Bloken

 When Olivia was very little she would toddler mispronounce broken as "bloken".  Some other favorites were "velcros" for scarecrows and Vincent's "awfuls" for waffles.  One of the best was Sophia's lyric of "Girlfriend's Nutmeg" for the Billy Squier song "The Stroke". 

I broke bloke the table while I was flinging the hose around.  Plus a few pots.  

While cleaning the mess..  hmmmmm, drainage holes.  I gathered the base & top of the table on some old plastic, along with the pot I bashed last week.

Why not try something before tossing them out?  I mentioned last week I've been getting away from stark white planters.  I picked up a couple spray paints to try.  One with a stone textured finish that had me particularly worried.  Dreading popcorn ceiling outcome. 

First coat wasn't terribly impressive but maybe? I let it dry, if there was too much of the texture it began blobbing & running.

Unfortunately the stony textured can was quick to empty.  I sprayed the other 2 remnants with the Behr matte mountain stone. 

I've had an old Puya hanging out in a bucket over several months.  You can see it's on the scruffy side. This had been in the ground, but I removed it for a different plant that wasn't so vicious... the Puya is definitely from the old Annie's Annuals. I think it's Puya venusta but it could be alpestris.  It's never bloomed, I mean can you blame it?

The drainage hole in the broken base of the table was way too large, cut a piece of fine mesh to help hold rocky soil inside. 

And planted the cleaned up, now very pineapple shaped Puya.  I'll get another can of the stone paint, I actually like how the texture looks - another coat needed also you can see where I smurfed the surface before it was completely dry.  

I was shoveling/moving the extra rock up top yesterday, I went to take a breather in the shade. I went around to sit on the shady porch of the new house and watched this guy - they put him waaaay up high.

and then way down low and over to the left.  And back & forth and up and down again and again. What in the world?  I could only imagine they were trimming that palm tree. Obviously avoiding the maze of wires was a challenge. 

I came back around to check on the progress later.  All that to take down the agave bloomstalks! (One is still standing there at the peak of the roof).  I couldn't help but think both of the stalks could've been taken down with a ladder & saw. In less time than taken to float him all around in his white garbage can. 

I wish they had left the glory of them for a few more months. Oh well,  here are a couple blooms happening now in the back garden  -Echinopsis. 

and Cyranthus elatus x. montanus from The Bulb Maven.  

That's a wrap.  I have something fun happening tomorrow I'll share, then I'm off to Portland to visit with friends, family and a garden I've been dying to see!