We’ve had really good gardening weather along with a couple of beneficial rains.
The flowers are looking good, and we’ve been eating fresh peas and enjoyed our first cucumber.
I also have a new gardening tool – Hoselink, a retractable hose reel.
It’s not something you pick up at your local box store, but for a person who gardens seven days a week, it sure is a handy option.
Instead of fighting with my previous rubber hose to unwind and then rewind, this is 82′ of hose that easily pulls out, self locks, and rewinds quickly and evenly.
The unit itself along with the nozzle swivel so you can easily move around your yard to water. So far, I love it.
We also visited a car dealer last week, which is one of my most unfavorite things to do but necessary periodically. Besides all the safety bells and whistles, what captured my attention?
There was no gear stick, just buttons. I looked around for George Jetson because I can remember my grandparents’ vehicles having these tall gear shifts with knobs on the top. Talk about a dinosaur moment.
Happy Wednesday, folks, and I hope each and every one of you is well and having a good week. Now, back to regular scheduled gardening. 😎
NewEnglandGardenAndThread 
Lol, I still drive one of those cars with the gear stick. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself in an automatic with buttons
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It was probably a good thing that the salesman we routinely deal with is of a ‘mature’ age or he would have thought I was crazy taking a photo of car buttons. I still have trouble thinking about pushing a button to shift gears. 🙂
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I’ve been thinking more and more about getting some iris’ around the property. They were a favorite of my grandparents. My lilies are still in the process of blooming, it’s been a weird spring here. They’re super tall this year though. I need to transplant my peonies soon! (They’re in a weird spot in the middle of our fence and I want to move them to the side of the house.)
My last lease, a Ford Fusion, had that dial knob. It was really weird at first! My Jeep is back to the regular stick. 🙂
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Iris don’t stay around long, but they certainly do bring a special beauty to your garden. Who knew there would be a range of options to shift a car. 🙂
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I LOVE your hose retractor!! I have a husband who frequently uses the hose and yet rarely returns it to its proper place. It makes me crazy. This sounds like the perfect solution. I suspect I’d still be the one to roll up the hose, but it would make my life easier.
… if you ever hear about an incident in Canada involving a strange dead-by-hose, please forget you ever read this comment 😉
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I already forgot. I can tell you another thing – there aren’t near as many bad words flowing when I have to put the hose away. 🙂 The company was easy to deal with, it can be attached to a pole or the side of the house, and I will just pick it up and store it for the winter. It’s a good thing. I hope you know you are missed here in the blogging world, but glad I can touch base on Instagram. 🙂
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I keep hoping for my muse to return, but she appears to have found a better stomping ground 😕
I haven’t shut down my site yet, so there’s still hope, I guess.
… and I know what you mean about the bad words 🙂
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You are not alone. Many bloggers stopped over the past year, and most of the rest are posting about half as much. I struggle, but I would miss all you guys so I keep trying. 🙂
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Judy, your garden is a joy to see! I’m looking into that hose reel. The one I fought with the most just broke and this one looks just like what we need. I’ve thought about getting a new car but I like the one I have even if it is 14 years old.
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We had a Sears rubber hose that has lasted for at least ten years. It was a workhorse except when it came to getting it off the hose stand, being tangled up and shutting off the flow, and then trying to put it back. I swore more at that hose than anything else. My husband came across this, and we decided to go for it. I love that it swivels with you as you move, is much lighter weight, and for sure getting it out and putting it away is easy. This fall, we’ll just pick it up and store it away. We live in a rural area, and it is somewhat hidden from anyone, but it actually has a spot to put a padlock that would prevent someone from stealing it. If you get one, let me know if you like it. 🙂
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Every hose I touch kinks up! I’m not sure we have a good place to mount this one but it looks great.
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My neighbour has just bought a retractable hose reel and she says there is nothing like it. She loves using it every day. I wish we’d bought one, instead of the curly one we have now.
Lovely to see your gorgeous summer flowers as our weather is miserable here at the moment.
I guess everyone has to have a winter, to enjoy spring and summer. Happy gardening.
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I thought it was interesting that this company is from Australia. 🙂 So far, they make a good product that they put a lot of time into because it is a breeze to use. Sorry your weather is not great right now. We’re in a spell of nice June weather so I’ll send you some warm breezes.
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I’m very pleased to read the company that make the retractable hose comes from Australia, and so it should….. because we water plants all year long! Thanks for the offer of warm breezes..
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Having no gear shift is weird! I don’t think I’d ever get used to that. Guess I’m showing my age now. 😁
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I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it. It seems like you could hit the wrong button pretty easily which would not be a good thing. We are looking at that car as an option, but I don’t know if I’m ready for it. 🙂
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Your clematis is striking! Reminds me of the pale blue one I successfully raised to grace the front porch of my first home. It came back faithfully every year, the show stopper of the neighborhood. I tried to duplicate it in our new home, but was unable to grow one, even on the sunny mailbox. Such an elegant plant!
