DEBBIE-DABBLE BLOG: May 2022

Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!

I am so happy you decided to stop by!!

Just a reminder, I will be posting on Wednesdays and Sundays every week so be sure to check back on those days to see a new post......

In this post, I will be sharing my Memorial Day Front Porch and Yard along with the annuals that I finally planted in my pots!!!

It's Memorial Day weekend.....

Memorial Day is an Observance, NOT a Celebration....

It is NOT a Holiday to honor ALL Veteran's ........

It is Veteran's Day or Armistice Day, which honors all Veterans still living ....

Memorial Day was also never intended as a Holiday to honor all those in our families who have passed away......

Memorial Day was set aside to ONLY remember and honor the Fallen Soldiers of War.....

It is a Remembrance and a solemn Holiday and was never intended to be a Celebration......

The time to Celebrate is on the 4th of July, the Birthday of our Country.....

Most Americans have forgotten the difference between the 2 Holidays.....

So when you do "celebrate" Memorial Day, celebrate it as the unofficial start of Summer, but please remember what this day was truly set aside for.......

How did Memorial Day come to be????

Early Observances of Memorial Day

"The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.

By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers."

Decoration Day

"On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.

The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.

On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there.

Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent "years; by 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor the dead on separate days until after World War I."

History of Memorial Day

"Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date General Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees. The change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday."

Memorial Day is more a Day of Remembrance of those who made the Ultimate Sacrifice for our Country and not really a day of "Celebration" like July 4th is.....

It is more of a somber, reflective Holiday....

But we can look at it as "celebrating" the lives of those who lost their lives while fighting for our Freedom....

Thanks Andrea, over at The Cottage Market, for choosing my post, Gnome/Fairy and Fur Baby Memory Gardens, as one of her features from last week's A Morning Cup of Joe Linky Party....

Thanks so much, Andrea!!

Please stop by and link up to this lovely party!!!

One of my neighbors commissioned me to make a Patriotic wreath for her but she wanted to be able to keep it up all Summer long.....

This is what I came up with.....

Red, white and blue flowers with yellow ones....

And a bow made from a simple red ribbon with white trim....

Patriotic looking but also Summery...

She loved it!!!

I was glad....

In my last post, I shared how I decorated my Seasonal Tree in the Living Room for the Summer Patriotic Holidays.....

Click HERE if you missed that post.....

I finally got out to buy the annuals to plant in my pots.....

Now hold on to your hats....

This is the first time since 2018 that Joe did not buy my annuals for me!!

In 2019, I had just had my Knee Replacement Surgery...

In 2020 and in 2021, I was really not leaving the house because of Co Vid.....

I actually left my house twice this week!!!

Once to get my monthly haircut and then went to 2 stores on that same day.....

I have not been in a store for many months.....

And then on Thursday, I went to 2 different places including Lowe's to buy my flowers.....

This is all that I bought.....

These are for the back yard.....

And these were for the front porch and yard.....

The same day that I planted all these flowers, I also decorated the front of the house for Memorial Day.....

I was outside working from 10 am til 3 pm.......

I wanted to get it done before the rain came.....

Last year, I ordered from Amazon, Flags for every branch of the Armed Services....

United States Army and United States Coast Guard.....

2 for the United States Air Force......

United States Navy and United States Marines

One for POW's and another one for the United States Army

3 sets of flags comes in the package....

I tucked them into the sides of the large Seasonal Tree in the Living Room.....

And for Memorial Day, I tucked them into my pots out in the front of the house to honor those who gave their lives for this Country while serving in these branches of the Military.....

We will start with the pot in front of the pillar between my townhouse and the one next door....

Several years ago, I experimented and did this.....

It worked out pretty well......

I decided to give it a try again but I had to buy 2 new small square pots so I sent Joe to Dollar Tree.....

These are perfect and he bought 4...just to be sure!!

I anchored the smaller pots on top of the larger one using a pot holder stake, poked right through one of the drainage holes in the small square pot....

This year, I am continuing to stay with the color theme of red, yellow and orange flowers for the front as it makes a really easy transition to Fall in the beginning of September.....

I planted one red begonia in the smaller pot and 4 yellow marigolds in each corner of the larger one....

After I see how much these marigolds will fill out, I may throw some marigold seeds in around the sides....

I planted marigolds also in the pot next to it on the porch.....

You can see the new doors were finally installed on the house next door....

Trish, who owns the house, loved the green storm door because she is Irish!!

This house has turned into a Money Pit for her....

