Day before election.
Watching robins eat berries
in full sunlight.
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
Posted with BlogsyThursday, March 10, 2016
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
Saturday, April 12, 2014
April 12: Back in the garden at last
Today is my youngest sister's birthday, and what a beautiful day it is!
All morning I rake,
exposing tulip leaves
to the jubilant sun.
All morning I rake,
exposing tulip leaves
to the jubilant sun.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
September 18: Harvest
At a friend's farm: tomato vines laden with reddening globes, tight corn cobs sprouting tassles, peppers painted red and green by ripening, pumpkins swelling on the vines, here and there bodies of butternut squashes tan mounds upon the ground, young chickens pecking Japanese beetles in the sunlit yard, a woodpecker spiraling the trunk of the dying pine struck by lightning, and a broad-winged hawk silently passing over the chickadee on the branch...
Garden pregnant
with rounded bodies of squash.
Ripening: sun passing overhead.
Garden pregnant
with rounded bodies of squash.
Ripening: sun passing overhead.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
July 8: Flowering
Suddenly, my garden is full of blooming flowers again! This mid-summer wave of flowering, amid the chaos of unweeded greenery that is the front yard, brings some of my favorites: the sunset-purple clematis climbing the porch railing, a succession of day lilies in orange, red, pink, and more orange, and the tall, cardinal-red bee balm that attracts hummingbirds. And soon, the bright purple stars of echinacea will join in, as well.
Midsummer again--
orange lilies open for
their day in the sun.
Midsummer again--
orange lilies open for
their day in the sun.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
June 9: Getting grounded
Today was the first day after a full month+ of birding weekends that I could 1) sleep in--which I might have actually done if the cat hadn't been so physically aggressive about getting me out of bed to feed her at an early hour; and 2) work in my garden.
With all the rain we've had and my complete lack of attention, the flower beds were out of control. Thankfully, the sun has finally reappeared. I pruned and trimmed a whole wheelbarrow full of leaves and weeds, and then, after the season's first trip to the local plant nursery, filled in some gaps. Now the sedum can see the light again, out from under the lady's mantle. The lilies aren't hidden under the monster hosta. And my herb garden has another year's round of lavender, cilantro, and catnip. Also, marigolds for color. A new "black" fuschia hangs by the front door, a bright blue verbena on the fence. The clematis is trained with string to begin climbing the porch rail. The lawn is mowed. Blue irises which my dad and I planted several years ago bloom once more against the white walls of the shed. Clumps of ferns burst up here and there in the backyard, which I generally let grow at will for most of the summer except for a path to the shed. My hands are covered with dirt despite wearing gardening gloves, and the soles of my bare feet need a scrub.
And I feel like I've regained some balance, grounded myself, quite literally, once again.
Pregnant peonies
tower over my garden.
I feel an odd pride.
With all the rain we've had and my complete lack of attention, the flower beds were out of control. Thankfully, the sun has finally reappeared. I pruned and trimmed a whole wheelbarrow full of leaves and weeds, and then, after the season's first trip to the local plant nursery, filled in some gaps. Now the sedum can see the light again, out from under the lady's mantle. The lilies aren't hidden under the monster hosta. And my herb garden has another year's round of lavender, cilantro, and catnip. Also, marigolds for color. A new "black" fuschia hangs by the front door, a bright blue verbena on the fence. The clematis is trained with string to begin climbing the porch rail. The lawn is mowed. Blue irises which my dad and I planted several years ago bloom once more against the white walls of the shed. Clumps of ferns burst up here and there in the backyard, which I generally let grow at will for most of the summer except for a path to the shed. My hands are covered with dirt despite wearing gardening gloves, and the soles of my bare feet need a scrub.
And I feel like I've regained some balance, grounded myself, quite literally, once again.
Pregnant peonies
tower over my garden.
I feel an odd pride.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
December 3: Outside
I volunteered to help at a road race this morning, and it was so cold that we were slipping in the parking lot, and bundled up in full winter regalia of puffy down coats, hats, and gloves to do the timing... and then Santa showed up! But by the time I got home, it felt warm enough to finish up some gardening work I never got to this fall. So in early December I actually spent about an hour outside fussing in my flower beds, trimming off some withered stalks. Under the dead leaves, the irises were pushing up some fresh green blades, tricked by the generally warm weather we've experienced in the past month. And on one flower a single yellow blossom lingered. I too am not fully ready to call it winter and go into dormancy.
Heavy morning frost,
yet a flower still lingers.
I'm OK with that.
Heavy morning frost,
yet a flower still lingers.
I'm OK with that.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
October 16: Herbs
I planted my first herb garden at the house where we lived the longest when I was growing up. I think I was about 12. My dad helped me build a hexagonal frame for it, and, surprisingly, it flourished. I remember that the key plants were parsley, sage, and thyme, with a clump of mint that grew out of control, chives, and lamb's ears, because I loved how soft and fuzzy the leaves were. I would often find our family cat lounging in the bed of thyme or chewing on the mint, and I was thrilled when my mother would occasionally add my chives to a salad.
