Garden Notes, Late April

April 26, 2009 @ 7:55 pm | Filed under: Gardening

This post is for me, just so I’ll know what was blooming when. Also I think my mother will like to hear how fruitful her labors were this winter and spring.

I’m laughing at the bare mulch behind the children in the pictures on my last two posts. That’s the only part of the yard where things aren’t awash in flowers, but it’s where we sit in the afternoons because that’s the only bit of grass with shade. And the mulch bed is bare for the same reason there’s shade: the neighbor’s pepper trees tower over the fence, blocking all afternoon sun. I’ve tried some (shade-loving) impatiens there but they didn’t amount to much.

The rest of the yard, though, oh my. An abundance of bloom.

img_4174

Currently in flower:

scabiosa
sunflower
jasmine
ice plant
cranesbill
salvia (red and purple)
columbine (fading)
moss roses
Mexican sage
um, those little white flowers
African daisies
yellow daisies
nasturtium
thyme
freesia
lavender
snapdragons
petunias
geranium
stock (not looking good though)
those purple things, nemesia maybe? pink ones too
strawberries
alyssum
bougainvillea
cape honeysuckle
cosmos
the pansies are on their last legs
oh the lovely poppies!

poppies3

Tags:

Comments

Comments RSS | TrackBack URI

  1. sarah says:

    what a garden! I shall not show my Rose, she’ll go getting Ideas.

  2. Mary Ellen Barrett says:

    So lovely. Can I fly you out to do a consult on my poor yard. The construction devastated the landscape and I am lost as to how to proceed. I love all of your flowers.

  3. Kristen says:

    Gasping, yet again! What a paradise – I wonder if I’m too late to plant that lovely scabiosa. So pretty!

  4. Melissa Wiley says:

    Can you believe how much it’s grown since you were here? It was such a bitty little clump then you probably didn’t even notice it.

    The yard isn’t very impressive, as suburban gardens go. One mediocre flowerbed along the patio and the one big bed along the back fence where my mom did so much work in January. I’m amazed at how fast that bed is filling in, and how much is in bloom at once. But real landscapers & gardens wouldn’t be particularly impressed. We’re comparing it to the dirt and weeds of last summer, and it really does seem like a paradise to us. :)

  5. Melissa Wiley says:

    Mary Ellen, two words for you: Bluestone Perennials! When we moved to Virginia in 2002, our front border was a mess of overgrown weeds. I dug it all out and planted a Bluestone Perennials starter garden. Lots of pretty flowers the first year, and by the second year it was filling in beautifully. The third spring it was breathtaking.

    Came with a layout diagram which made the whole thing so easy. It was hard to say goodbye to those flowers when we moved!

Leave a Reply

Comment a lot? Register here. Already registered? Login here.

Want your own gravatar? Get one here.


Welcome to

the Bonny Glen—

the online home of

children's book author

Melissa Wiley




In the Archives

you'll find posts about:


and much more!



booknotes2


Contact Me

My review policy


 Subscribe to my feed

Subscribe to my comments by email or feed


Where to find unabridged Martha & Charlotte Books


My Bonny Clan

Jane, 14 yrs old
Rose, 11 yrs
Beanie, 9 yrs
Wonderboy, 6 yrs
Rilla, 3 yrs
Huck, 14 months

and Scott, the love of my life



Every Face I Look at Seems Beautiful






Book Log 2010


March


Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith
by Deborah Heiligman
(shows up in posts
here and here)

February


Mare's War
by Tanita Davis

Betsy and Joe
by Maud Hart Lovelace

Mockingbird
by Kathryn Erskine
(notes)

Liar
by Justine Larbalestier

Winona's Pony Cart
by Maud Hart Lovelace


January


Essays of E. B. White
(selections)

Carney's House Party
by Maud Hart Lovelace

How to Say Goodbye in Robot
by Natalie Standiford

Kendra
by Coe Booth

Secret Keeper
by Mitali Perkins

The Prince of Fenway Park
by Julianna Baggott
(I interviewed her here)

The Kitchen Madonna
by Rumer Godden

Asterios Polyp
by David Mazzucchelli


Book Log 2009

(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)


Book Log 2008



chestertonbaby



snidely200

boys


rosebaby

3littles

3932141947_a5a702c941

rillachin

bbb



Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?

They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.



My Big List of Booklists


Boy with the Perfect Heart


The Green Ways of Growing


Some Breezy Open


Scary Junkyard Dogs


The Quiet Joy


Way Leads on to Way


At the Museum


Balboa Park Posts


Favorite Fictional Families


The Barcelona Journal








Search This Blog



ASL Sign Lookup
(I use this a lot)


Find my books at IndieBound

Shop Indie Bookstores



I Heart the Kidlitosphere

Check out this big list of children's-book-related blogs at Kidlitosphere Central

Author and Illustrator Blogs


Recent Comments





Recent Posts



A Word about How I Blog

Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.

(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)




Be Like the Bird

Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.

—Victor Hugo




From My Feed Reader



Twittered

Twitter Updates



    How We Learn

    “Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”

    Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?

    And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?

    (from a post called Way Leads on to Way)


    Our Family "Rule of Six"

    Six Things to Include in Your Child's Day:

    meaningful work
    imaginative play
    good books
    beauty (art, music, nature)
    ideas to ponder and discuss
    prayer

    Whence It Came





    Meta