Gardening Angels

At the PO on Monday, I was delighted to meet and thank the ladies responsible for these beautiful little gardens. 

The ladies were hard at it, grubbing up weeds.

We chatted briefly and I thanked them for providing such a welcome sight in downtown Marshall. I should have asked more questions--were they part of an organization? how long had they been tending this garden? did they have others?

But I didn't. I was too busy enjoying the wealth of blooms that adorned these two small sidewalk gardens.

                             Echinacea in different vibrant shades. . .

Bee balm . . .

Black-eye Susans, a sprawling lavender plant, and some tall reddish-purple plant (Amaranth?) that they said were volunteers--seeded from a planting across the street.

Zinnias and marigolds too--so much color!

Many thanks to those gardening angels--you are deeply appreciated!

 

Gardening Can Be Murder

I was delighted to receive an advance copy of Marta McDowell's latest. Marta became a blog friend some years ago when I discovered her delightful prose. Marta's a professional gardener and an accomplished and best-selling author. I've talked about her books here before--wonderful mash-ups of literature and gardening lore like Emily Dickenson's Gardening Life, Unearthing the Secret Garden, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life.

Now Marta's turned her gaze to the role of gardens in mysteries. I was honored to have been one of the mystery writers she interviewed and profiled, though, as I told her, my days of serious gardening are past.

The book's not out till the fall but you can, of course, pre-order (always a blessing for the author.) It's a great read for anyone with an interest in gardening or mysteries, Though, as I said in the blurb that appears on Amazon, the book is dangerous--you may find your list of plants for your garden increasing exponentially; you may begin lusting after garden tours, and your To Be Read stack of mysteries may teeter dangerously after Marta introduces you to so many delights.

But wait, there's more! The book is illustrated by another blog/FB friend--the endlessly creative Yolanda Fundora. 

So many talented friends! I'll be talking about another on Monday.

 

Fall Gardening-Lite

My touchy back and imperfect balance make impossible the kind of gardening I once did. But it's fall and it's time to plant some pansies. If deer or chipmunks don't mess with them, they will bloom through the winter, their smiling faces uplifted as the sow melts.

A few share space with a snapdragon, dianthus, and golden oregano in the planter by the greenhouse door.

On the deck, I pruned back the evergreens in the blue pots to make room for pansies.

We'll enjoy seeing them from the dining room windows. And there was a bonus--one pot had a fine crop of chickweed, just right for the evening salad.

There are more pansies to plant but that will entail making space in some overcrowded beds. Onward and upward in the garden--at my own slow pace!

 

Rambling Through a Garden of Memory

I have only one hollyhock this year but it makes me very happy. I always wanted a row of them--against, perhaps a white picket fence but that's not happening. Neither are the masses of delphiniums I once coveted and tried to grow but failed. I walk around and see the ghosts of those garden dreams.

Many years ago I had a bed of fancy roses--but the spraying that seemed necessary to keep them alive and blooming was too much. I do have this fine little red rose--a gift from a neighbor back in '76. She rooted it from her own shrub--put a cutting in the ground and covered it with a Ball quart jar. Forty-five years later, it's still going strong.

Another survivor that makes me happy is this perennial Bachelor's Button.  Therese in France featured one on her blog maybe ten years ago and I was enraptured with the gorgeous cobalt blue and lavender bloom. I acquired a plant soon after and every year at this time, it makes me think of my blog friend in Toulouse.

Everywhere I look, there are ghosts and memories--the tidy Japanese influenced plantings around the goldfish pool that have renounced their dwarf evergreen status and are striving for wilderness designation, the Angel Wing Begonias my grandmother gave me when we moved from Tampa, the lilac that was a gift from a departed friend, the orchid cacti from a tenant about twenty years ago, the Weeping Willow and the River Birch that were skinny sticks when I planted them  . . .

You can grow a lot of memories in almost half a century.

 

And Lo, It Came to Pass

 

Three years ago I blogged (see post HERE) about planting Siberian Iris alongside some stone steps  and envisioning a future spring when they would provide a cascade of purple--a waterfall of bloom beside the Stairs of Doom (as these perilous stone steps are called.

And now here it is!

Gardeners' visions can seem so real--a bed of tiny seedlings amid lots of mulch is already a glorious herbaceous border in the gardener's eye. And maybe it will be. Or not. The ghosts of failed visions are everywhere in my landscape--the roses that required constant spraying, the delphiniums that wasted away in the heat, the beautiful border of hardy pink roses that became inundated with poison ivy, the deep red Nova Zembla rhododendrons that the deer destroyed, . . . oh, I could keep on at length, summoning up these leafy spirits but it's too depressing.