In the years since, I've created several more herb gardens, and when I couldn't have an actual garden, tried to keep pots of herbs around the house. When we bought our current house, one of the first things I did after we moved in was to balance out a nice perennial bed that already existed on one side of the front lawn with an herb garden on the other, anchored by a lilac bush that had been a housewarming gift. Six years later, I've got fennel, a couple of different mints, parsley, sage, thyme, lavender, several clumps of chives, echinacea (ok, not really an herb, but I needed something tall), and maybe some oregano out there.
The funny thing is, I don't really do anything with these herbs. Sure, the parsley and fennel were supposedly grown for my husband to use in his cooking, but he never remembers they're there before they go to flower. But I like their unpretentious flowers. And I like the fact that the greenery of my herbs is beautiful, fragrant, and at least potentially useful. When I mow the lawn along the garden's edge and smell crushed lemon thyme or the oniony scent of chopped chives, I always smile. This afternoon I harvested a big bunch of sage and some lavender ostensibly to dry for some future purpose. But really, I just did it because I wanted to breathe in their fresh aromas, to have those scents mingling in the air of my kitchen. And to feel like my garden has produced at least this small bounty.
Handful of sage boughs
trimmed while raking leaves today--
harvest of fragrance.
In the years since, I've created several more herb gardens, and when I couldn't have an actual garden, tried to keep pots of herbs around the house. When we bought our current house, one of the first things I did after we moved in was to balance out a nice perennial bed that already existed on one side of the front lawn with an herb garden on the other, anchored by a lilac bush that had been a housewarming gift. Six years later, I've got fennel, a couple of different mints, parsley, sage, thyme, lavender, several clumps of chives, echinacea (ok, not really an herb, but I needed something tall), and maybe some oregano out there.
The funny thing is, I don't really do anything with these herbs. Sure, the parsley and fennel were supposedly grown for my husband to use in his cooking, but he never remembers they're there before they go to flower. But I like their unpretentious flowers. And I like the fact that the greenery of my herbs is beautiful, fragrant, and at least potentially useful. When I mow the lawn along the garden's edge and smell crushed lemon thyme or the oniony scent of chopped chives, I always smile. This afternoon I harvested a big bunch of sage and some lavender ostensibly to dry for some future purpose. But really, I just did it because I wanted to breathe in their fresh aromas, to have those scents mingling in the air of my kitchen. And to feel like my garden has produced at least this small bounty.
Handful of sage boughs
trimmed while raking leaves today--
harvest of fragrance.
Monday, July 11, 2011
July 11: Bamboo
A friend in Lincolnville, whom I visited this afternoon, has a rather eclectic gardening sense. He's built his house in a clearing surrounded by spruces, and various plants are flowering seemingly at random amid the indigenous greenery: ornamental grasses pop up amid mossy stumps, delicate little Japanese maples stand here and there amid daisies and ferns, and bamboo plants with variegated leaves lean over the driveway. Out back a small pool hosts a few lily pads, another features a plastic reptile of the Loch Ness monster type. A stone-paved labyrinth spirals behind the deck, a bit overgrown but still magical.
A series of planks forms a sort of bridge toward a lush patch of boreal wetland. Along the way, one thatch of fancy grass with broad, drooping blades looks, as my friend says, like the hair of a Dr. Seuss character. Or a crazy nest waiting for a dinosaur egg. Wild partridgeberry with tiny twinned blossoms creeps close to the ground alongside more bamboo, a different species. These particular bamboo plants sprouted from clippings from another plant elsewhere in the yard. Walking on the bridge with a bamboo plant on either side of us, my friend points out several baby bamboo plants that have sprung up in a rough line between them, as if they two plants are trying to reconnect through these offshoots. I couldn't help but think of the Chinese folk tale about the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, lovers who became two stars separated by the Milky Way, only allowed to meet one night each summer in early July.
Cut from the same plant,
bamboo roots send out new shoots,
try to reconnect.
A series of planks forms a sort of bridge toward a lush patch of boreal wetland. Along the way, one thatch of fancy grass with broad, drooping blades looks, as my friend says, like the hair of a Dr. Seuss character. Or a crazy nest waiting for a dinosaur egg. Wild partridgeberry with tiny twinned blossoms creeps close to the ground alongside more bamboo, a different species. These particular bamboo plants sprouted from clippings from another plant elsewhere in the yard. Walking on the bridge with a bamboo plant on either side of us, my friend points out several baby bamboo plants that have sprung up in a rough line between them, as if they two plants are trying to reconnect through these offshoots. I couldn't help but think of the Chinese folk tale about the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, lovers who became two stars separated by the Milky Way, only allowed to meet one night each summer in early July.
Cut from the same plant,
bamboo roots send out new shoots,
try to reconnect.
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