Yes, We Have No Bananas

It's been a while since I've posted since I've been busy at work and at home, and little stitching has been accomplished. At home, mostly I've been gardening. We put in tomatoes and squash and brussels sprouts and melons and peppers in the 20x10 garden plot at the rear of our yard. We've been tending the borders that the previous homeowners left--they're fairly nice, if a bit hosta-heavy. And because I wanted to see what exactly was already planted, I'm not doing much with the borders until I see it all come up, so I've been expressing myself with containers and trying my hand at different plants. Like bananas. We're hardiness zone 7, so bananas have to be brought inside in the winter, but because we have an approximately 20 foot ceiling in our family room, it shouldn't be a problem. Bananas are shipped as a goofy looking bare rhizome with a reedy-looking thing on it. Supposedly during the warm humid season it will grow one-two feet a week. Hard to believe, but here it is (any bananas are inedible but if the season lasts long enough, there will be little bunches of them). It gets enormous leaves that are quite interesting and dramatic, and I'll have to transplant it to a larger container later probably. I also got some bare root orchids and planted them from the same tropical plant company.

Since we're talking about inedible fruits, here is a pineapple plant, also with a purely decorative fruit. Looks good enough to eat, though, doesn't it?

And some yummy iris. The previous owners planted these, and several other varieties of iris, all along the north edge of the house. They're all so heavy that they're flopping over onto the grass, and I've been cutting them and bringing them inside to enjoy.

And finally, some stitching. This is for the group 1 Neighborhood round robin that I'm in. I'm not telling right now what it will look like or where it's drawn from, but see if you can figure out what type of house it will be. Right now it's a mystery, like all those interesting shoots and buds in my garden...