My evolved landscape and gardening is Darwinian--the survival of the fittest. And Siberian iris are survivors. As are daffodils. Tulips and hyacinths and many other bulbs simply don't make it past two (if I'm lucky) seasons. Daylilies and iris do well for me.

Of course there is always change. After forty-some years, places that once were sunny, are shaded. Beds that had room for annuals are crowded with shrubs. The gardener can no longer kneel to weed or even bend over for too long. She does what she can . . .

But there is a waterfall of bloom by the Stairs of Doom!

Winding Down

The season is winding down but my dooryard garden is a happy explosion of pink-- sedum, crepe myrtle, and Japanese anemones along with purple liriope blooms.

And we are rejoicing in delicious cool air--drier too.

The garden, on the other hand, is looking kinda sad. The corn is harvested and drying up; the tomato vines are blighted, and my cucumbers, that have done so well and provided so many delicious salads, are at an end.

Still some tomatoes, though.

.. . . and the Livin' is Easy

A.M.--pick corn, tomatoes, cukes, and zucchini. Shuck, sort, and wash.

This lunker is an Amish Paste tomato. The plant was passed on by Ginny Koranek and I am IMPRESSED.  I'll be saving seed for next year. 

The long skinny cucumbers will go into a marinated salad. The others will become bread and butter pickles.

Noon:the ideal lunch--a sandwich of fat slices of perfectly ripe Cherokee Purple tomato with homemade mayonnaise. Accompanied by iced tea, the house wine of the South. (Though I break with tradition by preferring it unsweetened.)

P.M. Blanch and freeze corn, roast cherry tomatoes, make a sauce with the other maters, save cukes for another day.

Eat dinner and count my blessings.

Celebrating the 4th In the Garden

Out to the garden before the temps get unbearable. John had tilled around the watermelon and butternut squash, but we were late getting our garden in and I'm trying to hand weed close up so these babies have no competition.

A weed's eye view as I sat and scooched along through the dirt.

I can hoe better sitting down as my back begins to complain after about fifteen minutes of upright hoeing. Whatever works.

"A weed is a flower in the wrong place." On the other side of the road by the garden, they're flowers.

There's a job done--I'll attack the corn tomorrow.

A nice sitdown on one of the blue benches allowed me to cool off a bit before checking out the veg in the top tier boxes.

I love how huge and how fragile squash blossoms are. This is a zucchini.

And there were two baby zucchini! I grabbed them at once as they have a habit of turning into giant green-striped logs, good only for the chickens and even the biddies soon lose their enthusiasm.

 I sliced these two in half length-wise and put a bitof olive oil, garlic, and salt on them. John grilled them with the brats that were our holiday supper, along with potato salad and deviled eggs.

Socially distanced Fourth, all the way. And it was good.

In the Garden

I hesitate to say anything for fear of putting a jinx on it, but the garden is coming along. I've been suckering the tomatoes and removing their low-hanging leaves in hopes of slowing down the ever present blight by better air circulation.

Also, some hoeing and weeding . . .

The temperature's been moderate (low eighties) and it's been a real pleasure to be outside digging in the dirt.

This bed with zinnias and little onions required hand weeding so I unched along on my rear end, a gardening position I find myself using more and more.

I think my witch socks lend a festive touch.

 And because a garden post wouldn't be complete without a snake--this fella below isn't our friendly greenhouse-dwelling black snake. This smaller one was sunning on the rocks by the fishpool (maybe on the lookout for a frog?) but when I aimed the camera at him, he slid away.

I suspect he's the same fella that fell across my arm when I opened the basement door to toss some dirty clothes downstairs, He must somehow have been resting on the top of the door and when I opened it, down he came.

It happened fast. What'sthiscoldpieceofblackhose?Omigod,it's asnake. Yes, I made a lot of noise. Waaa-aah! But I saw almost at once it was a harmless blacksnake, evidently as startled by the encounter as I was. He slithered off down the stairs and presumably out the downstairs door which was open to the outside. He also left a truly vile smell on my arm--but it washed right off.

I looked it up. And it appears that releasing musk is a reaction to serious danger. Poor guy. No wonder he wouldn't hang around for a better picture. Yikes! It's that woman again. I'm outta here!