Posts Tagged ‘garden notes’
As soon as spring is in the air Mr. Krippendorf and I begin an antiphonal chorus, like two frogs in neighboring ponds: What have you in bloom, I ask, and he answers from Ohio that there are hellebores in the woods, and crocuses and snowdrops and winter aconite. Then I tell him that in North Carolina the early daffodils are out but that the aconites are gone and the crocuses past their best..”
—Elizabeth Lawrence, The Little Bulbs
The photo is not of my garden; this lovely sight of a neighbor’s front yard left me breathless last April. I haven’t been down that street lately to see what may be in bloom, but the daisies and poppies are coming up in other yards around town. My own poppies are all leaf, not quite ready to set buds yet. But soon. And some of these small daisies have popped up quite unexpectedly in a large planter by my front steps, along with some adorable johnny-jumpups. Either they jumped up indeed, right into the pot, or it’s possible Rilla planted some seeds…she’s always finding an old half-full packet in a drawer somewhere (why do I only ever plant half the seeds in a packet?) and taking it upon herself to do a bit of Mary Lennoxing. Today it was freesia seeds, inherited from a friend, and some sweet peas and sweet william. I grow freesia from bulbs, not seed, so I’m eager to see if these come up. It’s turning wonderland out there, already…the lavender has gone supersized this year, the bees are quite drunk.
It’s the season when I have no choice, I must read gardening books. The Little Bulbs is mandatory at this time of year, when the freesia are tumbling everywhere. I could live on the scent of freesia. This bit to Miss Lawrence from her horticultural pen-pal, Mr. Krippendorf, one February day, made me laugh:
“I was surprised to hear of the paucity of bloom in your garden, as I once read a book by an Elizabeth Lawrence who listed quantities of plants that bloomed in February or even January in her garden (which she alleged was in Raleigh, North Carolina). We have quite a few snowdrops now, and some eranthis, in spite of the fact that the pool on the terrace freezes every night.” And later: “I have your letter dated Fourth Sunday in Lent but not mailed until Tuesday. You say you might as well have lived in Ohio this winter—that sounds almost scornful. Yesterday was a wonderful day, not too warm, and sunshine off and on. I have tens of thousands of winter aconites in the woods—bold groups repeating themselves into the distance, also the spring snowflakes, and Adonis amurensis.”
All this sudden color is the result of the few days of rain we had the other week, after a crispy, crackling, waterless winter. And I know so many of you in other parts of the U.S. have had a really dreadful time of it these past few months. I wouldn’t dare to ask Miss Lawrence’s question, above, but I’m starting to see hints on Facebook and Twitter of a crocus here, a narcissus there, and Mr. Krippendorf’s tens of thousands of winter aconites gave me courage.
***
Read today:
Henry Hikes to Fitchburg (ahhh, deep delight)
Grace for President
Here Comes Destructosaurus (coming out soon, quite funny, wonderful Jeremy Tankard art)
Finished Where Angels Fear to Tread. Forster is tearing me up, lately. I had to read Howards End because of the Susan Hill book, and it wrung me inside out, and Angels hung me out to dry. In a good way, you understand.
Overslept this morning, thanks to Daylight Savings Time (which I nonetheless adore) and to having stayed up past midnight, too wired from sending off a manuscript (yippee!) to sleep—or to read, for that matter. Fumbled at a crossword puzzle on my phone instead. Well, after talking at my poor exhausted husband for an hour.
So no early-morning reading for me today. And a whirl of a morning, catching up on the housework and garden work I’ve neglected these past weeks. It’s spring out there! Who knew! Loads and loads of freesia sweetening the air—almost knocked me over, the scent was so lovely and so unexpected. And the pink jasmine is blooming, and the lime tree and grapefruit (not as exciting as it sounds, those two—they don’t seem inclined to produce fruit, ever). Nasturtiums and sweet alyssum and loads and loads of lavender. I might have to live outside for a while. “I think your garden needs you, Mom,” said Rose only a little reproachfully. She’s right; the clover is overrunning everything, and let’s not even speak of the bermuda grass.
But inside, there was Spenser. We’re reading it in excerpts, with plot summary between the passages—Marshall’s English Literature for Boys and Girls is wonderful for this—if you, a 21st-century teenager, can forgive the condescending name. Today was great fun, as the girls kept spotting parallels to Narnia (Una happening upon the dancing fauns and satyrs, not to mention her devoted lion)—Rose or Beanie, which?, said “I think Lucy is supposed to be an Una, Mom.” And the description of St. George going forth unto the dragon’s darksome hole:
“And lookéd in: his glistering armour made
A little glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the ugly monster plain…
Most loathsome, filthy, foul, and full of vile disdain.”