Did you ever see that Movie?

She had a refrigerator from another property that she owned and sold and thought they measured right when the new cabinets in the Kitchen were installed but they were 2 inches off!!

So the new $1300 fridge was delivered on Friday....

She was able to sell the other fridge and a bunch of guys came last evening to pick it up.....

We were out there until 10:30 pm trying to put the doors back on after they got the fridge out and down our steps....

I think we kept every one in the neighborhood up because we were laughing so much...

We will miss seeing Trish and her friend Desiree once her renters move in next weekend.....

That is if the house will be done....

Upstairs Bathroom still need the toilet and sink to be put in...

She says this house has caused her to hemorrhage money.....

I am just glad that there is finally a decent looking door on the house next to me.....

Compared to one that was broken and every time the wind would blow, would bang against the railing between our houses....

I added a red and blue bow to the lantern on top of the red milk can that was my neighbor Elly's.....

And I also hung a Patriotic star between our houses and a Dollar Store sign from my faux mailbox.....

Since the front of our townhouse with the pillars mimics a Federalist style, over 40 years ago, I hung a metal eagle over the front door and Living Room window and used other accessories incorporating the Federalist Eagle....

Like the match holder on the side of the door and the Eagle on the red milk can.....

It lends itself nicely to the Patriotic decor....

Hanging on the front door is a Patriotic wreath that I made a few years ago and update every other year or so.....

The newest addition last year was the yellow flowers...

I am blessed to be able to hang things off the "Weeping Mortar" on the front of the house....

I changed out the normal Summer wall decor for a few Patriotic wall hangings...

The Welcome sign and the Family, Friends and Freedom one were bought on Clearance last year for 90% off in Big Lot's by Joe......

Hanging over by the tree in the corner of the porch is a Patriotic floral arrangement I did in a basket....

I did not have to change out the red pillows and red cushions on the chairs as they go well with the Patriotic decor.....

When the rain stopped, I took pictures with my flag up....

"Proud To Be An American"

In the corner of the porch.....

I changed out the black and white checked bow on the tree for a red and blue one and hung a Dollar Tree sign from it....

I added a metal Patriotic wreath to the post......

And changed out the mail box cover for a Patriotic one....

I planted a marigold in this pot....

We will see how it fills in if I need to add some seeds to this pot....

And I planted a red begonia in this one.....

In front of the railing.....

I planted 3 marigolds in each of the round pots......

I planted 2 red geraniums in this black urn, which if you remember, was the base for an artificial tree I had in the corner of the back Patio that had seen better days.....

I salvaged the urn after removing the tree from it....

And the other topiary I made in front of the other pillar....

The flower bed under the Living Room window....

I tucked flags in each of the pots....

I planted these 2 pots with 3 impatiens each in the colors of red, coral and white.....

I planted 4 coleus pants in each of these rectangular planter boxes on the wall....

I know it looks sparse......

But this is what 4 plants ended up looking like at the end of last Summer.....

Over in the flower bed that runs on top of the slope in front of our house......

I planted one red impatien in this pot.....

I moved the red vintage watering can that I had in the back yard for years to the front....

I planted 2 marigolds inside of it....

Since I use red in the front, why I did not move it out to the front before this is beyond me!!!

I may have to give it a fresh coat of paint though....

My park bench.....

A red and blue bow for this lantern...

3 marigolds planted in this pot....

And a red geranium planted in this one....

This is a new flag that I bought at Ollies......

I love the brilliant colors.....

I took these pictures of the top of our slope from our bedroom window in the beginning of the wee before I planted all my pots.....

Since we cut the azaleas way back last year, they did not bloom as much as previous years but that is okay as they really were getting too big.....

Same thing with the rhododendron as we also gave it quite a trimming last year.....

This azalea still bloomed nicely....

As for the slope in front of our house, the phlox are just about done blooming.....

One of my neighbors told me it looks like an English Garden...

But the columbine that reseeded themselves from my neighbor's yard on the end of our row of townhouses, are blooming.....

As is the sedum starting to bloom.....

The hostas in the yard next door are doing well.....

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I decorated the front of our house for Memorial Day and also how I planted my pots this year.....

I will continue to share updates on how everything is growing.....

I hope that you are enjoying this Memorial Day weekend but also pause to remember the real reason for this Holiday......

I will be back on Wednesday with the final Part of my Tour of my Tea Room in the Dining Room for the Summer.....

So I hope you will stop by to visit again on Wednesday!!

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment. If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......