FIBERGUY

We’ve been furiously working with our front and back gardens the past few weeks – one of the primary reasons you haven’t heard much from me. Sometimes we don’t come in from working until it gets dark after 9:00 and we still haven’t eaten dinner yet. The rewards are paying off, primarily in the form of backhanded compliments from neighbors to “stop making your yard look so nice – you’re making the rest of us look bad!” The neighbors on either side, of course, have fantastic gardens, it’s just the rest of them who don’t spend much time in the yard. Anyway, we have planted so far:

• Asters (three exotic varieties with funny petals)
• Penstemon “Prairie Dusk” – brilliant purple color!
• Oriental Poppies – I dearly love them
• Foxglove – how can anyone resist it?
• Hollyhock “Zebrina” = althaea sylvestris, a/k/a Mallow or French Hollyhock – one my very, very faves – pics to come!
• Smart Dwarf German Iris
• Siberian Iris
• Lobelia
• Evening Primrose – absolutely irresistable gossamer beauty in the palest pink!
• Stella de Oro lily
• Ruby Stella lily
• Asiatic lily in vivid orange
• Geum ‘Borisii’ – another fantastic orange flower – why have I never heard of this before?
• “Tahiti Orange” snapdragons
• Phlox “David” in pure white
• Campanula, also in white
• A variety of campanula called “Purple Bellflower” in the darkest purple you’ve ever seen
• Numerous impatiens in white, coral and magenta
• Zinnias
• Numerous varieties of hostas – I can’t even begin to remember them all!
• Astilbe
• Wild Indigo
• Dwarf Chinese Delphinium ‘Blue Butterfly’ (Delphinium grandiflorum) – which I’m anxious to see bloom!
• Candle Delphinium ‘Galahad’ (Delphinium elatum) in bothg blue and white
• 2 Potentilla fruticosa “Abbotswood” shrubs for under the bedroom window
• Pots of red geranium, white gerbera daisies and dracaena
• A few pots of petunias
• A hanging basket of bougainvillea spectabilis (the common purple one – I can’t find the red one locally)

And the all-time, hands-down favorite, right now anyways, is my lovely, fragrant heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens). Oh, how I love that smell in the garden at night as the sun is setting and the breeze is wafting its vanilla fragrance around the yard.

Is that all of it? And, of course, the roses keep blooming, the tomatoes and peppers are loving the warm weather, and the basil and rosemary are gloriously out of control.

Here are some images to feast your eyes upon:

Hollyhock “Zebrina” – althaea sylvestris, Mallow or French Hollyhock

The dark purple bellflower plant

Bougainvillea spectabilis

My precious angel face roses in bloom – I wish you could smell them!

Heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens) – we need smell-o-vision!

Foxglove – an old fashioned favorite

A brilliant orange Asiatic lily

For those of you who have only seen our house in fall or winter!

William Wordsworth said it most eloquently:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

I’m pretty sure we are not “designed” to accomodate as much horror and strife as is offered to us on a daily basis. I feel so, well, assaulted and nearly overwhelmed on an almost daily basis by so much ugliness in the world that I’ve been searching for ways to counteract my disgust with something that is life-affirming and positive. As part of that effort, I have decided that every day I will find at least one thing that will make me really laugh (old reruns of The Nanny are especially good for this, particularly is Yetta is in a scene) and at least one thing that I find truly beautiful.

When I permit myself the time to slow down enough to truly see, it is in nature where I am most awed and most often moved. I’ve committed to spending at least five minutes in my yard in the morning, if at all possible, to find one of my anodyne images. Here are today’s …

Have you seen these new Sunset echinaceas? They have orange/red/pink flowers and are a surprising twist on the old purple variety.

We’ve had pansies planted in three window boxes and several pots for more than a month now. They will fail soon – they can’t take the kind of heat we’ve been having. But they’ve been a joy for days and before they come to their end, I figured I had better take a picture of some of them. I love the near-riotous color.

Our neighbor Margaret has this splendid burgundy clematis growing on a trellis next to our driveway. Fresh with the drops from an early morning rain, it is lovely isn’t it?!

I don’t mind admitting my jealousy of my neighbor’s flowers. Luckily, I have these gorgeous ones planted on either side of our yard. I defy anyone not to feel delighted while staring at a bunch of brash poppies showing themselves off magnificently during their too-brief life.

Some photos taken this spring of other spectacular flowers our neighbors have planted that we are lucky enough to see every day.

Siberian Iris in Phyllis’ yard

Peony in Phyllis’ yard

Our neighbor Margaret is crazy about daffodils – her yard is full of them! And earlier this spring, they bloomed in quite the showy profusion. Here she shows off some prize specimens.

Finally, what would spring be without a breaktaking crab apple tree. Margaret’s was the loveliest one we’ve seen this year and it was stunning. The distance picture doesn’t do it justice – too much shadow, but the close up gives you an idea of what the whole tree was like.

Thankfully, we had great luck with the tulips we planted last fall. We were able to keep the deer and bunnies away with Liquid Fence and enjoyed the blooms for quite some time. We’ll plant more next fall in a hope for a repeat performance.

Species tulips – they are low to the ground and blossom in unusual shapes, but they are oh so pretty.

… watching Ma and Pa Duck waddle across the backyard late one spring afternoon.

Pictures from our front yard, taken today.

Tahitian Sunset – a flirty hybrid tea rose with magnificent color

Climbing Polka – we’ve planted two in front of trellises on the front wall of the house. Originally hybridized in France in 1992, the color and scent are both exquisite and subtly elegant.

On the way home from school last night, as I emerged from a tropical shower (I was in the car, thankfully!) I looked up to see a double-rainbow stretched from one side of the Mississippi in St. Paul to the other side in Minneapolis. It was a splendid, even breathtaking, effect. I’m not sure whether I’ve ever seen a double rainbow before, at least not one that close. I thought it might even stop traffic. It didn’t. But it was still a moment of transcendant beauty and a uplifting end to what had others been a day with a few disturbing events.

We have orioles! Neighbors told us when we first moved in that Baltimore orioles used to come to our yard because some prior owners fed them. We put a feeder out about a month ago, but no luck – until yesterday. I was out talking with my neighbor Phyllis and on the way balk into the house I heard a distinct call I had never heard in our yard before. I waited by the back porch door and, sure enough, a little oriole came down and had his fill of grape jelly before flying off to a neighbor’s tree. Judging from the color, it was an adult male. I hope it will be the first of many sightings. They are stunning birds and their song is so lovely to hear.