I thought of Bilbo and Smaug, but Beanie thought of Eustace. They know a lot about Tolkien’s literary credentials and influences from our Beowulf studies, and now they know about Lewis’s too. You can’t help but see it, reading Spenser.
Oh, and we returned to our Poetry 180 journey, poem #8, “Numbers” by Mary Cornish.
Now, during all this poetry-reading, Rilla was perched in her usual spot at the kitchen table, drawing, and suddenly she flitted across to the shelves behind my rocking chair and started piling up books—mostly volumes from our Poetry for Young People collection, plus Child’s Garden of Verses. Later, I found this pile on my bed. She informed me gravely that she has decided to be a poet as well as an artist, “and I’m going to need to study everything about poetry. All the poems, and the poets’ lives, and everything.”
All the poems. Well, then. No time to lose. We began with Sandburg, at her request—his “Between Two Hills” is her favorite. And then a bit of Poe (we are incapable of saying his name without belting “Poe, Edgar Allen, American poet, born in eighteen hundred and nine…“). She liked the Raven but deemed it “too long” (I can’t disagree) and said she prefers poets like Emily Dickinson who “tell a whole story in a short little poem.” I can’t argue with that, either.
Our roses are blooming, and a big clump of daffodils is coming up right under one of the rosebushes. Tricksy plants, growing all the time. The freesia and rain lilies we planted are well up now (but weeks from blooming), and the nasturtium and cosmos seeds are coming in nicely. One plump grapefruit ripening on the tree. Just the one.
The neighborhood parrots visited the other day. They travel in a raucous swirl of green and chaos. I tried to get pictures, but they hid in the trees and then swirled up and away faster than I could focus. Which is a pretty apt metaphor for my life, these days. Bright, noisy, swirling past in a blur.
There’s a parrot there somewhere; can you see it? Blink and it’s gone.
The Lilies-of-the-Nile are being impish again. I was going to remark that as much as I adore their purple spheres of bloom, this bud stage is when I love them best—but I see I already said that, a year ago. I really am repeating myself; I see too that I posted an agapanthus bud exactly one year ago today. Impish they may be, but they are punctual little fellows!
April 1, 2012 @ 7:06 pm | Filed under:
Gardening 
We harvested most of the radishes. There is nothing, but nothing, like the sight of a three-year-old’s face alight in wonder at his first glimpse of those bright red globes. (But then the long taproots alarmed him and he flung his harvest into the dirt.)
Something is eating my baby lettuces. Peter Rabbit, probably, thinks Rilla, who has been enjoying the Potter stories with me. I always seem to pull them out this time of year.
We have exactly one lime on the little tree that has never produced in the five years we’ve had it. Much hope hangs upon this rather unimpressive specimen…
The heavy rains two weeks ago washed out most of our carrot seedlings. I need to replant and keep forgetting.
Bees are ecstatic in the salvia, tree mallow, and nasturtiums. There’s a single blossom on Rose’s yellow rosebush. It’s quite a stunner, as if the bush put everything it had into this one glorious flower. This is the bud that was crawling with aphids the other day. Rilla enlisted the aid of a ladybug and it must have lunched itself to the bursting point, because the blossom is unblemished.
I’m still waiting for the bees to find the borage we planted last week. I have my doubts about it; it’s an unusual white variety, and I wasn’t sure it would attract bees at all. White flowers are night flowers, the delight of moths. But Farmer Bill assured me it’s a bee charmer, and Farmer Bill knows his stuff. We’ll be patient.
Only one of my sunflowers came up! It’s taller than Huck now and working on a bud. I wonder what critters got the rest of the seeds?
All weekend I couldn’t drag myself out of the garden, but today is cold and rainy. That’s all right; this is much better writing weather. This blog is going to be low-key for a while. I’m in the cave.
Outside my door, I hear the pleasant clatter of dice against a table, over and over, and murmuring girl-voices. Rose and Beanie are playing D&D. Rose is the game master, the story-crafter. Beanie was delighted, this morning, when she rolled a charisma check and came up high enough to converse with the black dragon she’d encountered. Apparently Rose does an excellent extemporaneous dragon.
