Summer reveries

Summer is winding down... although it is still pretty much considered summer by human standards, I know it is winding down already.  I can feel it in my bones and in the song the heart sings, by this time every August.

There is something of the marvelous, something of the 'unknown' lingering in the hot air, and I walk barefooted on soft, wet grasses and know it in my heart, that time is done.

Pretty soon I will have to start bringing things in... 

In fact, I have already started pulling out some of the houseplants I had transferred into the garden at the beginning of the spring, to get them acclimatized to the indoors again..

Soon, I'd have to pull out all the Elephant Ear bulbs and beautiful giant Cannas and put them to sleep for months to come...

I'd have to work extra hard to keep my Mandeville plant alive during the cold months

...and we won't have our Sundays breakfast or weekend dinners out here any longer...

I know I know, I'm getting ahead of time and ahead of me, but that's pretty much how things are around here every year round this time...

...time flights, hours, days, months melt away with the last heat of August

and again, I'd have to play inside and just be happy inside...

Which I'll be... I will be very happy here.  As long as I can be surrounded by a few (or a lot) green plants, I will be happy.  For now, I will continue enjoying the roses in the garden... because I have a lot of roses in the garden right now...

White roses, cream colored roses, pink roses, red roses...

I love to look at our downstairs bedroom from this view behind the Collette roses in the rotunda...

The Collette roses are done by now, but this is an amazing view in early spring when they are in full bloom...

Oh, today, I worked on a new project in the house... I converted an old mural into two side by side  canvas... and I'm so happy how they turned out!

OK, now that I am showing you the pics, I think I want them closer to each other...

what do you all think?

Have a blessed week friends!

Summer

Hot days beautiful days no rain day desert days please don’t leave us beautiful days spending time outside inside plant days plant moments plant-heart girl.

and there's a face stamped on the rock...

Everything in nature has a face

there is something of marvelous in all things...

Nothing new under the sun all things made anew in tears in joy in eternal love 

Everyday is a jewel ripening up under the sun happy days dream days ocean days family days...

I'm sitting in my little jungle plant room listening to cello music hours pass hours dance and hours dream...

And why do we think waiting is the antithesis of life when it is almost all of it?

Hope you are all doing good, where ever you are.

Spring

Spring is finally creating a new world in the garden—scents, colors, textures; all are appearing; gratifying my life again with enchantment and dreams.

It’s been a long cold spring, if we can call it ‘spring’, for temperatures have been in the 40’s  every morning and every evening, feeling more like a mild winter around here than an actual spring.  And yet, the garden knows its seasons, and although slow in waking up, it has started to awaken.

The only roses I have thus far is the early and sickly-sweet Dr. Huey—always the first ones to appear, always the first ones succumb under the power of mildew.  

Dr. Jekyll would have been a better name for this rose that at one point was something else.  But how beautiful they are!  With their arching long branches with a heavy load of dark red blooms. 

These would not bloom again.  This is it for another year!  But I love the versatility of their green canes, with which I can cover walls and bare spaces.

Then, by the big fountain in the middle of the garden, another little area had started to surface.  For I have removed that other ‘good for nothing’ Dr. Huey rose that’s been there for years, giving me nothing but headaches.

Thus far I haven’t planted anything in its place, because I like the look of the wispy ferns that are growing everywhere and filing emptied spaces with their gracious fairy fronds. 

I didn’t know this ferns can grow to such heights, but they do, and what a surprise they’ve been to me this year, with their tall beauty embellishing my garden.  It took them a few years to reach this height, but I now want them everywhere, and have been transplanting them everywhere too; particularly around mom’s garden and the pebble path on the entrance of the garden.

One of the best thing about this fern is the easy way they have for multiplying.  They grow themselves in places you least expected it and are easy to transplant.

Spring 2021

Days fly away, hours accumulate in the thin air of the horizon as seasons come and seasons go.  And what about us where do we go to gather dreams and hopes and pray for the peace of this world?  It seems years since I stepped here last, but wintery weather has started to move away, petals are painting the grounds in pinks and whites everywhere and the lilac tree has giving us its jewels with which to perfume our nests.

Thus, I am out again.  Out in the garden working for hours as much as I can.  I have painted old pots and altered the topography of the garden by removing old plants and bringing new ones in.

This year, I decided to remove one of the Quaking Aspen I had planted along the northern fence, in the hope to cover the two-story house on the other side as quickly as possible.  The Quaking Aspen grow very quickly, I love their cream to white-colored trunks, and whimsical ‘eyes’, as I call them, which are actually the dark markings where side branches used to be. 

They provide a wonderful finishing touch to a suburban yard, and quiver delightfully in the breeze. Their leaves are charming — deep green in the summer months and brilliant gold in fall. Unfortunately, despite their lovely fall foliage color and other attributes, quaking aspens can be significantly problematic.  They are invasive. Clusters of clones will quickly grow and take over your garden.  You will have to cut new shots everywhere all the time, and they are not too reliable either, as for some unexplainable reasons, part of it, if not the entire tree can die in just a few years. 

Our neighbor on the other side, had to cut theirs down, and part of one of mine needed to be cut off too.  So I didn’t want to take the change with this one and therefore removed it roots and all, the other day.

I painted pots and painted birdbaths and whimsical things around the garden... and we gave our back porch a new coat too...

Right outside our kitchen area, three old roses that were doing very poorly were finally taken out too.  I had waited too long and had been too sentimental towards them, until now.  To replace them I have planted three new red double-Knockouts with lots of red cluster that last forever.  I will have to wait until next spring to see the growth, but I can wait.

In every season, in every time, there is some magic unfolding in the garden, but nothing like on these spring days… to walk in it and dream, to work and received to sow and to collect and sense and taste and hear… what more could I ask? A few flowers at my feet and above my dreams, the stars.