Flowering Foxglove

I mentioned our volunteer foxglove plants a few posts back, when they were busy making new foliage.  Well, all of the colors are now at the peak of their bloom.  They’re truly spectacular.  This magenta one is the tallest, with that wonderfully dark yet bright color.  Whenever I think of these plants, it’s this one that comes first to mind.

My personal favortite among our relatively small selection is the light pink one, with it’s pretty freckling of light brown on delicate pink.  The first few blooms on this one appear almost white, but as they age a little and more flowers appear along the stalk, the pink coloring becomes more prevalent.

I don’t recall seeing this variation last year, but it does look very similar to the first magenta one, except that it has this awesome white ring around its lip.  The fact that the flowers point upwards a bit instead of hanging down is also very cool, expecially when observed from an elevated window.

In other news, the mountain laurel is starting to bloom.

The azaleas that we planted last year were very pretty, though I have very few pictures of them.  They’re so dwarfed by the old bushes, which bloomed much earlier than these colorful little guys.

My tomato plants are really outgrowing their containers.  I hope to get them in the ground today, if only the unexpected rain would just stop.

Magical Morning: Gold and Green

The wonderful feeling of waking up and opening the blinds to a sunny, languid summer morning.  There’s still a touch of dew, giving everything a magical touch and shimmer.  The sun sparkles off the scattered droplets, lighting the wisps of mist that rise from the dew.  Light is a pysical presence, filling the air.  This time of year, with the leaves new and perfect just filling in, the sunlight shines through them, illuminating the green like a magical forest of legend.  Between reflecting off and filtering through the emerald leaves, the light turns golden as it lands in patches on leaves and green grass.  Walking outside, drinking in the morning air and the sight of a world in emerald and gold, transforms the backyard into the perfect woodland of Dreamdark: filled with magic, perfect and intimate yet still boundless, stretching the world over.

Lyrics of Life: 5-6-2012

If I had one wish, and I could not use it for the general good of the world (stop pollution, create honest politicians, etc) I would use it either to exterminate mosquitoes or keep all slugs out of the garden.  Though, preferably, I would have a wish for each.  I did, however, see some more welcome invertebrates today.

We went to a nearby county park to see the azalea gardent here, which was a bit past its prime.  Still gorgeous, though.  I can’t wait to see it in full bloom next year.  On our way to the lake, I found some wildflowers (or weeds, depending on your definition) that were extremely popular with the butterflies.  Taking pictures of stationary azalea bushes had seemed like too much trouble, but timid and constantly moving butterflies?  No problem.  So I spent the next 10 minutes alternately standing still and chasing butterflies, and managed to get these shots among all the blurry ones.

 

Yesterday, a walk past another abandoned lot produced a lot of lovely flowers that had been growing wild, that I then gladly added to the bouquets I’d put together with our own azaleas and irises.

That iris is as purple as purple can be, but my camera seems to have a predisposition for blue.  The iris really looks like this, courtesy of Google images.

I got home, and viewed my own garden (which thus far had only peas planted) and saw, to my horror, that the slugs had been at it in the one hour since we had left.  And in broad, sunny daylight, no less.  I had neglected to purchase copper to put around it, and had yet to sprinkle sand as the lovely plants had grown four inches with no problems.  In my infinite naitevity, I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, the slugs would leave me and mine be this year.

Alas, twas not to be, and I immediatly sot out the bucket and shovel and headed to the sideyard where the people who redid my neighbor’s driveway had evidently decided a few years ago that they had no use for a bucket of sand, and just dumped it on those weeds.  Which is fine by me.

A sprinkle of sand went around every planting of two or three.  Another look at the damage done, and a thicker sprinkle.  General sprinkling along the rows.  Then, out of spite, a thin scattering of a few pinches over the whole unplanted area.  Just to make coming into my garden a misery for them.  So, hopefully, by the time that sand loses its effect and begins washing away, I will have finally gotten copper.  At least the plants never blame you audibly for causing them suffering through your own laziness.

Explosion of Green

These past days have seen an explosion of green

Vibrant green buds and tender leaves

As flowers of color fade and drop

In favor of summer’s classy trees.

Watch the sudden, exponential growth

Bare bones of winter and delicate spring

See the new lushness of the world

As gaps upon sky and ground fill in.

See the changes in the light,

The ways of drowsy summer morns

Direct rays no longer pierce the sky

At horizon’s clearing by the sun.

Filtered through the thickening leaves

Diffused to dimmer, summer green

Summer of growth, and languid dreams

When summer storms rise and split sky’s seams.

All in the sudden greening of trees.

