Ready for playing.

Is there something in your life that you've always wanted to have? I'm not talking about private jets or hundred foot yachts, just a simple thing that you always thought would be really cool. I don't have a ton of things like that in my life, but there are a few. And a couple weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get one of them.

At dinner recently, my sister mentioned that our aunt was looking for a home for a piano that had belonged to our grandmother. Abby and Maddy are taking lessons now, so my ears perked up a little, but we have a piano at the house so I realized I probably didn't need two. And then she said a single word that made me stop and listen . . . 'Grand'. Wait, I said, a grand piano needs a home?

I don't know why, but I've always wanted to have a grand piano. It makes no sense. I played the piano years ago and have somehow retaught myself Linus and Lucy from A Charlie Brown Christmas, but that is about the end of my repertoire. Maybe it is the romantic notion of dinner parties with the sounds of Strauss, Bach or Schubert emanating from a gorgeous piano. Why that would need to be in my living room I have no idea. It's big and most grand pianos are black (which doesn't match any of our furniture). So again, I wrote off the idea of having a grand piano as being simply impractical. And then my sister said, 'Well she said it is an apartment grand'. I have never heard that term before and so after a quick internet search, I realized that it was a grand piano, just on a smaller scale. 'But what color is it?' I asked. She said 'it's brown.' . . . What????? . . . A grand piano, sized for smaller rooms, that also matches our furniture? It's like it was meant to be. Add in the fact that it belonged to my grandmother and my cousins learned to play on it...that's romance, nostalgia and family all wrapped in one beautiful, musical package.

So we got it moved and setup, and Abby and Maddy have already enjoyed using it for piano practice. When I sent a picture of the piano in place to my aunt she sent me this message 'I suspect Grandma Toni is smiling at seeing her piano being used to help another generation of Bokor musicians'. We are sure that she is too.

Dead-head flowers to keep them blooming.

Garden Tip
Dead-heading: Cleaning up the Garden

Dead-heading doesn't mean hanging out at Graceful Dead concerts. It means making your flowers really pop. And it's simple. A little snip here, a little trim there and voila, your flowers will put out a fresh set of new blooms.

1) When to Dead-head - Do it anytime. In the heat, we avoid heavy pruning, but there is not a wrong time of year to dead-head. Whenever something is blooming heavily, wait a few days and go out and trim. 

2) Which Flowers to Dead-head - Blooms that are completely finished, mostly finished and even almost finished can go. Here is what happens. Plants have flowers to make seeds. It's for reproduction. So if a flower blooms, pollinates and closes, it will begin the process, as we say of 'going to seed'. At this point, energy from the plant is directed to this process of making seeds, and away from making new blooms. So if you prune a flower when it is past its peak beauty, but before it begins to go to seed, the plant continues to use its energy for blooms instead of seeds.

3) Plants to Dead-Head - There isn't anything you can't dead-head, but the ones that are the easiest are plants whose flowers are single-stemmed, not ones with clusters or long spires of flowers. Additionally, plants that only bloom once a year (think azaleas, camellias) don't need it. Short-lived flowers like petunias, hibiscus etc. aren't usually good candidates either. Roses, bush daisy, geraniums, coreopsis and blanket flower are just some of the many flowering plants that really benefit from dead-heading.

4) Use Liquid Fertilizer - A liquid fertilzer such as FoxFarm's Tiger Bloom used on a weekly basis, will help plants re-bloom. Since you want your plants to bloom as much as possible, give them the nutrients they need to do it. 

5) Get Outside - What are you waiting for? You know there is something in your yard that needs dead-heading. So grab the clippers and clean away the old blooms. Pretty soon the new flowers will have you smiling at your handiwork.

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