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At least here, Clematis is finicky. I have them in four different areas. This one does the best. Although, it is on an arbor, and the same plant on the other side of the arbor did nothing. The other ones live, have a couple of blooms, but that is it. I haven’t figured out how to get them to be all happy at the same time. 🙂
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$:@!-%{¥=|%^”€<|])$…..This is what I say every time I touch the hose……you know the kind of hose I mean…..the one you pay more for because it will never kink!! I have hose envy looking at your retractable beauty! 😂
Good luck car shopping. They're all computers on wheels today! Back in the day, I could never master the stick shift!! Yep, ground a few gears in my efforts to learn.
Flowers are sooooo pretty. I especially love the clematis and irises. Happy watering!
Ginger
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Why are hoses so challenging? Plastic, rubber, pretty, unique – it doesn’t matter, when it comes to pulling them out and putting them away, it’s all the same. I’m hoping this thing will last a few years because it sure is easy to use. I learned to drive on a stick shift and definitely ground my share of gears. I always loved stopping on a hill – not! Yes, they are computers on wheels. 🙂
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I’ve never heard of Hoselink and am fascinated. I also didn’t know that cars came without gear sticks. The first topic I’m intrigued with, the second topic worries me. I need a new car, but not sure I’m a button pushing sort of woman.
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The Hoselink is worth at least looking at on line. The gear push buttons hurt my head. I know it would be like getting use to a car that you don’t use a key with anymore, but the idea of pushing a button to put it into ‘drive’ seems downright weird. When you push ‘reverse’ the bottom of the seat vibrates. 🙂 Since I’m a person who would gladly go back to roll up windows, a vibrating seat for reverse had me laughing out loud.
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Oh I wouldn’t like that seat at all. *meh*
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You have some real beauties flowering Judy. Thanks for the warning about the new cars. I haven’t looked at the new features in years but the time is coming up for us too.
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I guess in this era of self driving cards, it shouldn’t have shocked me so much, but it did. I guess I need to get with it more. 🙂
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Beautiful flowers, but oh my word do I have hose envy!
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You can tell we are both ‘mature’ gardeners when our pulse quickens over a garden hose. 🙂
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Tee-hee! So true.
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I love driving with gears and pedals! They’re sucking the fun out of driving with self-driving cars, and now buttons instead of a gear shift. Sigh.
Your flowers look so beautiful! What is the big deep reddish-purple one in the last image? It’s gorgeous!!
That hose container/holder is brilliant! We have a manual hose holder that we have to wind up ourselves. It’s a pain. Where did you find yours at a garden fair or someplace like that?
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Those buttons still have me shaking my head. The last flower is a clematis, and it sure is happy this year. My husband found the house on line. It can be found at houselink.com. So far, I love it, and their customer service has been good as well. We made an error entering the order on line, and they were extremely responsive and resolved the issue entirely for us.
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Thank you for the tour of your garden — it is splendid! Of course that white iris blew what’s left of my mind. That is SO beautiful! The hose thing sounds like some kind of hocus-pocus: a hose that doesn’t fight back? I never heard of such a thing. As for car-shopping, you have my complete sympathy, and you say we now are to push buttons to change gears? Yes, sign me up for that dinosaur club. Meanwhile, I hope you are happily busy in your regularly-scheduled gardening!
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I wish I could tell you where I got that white iris, but I can’t remember. 🙂 The hose is a wonderful thing. Car shopping is #1 on my list of things I do not like to do. Those buttons guarantee that it will stay in that spot. I’m glad I’m not alone in the dinosaur club anymore. 🙂
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Ooh, beautiful flowers! And now I have hose envy… 😀
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June is a beautiful month in a perennial garden isn’t it? There is no doubt that this hose is the most luxurious gardening tool I’ve ever owned. 🙂
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The Hoselink sounds wonderful, Judy, and the beauty of your flowers is much appreciated, especially that last which I think is a clematis. I got a loaner car once when the van was in the shop and it started without a key. I had to ask someone how to start it. 🙂 I’ve never seen one with all buttons like this. I think it would take some getting used to. Nice to hear that you’ve had some rain. We heard a couple ear-splitting cracks of thunder last night but didn’t even get the sprinkles that were predicted for 17 minutes. 🙂 If there was any moisture, it probably never made it close to the ground. Much too hot for that.
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Yes, your eye is good – clematis. 🙂 We had a rental car years back, and it was started when we picked it up, but at our first stop we really had to work on how to get it started again. We had a key and fob, but no place to put the key. 🙂 We’ve had two big rains this week, and we are certainly happy about that.