~Happy belated Earth Day, everyone.  Just think for a moment how immense the world is when you color everyone’s little garden and patch of home in with all the details you know of your own.  How many homes there are upon this planet, and how much each of them means.  It makes one dizzy.  A world, that immense and beautiful, is our gift to protect, consider, and look after.  Let us always keep that in mind.  And let us take green to mean life and growth and something much deeper than a chic new movement.  And let us always remember the miracle that this world is.

The Lyrics of Life: April 20, 2012

The days seem to rest on the cusp of late spring, with whiffs of summer in broad green leaves and enveloping warmth.  Our azaleas are blooming now.  The white variety is so fragrant and lovely that I had to make a bouquet with just a ball of the abundant flowers.

The magenta ones are beautiful as well.  I love the double ruff on these flowers.  Some of the annoying weeds are blooming, so I grabbed a few to complement the dark, heavy magenta.

A few weeks ago, I was walking in a section of unmowed lawn at the nearby elementary school. I noticed a popping, snapping sound every time I moved, but couldn’t figure out what it was since the light was going at the time.  As I was picking the flowers today, I checked to see if a certain weed was difficult to pull up or not (it was a new addition of our weed selection, so I wasn’t sure if it would come out easy of be a pain to dig out).  As I brushed the plant, I heard the popping sound, and noticed some odd curls by the plants.  It turns out, the seedpods were in the process of forming, and that a light touch will cause half of the seedpod to curl tightly (hence the little faded green curls) and fall off, sounding a snap as the little seeds all scatter.  Thankfully, it was okay that deducing this required setting off a great many seedpods, as a light tug gets these guys out.  And their flowers are pretty and welcome in really, really early spring.

This morning, as our bus passed the lake by the library, the sun had little strength and came glinting dimly upon the waking world through the branches and leaves.  Mist was rising off the lake in plumes, diffusing the early light.  The lake was utterly still, with a eternal quality to it.  A single man rowed an old-fashioned row-boat from one bank, gently stirring the water.  The scene could have been from any time in the history of the continent’s people.

Volunteer Plants

As I’ve mentioned before, I generally leave one corner of the lawn somewhat wild over the summer.  (Grass refuses to grow there anyway).  At first, it was because it was infested with poison ivy.  When we eventually eliminated the poison ivy and somewhat civililzed the area, the grass was still quite sparse, so I let some of the low creeping plants (like the wild strawberries that the birds seem to like) grow in.

For a while, I’d wanted to pull up the thornbushes that seemed so similar to the multiflora rosa that we have so much of, seeing as it was just as pointy with less appealing flowers.  It took me quite a while to realize that their redeeming quality came not in their flowers, but in their fruit.  They were actually golden raspberry and blackberry vines, no doubt planted by the birds which are very fond of the area.  The vines make the area look so lush right now.

We get a good number of raspberries each year, especially considering that we got them for free and give them virtually no care.  The blackberries tend to get mutilated before they fully ripen, but the ones that do are very sweet.

Two years ago, a plant larger than most weeds appeared in the garden beds along the house in the backyard.  Nothing was growing just there, and the plant looked so beautifully symmetrical, pretty as an ornamental.  No seeds to fly all over the lawn, so I didn’t consider it a problem.  I was very surprised last summer when a tall flower stalk appeared.  I’d never figured it one for spectacular flowers, but the stalk grew to a good 3-4 feet with the flowers opening, starting at the base, in a bright magenta.  The inside of each flower was a sight in itself.

Soon, the smaller plants which had also sprouted bloomed in shorter stalks of magenta and white.  They’ve come up again this year, so I’m very excited for when they bloom in summer.  Seeing such a perfectly healthy plant makes me so happy. 

A Midsummer Day’s Bloom

This midsummer weather certainly seems like a dream.  Mid-April, and it feels like July.  It’s not just the heat.  There’s something in the air, in the humidity, in the hazy sun, that is so utterly summer.  The drowsiness, a feeling I called “summer tired”, has arrived, too.  There’s a languid feeling to the weather, like someone took the essence of heat and sleepy humid air and infused you with it.

The rhododendrons bloomed on schedule despite the weather.  The purple one (not sure what either of these are called) bloomed spectacularly, but faded out before I could get a picture of it.  The pink one is on its way out, but stunning in its prime, as well.  I’m always amazed at how these bushes simply cover themselves in flowers.

The hostas are coming up all over the propery.  I love their lush, varigated leaves.

The healthy, blue-green mounds formed by the young sedum are also quite apealing.

The wild foxgloves always look so lush.  (more on them tomorrow).

I will leave you with some of the very typical but still exhilirating green leaves that are emerging.  Fresh life indeed does abound.

Book Review: One Moment, One Morning

One Moment, One Morning

By: Sarah Rayner

(Alright, cover image won’t copy.  That’s cool too…)

It’s your typical commute.  The 7:44 morning subway, it could be any other day.  We are pulled into the scene so vividly brought to life by Rayner, and are just settling in to a familiar state of mind, when a man is violently ill and collapses. 

