Princely Soutache and morning surprise!

A while back I tried to post a picture of Marilyn's soutache brooch using one of my buttons... It was a project in the works then and the picture wouldn't load at that time... BUT she has finished it now and isn't it absolutely gorgeous.  Soutache really seems to lend itself well to buttons.. AND isn't he a handsome devil indeed!
I'm so grateful to Marilyn for sending me this photo... It's fun seeing what happens to the buttons once they leave here.













Everyone knows the clematis vines with the huge (gaudy) flowers. They are much too flamboyant for me... Fewer gardeners are familiar with the clematis I do love.  The species   with small flowers and there are a wide variety of  them....blooming from early spring until fall.  I have them throughout the garden.

But it is the rare gardener  familiar with bush clematis....clematis integrifolia.  They do NOT vine.  The form a bushy clump about 24" tall covered with flowers.  I had two (one blue and one white) at the back of the garden.  I lost the white one but I moved the blue one up by the house last year and it survived and is blooming now.. I had forgotten where I had planted it but found it this morning.... Hooray.


I had planned  to spend the entire day working on the door but the morning is already gone with cleaning chicken coop and arranging water system to DH's corn patch.  I'll have a bite to eat and spend the afternoon working on the door...