New blooms and new aloe

 My phal that I've had for 3 years now bloomed for the 4th time and John Meyer is chugging along too!

My friend Lisa came down to visit and gave us an aloe. I hope I don't kill it. For some reason they never seem to last with me.

Back Splash

Yippeee! Thanks to home improvement gift cards from Christmas and late wedding gift cards we're finally getting back splash for our kitchen :)

First 2014 Post

Already making changes starting with remounting the Staghorn Fern. I found the piece of sliced tree trunk from Michael's for $10 and used a 50% off coupon... $5-SCORE!
I got it back in September when he was a wee lad. He's gotten bigger since, 2 new leaves and a growth mount or "frond". Here he is from September on a piece of cork mount.

Eames Lounge Chair

Hubster bought our dream lounge chair so we rearranged our living room to accommodate it to its fullest potential :) LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

A successful John Meyer season

It's been a full year since I got this bad boy at the Southern Christmas Show. He produced 5 hearty lemons. I found 3 recipes to make with them. First was a creamy avocado pasta dish:

Martha Stewart's Meyer Lemon Poundcake:

And the grande finale Cod baked with meyer lemons, shallots and dill. SO SO GOOD.

I hope next season I'll have 6. Hubster thinks we'll get 9. As for the key lime tree… He produced some buds and there is one out of the bunch that is standing. I'm not expecting much of this guy. He wasn't in good shape from the beginning. It would be a miracle if we get at least ONE from him next season. He'll need a good 2 years to recoup from the rescue. Here are the two side by side under sun lamps indoors now that it's a bit nippy out. 

Storm door installed!

Backyard bed

We expanded the bed around our deck and planted another leyland cypress where the fig tree was. We moved the fig tree to the new bed because it was not doing well in the spot it was in. It only produced one itty fruit that later snapped off from a big rain storm we had :( I planted a few lily bulbs and iris as well. It looks a bit empty for now but it'll look fuller once Spring comes around so I'll be planting new herbs in the empty spaces.

Ignore the weird blob the hubster caught during the pan of the cypress trees. I have no idea what that is. It could be Fiona running.