The quiet everydayness is shattered, splintering away as passengers leap up, jump back, call out for help.  There is Lou: close witness to the scene, who tries to rally others.  There is Anna, sitting in another car, who is irately jostled as the man running for a guard shoves past her.  There is Karen, who is thrown into shock by her husband falling forward out of nowhere and going still.

This absorbing story is a documentation of how these people’s lives will come together in the next several days, each individual’s story weaving with the others like melodies in a song: each person’s story sings on its own, but twined with the others, it creates something much more profound.

There are times when the interplay and coincidences in the book seem a little stretched:  what are the chances that they both meet the same homeless man?  This property of sometimes carrying whiffs of the classic novel plotline is the only property that really mars this book.

You will find yourself drawn into life as it happens, life as it changes, life as it surprises us, and life as it leaves.  Somehow, by centering on three women and one pivotal event, Rayner weaves a story that depicts all of these aspects in full.

**** 4 stars

Day by Day by Day

Day by day by day.  It’s how homework gets pushed off.  It’s how blogs die.  its how gardens grow.  It’s how the seemingly endless spring break passes.

There seems to be a rule of the universe that says I cannot both garden productively and blog regurlarly within the same span of time.  This would explain the sudden halt last spring (around this time, actually) as well as the recent faltering in posts.  There are many things I should post about, seeing as so much has happened in the garden since my last post.  But spring is gardening season (what season isn’t), and I have been actually gardening.

My tomato seeds not only got planted (oh, only a month late…), but the first tray also sprouted and are working on their first true leaves.  (Finally added the pictures…the whole slow process of actually getting them onto the computer and then uploading and inserting them is the reason half my drafts don’t get published).

Two onion plants also came up.  I mostly planted the few seeds that I did to see if they do indeed sprout…(I know, I know, they must or they wouldn’t sell, but after not ONE plant emerged out of the fifty or so I planted last year, one has to wonder.)  Anyways.

The other container that I planted carrot seeds in seems to contain sterile soil, as it produced nothing last year, as well.  So I will be emptying it out in exchange for new soil to start a few squash in, as well as to try some lavender and snapdragons, which I may or may not plant in the unlikely event that they actually survive.

The garden fence mentioned some time back has been taken down, its perimeter weeded, and put back up again.  It now sags much less.

I also figured out (at last!) how I want to work the compost heap situation.  I’ve been trying for years to decide where on earth I want the darn thing, and if I want it in a container or not.  The final verdict, after discovering that under the pine tree creates a several inch thick covering of pine needles each fall, and that the southern yard is too sunny, and that composting containers are oddly costly and all my other attempts at containers fail, is to create a section in the northern yard.  I laid out a wooden frame using some pieces we’ve had hiding under the deck for years.  This way, I don’t lose half the compost due to messy turning.

The other major things I’ve managed to do are amend about half the garden soil and plant my peas (also late, so none have yet sprouted).  Though the first batch should really have come up by now…anyways.

I’ll end with this pretty bouquet of violets and a few other flowers stolen from an abandoned lot that I passed on a walk this morning.

Just looking at it as it graces our kitchen table makes me so happy. 

Rush of Bloom

Time has flown so quickly.  (And so much of it without posts…)  The blooming of the daffodils, last year a subject I dragged out over weeks, seems to have occurred overnight.  They are so lovely this year, soming as almost a surprise.  Perhaps the warm weather has helped them to grow quickly, of perhaps I have just been too busy to really take notice.

The magnolias seem also the have bloomed overnight.  They’re really the neighbor’s, but we are treated to a lovely view of them.

I went on a walk to the library, and came across so many lovely blooms on the way.  This here is some manner of pink blossoms about to open.

There is also the magnolia tree at the library, a different species from our neighbor’s.  Of course, the sun dissapeared right when I wanted to take the picture.

However, those clouds which were forming and blocking the sun were a spectacle in and of themselves.  Just look at this cloud, with the sun backlighting it and showing all the different shades within it, and the light streaming out.

The other clouds were pretty too, against the trees.

As you can see there, the trees are blooming, with all their clusters of red and rust, with some of fresh green.  I’ve always noticed how it looks like someone took the veil of fall and thinned, until it was almost transparant and winter’s branches could be seen through it, and laid it over the trees.  Its particularly noticable by the highway, though I got this photo a bit after the phenomenon.  The light greens are a little too prevalent (as is the actual highway).

Upon returning home, I noticed again the interesting look provided by last year’s purple and aged leaves, a few of which survived the milder winter, amid the fresh green growth.

This is a bit outdated, but I still felt it should be documented.  That’s all for today.  Happy spring, everybody.