many more designs I like and I can pretend to know all the Dutch designers but the thruth it I don't.... I do know very well what I like though.. looking at beautiful things and happily enough Amsterdam is full of cool places with 'hot' design.

What is your favorite design book?

I donít really have a favorite book but I like the books from my favorite interior magazine. The Dutch magazine called ëVT Wonenë.

Do you have a favorite place to shop?

Yes I have a few places I like to shop, I mentioned a few on my weblog already like ëDe Weldaadí and ëSissy Boy homelandí But I also like to wander around at the Noordermarkt, the weekly antiques and curiosa Market. For all the basic stuff most Dutch shop at the HEMA and IKEA.

How has blogging impacted your life?

It has made my world bigger I find it absolutely great to see how other people live. I think if it wasn't for blogging I would never have get in touch with people like you and could have a look at how you live and decorate your home. I have met so many great people over the last years.

Thank you for your friendship Desiree!

Thank you for everything you have done for me.

This is a picture of Desiree below!

Vosges Paris

She has a great blog!

Desiree will also be having a giveaway shortly on her blog.

So keep a watch out for that!