Rilla has all the Draw Write Now books spread out across the bedroom floor. There are horses and dolphins to be drawn. I will emerge to a menagerie in crayon, later this evening. The boys are playing Wii Party. Jane is getting ready for her web design class. Scott’s got music playing, something with lots of inquisitive trumpet, while he tackles the lunch dishes. Crows are calling through the rain. Yesterday we planted seeds: radish, butterhead lettuce, carrots, field peas. And in the flowerbeds: cosmos, sweet alyssum, California poppy. I found a few stray sunflower seeds that had spilled out of last year’s packet into my gardening basket; we tucked those at the corners of the veggie patch. I’ll have to remember to plant those blue morning glories again at the base of the stalks when the sunflowers come up.
Perfect timing, this rain.
I spent most of the day in the garden, most of yesterday too. I found some old bricks and used them to lay out one end of a small raised bed for our veggie patch this year. We’ve planted banana peppers, onions, and cilantro from starts, and there are seeds to go in tomorrow: carrot, butterhead lettuce, and radish. I’m not sure anyone in the family cares much for radishes, but they grow so quickly and are fun to harvest. Oh, and we’ll plant a few beans. We buried a couple of seed potatoes this afternoon. Will I ever cease to marvel at this climate? February was always the longest, hardest month back east. My children love snow (those who remember it), but not I.
Saw our first monarch of the season today! Alas, it made two passes around our yard and fluttered on by. My milkweed has buds but isn’t open yet, and may not bloom at all—it’s horribly infested with little yellow bugs I thought were a particularly squicky kind of aphid, but now I’m doubting. We recruited an army of ladybugs, who munched dutifully for a while but have now flown home to check for fires or something.
Bees: a respectable number, but not the legions we hope to see when the salvia blooms.
I took a million pictures today but none of them came out. Ever since I dropped it on the street during Comic-Con, my camera is reluctant to focus.
Bloom notes, mostly for my own reference. I like to poke through my archives and compare…
geranium (three kinds)
tree mallow
Cape honeysuckle
lavender (two kinds)
jasmine (the one with the pink buds, not the white)
the yellow marguerites
African daisies
snapdragon
nasturtiums
sweet broom
viola
alstromeria
sweet alyssum (white and purple)
ice plant, in magenta profusion
bougainvillea (trying—I think I need to move it to a better spot)
red salvia (barely)
petunia
stock
Probably more things I can’t remember right now.
This list staggers me. I say that every year but staggered I am again.
FEBRUARY.
We do penance for this in October, when the very air crisps your skin and the only color in the garden is brown.
October 25, 2011 @ 4:59 pm | Filed under:
Gardening 
We’ve just passed the five-year anniversary of our arrival in San Diego. We were going to commemorate it last week with a trip to a favorite park, but the three youngest kids have taken turns with a lovely little virus, so we’ve postponed.
After five years, you’d think I’d be used to the strange seasons here, but a Southern California October still feels novel to me. My garden dries up in August, goes dormant almost, unless I’m willing to douse it with gallons of water daily. (I’m not.) Now, after a week of wonderfully cool(ish) weather—why, the mornings have been almost brisk!—and sheltering clouds, things are perking back up a bit. Suddenly the roses are blooming. Up and down the block, my neighbors’ rosebushes look like the end of The Blue Castle. The cape honeysuckle is magnificent, swarming with bees. Geranium, lantana, plumbago, and morning glory: everywhere I look is color. Red, pink, orange, sky blue, violet.
We planted lettuce starts and peas this weekend. There’s one melon ripening on the cantaloupe vine, and the watermelon I planted over the summer is finally thinking about blossoming. Will it produce? We shall see.
(My garden attracts all sorts of critters.)
So wait, it’s July all of a sudden? I need to do some quick June notes.
* Brief trips to Phoenix (with Rose & Bean) and Pasadena (with Jane)
* A day with Kristen and my amazing goddaughter
* Shakespeare Club performance of scenes from Twelfth Night:
oh those kids made me proud!
* The Penderwicks at Point Mouette
* Lots of game time for everyone, including The Floating City and Glitch
* The Bat-Poet with Rilla and her stuffed bat, Bitty
* 84, Charing Cross Road
* New session of speech therapy for Wonderboy
* Jane started a C++ class online
* Huck’s hair went curlsplosion again
* The sunflowers are forming buds
* Hollyhock bloomed AT LONG LAST (we waited three years)
* Monarch caterpillars on the milkweed
(first spotted today, so technically a July note)