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Your flowers are so lovely! That cosmos is an eerie color – with the purple ring in the center. Hose envy seems to be the theme today. Here in MN we haven’t had rain and temps have been in the 90’s for almost 3 weeks, so I can really appreciate a hose that behaves!
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That Cosmos is a shade of pink, and I have no idea when or where I acquired it. I’ve had yellow in the past, and I lost a beautiful red. Perennials always provide a little surprise for you. Wow – that’s hot for a long period. We barely made it through a couple of runs of three days in the 90’s. Rain this week was very much appreciated so I didn’t even have to use that spiffy new hose. 🙂
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I would love that retractable hose! Hmmmm…. I may look into that!
As for push buttons for a gear shift in a car… I don’t think I could handle that.
Your garden flowers are beautiful! Happy week to you and happy gardening!
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The hose is a thing of beauty. 🙂 I bet your lake garden is looking beautiful too. 🙂
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It is Judy…
…and whenever I have a gardening situation, I always say…
“What would Judy do?” 😀
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Too nice, and that’s what we all think about you when we’re arranging something inside. 🙂
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🤗
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Your flowers are looking beautiful, Judy – especially that gorgeous burgundy clematis. Did you know that Hoselink is an Australian invention and, unlike many other Aussie products, the company is still Australian owned? They even manufacture here too, but also in other countries.
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Yes, when we were doing research I saw that. It made me smile to think I have two blogging friends from there. Small world sometimes.
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Your June blossoms are lovely. I tried to grow clematis at our home in Danville but never had any luck. We have two of the expandable/shrinking hoses and I actually like them. They have never kinked and are so light.
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I have several clematis, and some are definitely happier than others. 🙂 Glad you found a good working hose because it causes a lot of grief when it is a hassle.
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The hose reel looks very handy. You’ve got a lot of gorgeous blooms, especially the Clematis and Iris.
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Thanks. 🙂
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That is one bad-ass garden hose reel. You’re going to be the envy of your local garden community now. I remember my dad had a Plymouth Valiant in the sixties with push button transmission, but I had no idea they were bringing that back. I agree, that’s a tough one to get used to! – Marty
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Now, I need a tshirt to wear to gardening events. 🙂 That’s interesting that like many other things, push buttons for shifting are making a comeback. What happens if the ‘reverse’ seat vibration stops working? I really liked the car so I guess we’ll see.
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So lovely Judy! The vibrant colors we wait for all year long!
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Perennials are like friends who come back to visit each year, and we put out the welcome sign for them. 🙂
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They really are! I can’t wait to take attendance in the spring!
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Some of the old Chrysler, Plymouth and Dodge cars had push button transmission ‘selectors’. Mine didn’t. I think it would have been weird. That was in the late 19
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60s or so.
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That’s pretty interesting that they’re coming back around.
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Yes and no. It is sensible for modern devices, so it is no surprise. It is more of a surprise that it appeals to those who remember old cars. There are not many of us left. I do not know if it is coincidental or not. I notice features of new Buicks that are obviously derived from styles that were distinct to old Buicks. The gills are a traditional feature, and for some modern Buicks, the gills are located up on the hood, within a crease that was very obviously derived from the 1972 Electra, and perhaps other models of that time. I really dislike modern SUVs, but I do like that stylish feature.
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We have a retractable hose reel on one side of our house and I’ve been wanting one for the other side. Lo and behold, I saw one for sale at Costco yesterday. I resisted the temptation to buy it, but now I think I may go back and get it. They are game-changers.
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Good to know you are a fellow fan. 🙂 Game-changer is a good word for it.
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Your garden is so beautiful. I am riddled with envy. We are being attacked — and I do mean ATTACKED — by invasive (not American) Bittersweet. That stuff grows a mile a minute and strangles EVERYTHING. I think it is killing our garden.
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Well, that’s definitely not something one wants to cope with. Here, we have Virginia Creeper, Rose multiflora, and Japanese Knotweed. I hacked down an entire area of the rose last week. What an ugly job that was, plus I’m way too ‘mature’ to be doing that stuff. 🙂 A neighbor has a healthy infestation of Knotweed and doesn’t mind it, but now it’s trying to come visit me so I have to keep chopping it off as it comes calling. My fuchsia hanging planter is doing well though. 🙂
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Your flowers are wonderful 😍😍😍Greetings from Italy 🤗🤗🥳
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Thank you. Hello to you, and I hope things are well in your beautiful country.
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In my country Delta Covid arrived now and there are some people dead but I hope they will find a more effective vaccine.
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It’s here too. I’m still wearing a mask inside stores even though in most cases it is not required. Stay well, stay safe.
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