garden — Page 188

Lilacs At Their Peak

May 12, 2015 at 9:19 am by Claudia

On Sunday evening, after a day where the temperature hit 90° – yes, you read that right – Don and I ventured out to the porch and sat for a while on the glider. We’d visited our local nursery earlier in the day. I’d been feeling sad this Mother’s Day, so we decided that the nursery just might bring a smile to my face, and it did. I came home and potted plants, adding some hanging baskets, and the porch was now adorned for the season.

There’s nothing prettier than the view from the glider; lush green everywhere, the sugar maple arching over the big garden bed, and the lilac bush blooming in the distance. Birds were calling back and forth, a breeze had finally kicked up, and we sighed with contentment.

This is what we wait for in the last days of winter, when spring seems an impossibility.

Of course, temperature-wise, we’ve sort of skipped spring. Yesterday was 87 and humid, today it will be 89. But tomorrow? Back into the sixties. What a bizarre season it has been so far!

I did some more work outside yesterday until the oppressive heat, along with the pollen that is everywhere, did me in. My cough came back and I realized that I have to lay low today until tomorrow brings some relief.

At the end of our time on the porch, we ventured over to the lilac bush to catch some of its heady, heavenly scent. Camera in hand, I took some more photos of the lilac at its peak. I also took some photos of the flowering quince and the wild honeysuckle (tomorrow’s post).

Here you go, lilac lovers:

5-12 lilacs 1

5-12 lilacs 2

5-12 lilacs 4

5-12 lilacs 3

5-12 lilacs 5

5-12 lilacs 6

Close your eyes and imagine the scent.

The tiny bush I planted over seven years ago is now just about six feet tall. This year’s bloom has been the best ever. I can’t bring myself to cut any of the blooms. I’m that way with a lot of the garden flowers. I like them in the garden.

For so many years, coaching took me away from home at this time of year, so I never take the sight of any of this for granted. It will take me away again for three weeks in June and early July, but three weeks seems like nothing compared to the ten I used to spend away from home.

I travel to Hartford on Thursday and again on Sunday and then my work on Kiss Me Kate will be done. I can’t wait to see it onstage, with the set and costumes.

Happy Tuesday.

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Lilacs, Mulching & Mistaken Identity

May 9, 2015 at 8:51 am by Claudia

5-9 lilac 3

Mulching in sunny, 87° weather proved to be a bit daunting. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the calendar read May 8th yesterday. Too hot – much too hot for this time of year. It looks as if it will be with us for a few more days. Still a bit under the weather, but much better, I unloaded 5 bags of mulch throughout the garden beds; dumping a bag into my new cart, scooping, carefully arranging it so as not to damage the base of already established plants, scooping and scooping some more.

I took a couple of breaks, drank lots of water, stopped for lunch, but let me tell you, I was exhausted at the end of the day. I supposed it was a combination of the heat, a still recovering body, and pollen. Lord, do we have pollen. But I couldn’t let it go much longer or I would have had to thoroughly weed everything again.

All the while, however, the scent from the lilacs kept wafting in my direction.

5-9 lilac 2

Oh. my. heavens. Such a glorious scent. This particular lilac is called the Pocahontas Lilac and it has deep purple blooms. This year, in particular, there are a lot of flowers. I planted it on Mother’s Day in 2008 (not long after I started this blog.) Seven years later, it is nicely substantial. As I was writing this, I wondered just when it was that I planted it, so I searched the blog posts and found my answer. A blog turns out to be a very nice way of keeping track of events!

The two big rose bushes are questionable at the moment. One shows some green leaves coming in at the base. The other, older bush is still bare. I wonder if this winter was just too much for it? The thought of digging it out of the ground is daunting. Keep your fingers crossed. I’m hoping that the late spring is the culprit and that some growth will show itself soon.

The peony shoots are about 10 inches high, so it looks as if we’re right on track for bloom in and around the first week of June. The trees have all leafed out and the catalpa is starting to show baby versions of what will become giant heart-shaped leaves.

5-9 lilac 1

Thank you so much, everyone, for alerting me to the fact that my ‘dogwood’ was really a crabapple! That’s one of the wonderful things about blogging, this sharing of information. I don’t begin to pretend I know everything about gardening, or trees, or rose bushes. And one of the areas in which I know next to nothing is flowering trees, perhaps because we didn’t have any of them in my yard when I was growing up, and we still don’t have them here – save for what turns out to be a baby crabapple tree.

But I’m actually more excited about the crabapple than I was about the dogwood, because I’ve always thought them to be so beautiful. So now we know: dogwoods have 4 petals, which are really leaves/bracts, and my little tree’s blossoms had 5 petals. Once Nancy alerted me, I googled ‘crabapple photos’ and there, staring at me, was just what I was seeing through my own camera lens.

Let’s see, last year I was certain the big bush over by the shed was a wiegela and it turned out to be flowering quince. This year, I was certain my little volunteer tree was a dogwood and it turned out to be a crabapple. We never stop learning, do we? I love it.

Today, maybe some weed whacking. Or wacking. I’m never sure just what it is.

Maybe a trip to our local nursery. Definitely a trip to the grocery store.

Happy Saturday.

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Dogwood (That Might be a Crabapple!)

May 8, 2015 at 8:44 am by Claudia

5-18 dogwood 1

There is a smallish tree – really, more of a sapling – down at the edge of the property. It’s right next to our deceased shag hickory, which needs to be taken down. We have a lot of saplings that spring up on the property. Last year, right at the end of its bloom, I looked at the tree and realized it was a dogwood.

Oh, wonderful!

This year, its bloom is even more abundant, as if it is entering adulthood. Taking photos requires some dexterity, as it’s wedged into a tight corner. Worth it.

I love the pink buds which open into a lovely white flower.

5-18 dogwood 2

5-8 dogwood 6

5-18 dogwood 4

5-8 dogwood 4

5-8 dogwood 5

Splendiferous.

Dogwoods spring up all over the place in these parts. But this beauty is on our property and that makes me very happy indeed.

Update: Reader Nancy just wrote me to say dogwoods have four leaves. Whoops! I think this may be a crabapple tree. Frankly, I like that idea a whole lot better because they are gorgeous!

Don and I went to a local nursery yesterday and bought mulch and some potting soil and new garden gloves for me (I go through them at an alarming rate) and a flat of impatiens to add to pots that were overwintered and some morning glory and zinnia seeds.

And we bought a little garden cart to replace our wheelbarrow. We have a perfectly good wheelbarrow but a couple of years ago something happened. I had turned it upside down on the ground near the shed and after a few months, I decided to move it. However, as I lifted it, my astonished eyes saw something. Ants, the tiny variety, had built an entire city underneath the wheelbarrow. Tall buildings, short buildings, openings, pathways – it was extraordinary. It reminded me of some ancient cliff dwelling you might see in the Southwest. They scurried here and there – lots of activity, of course – but they were clearly more than a bit panicked about being exposed. So I gently set the wheelbarrow back in place and told Don about it. And ever since that day, we occasionally check on them in early spring when they are active once more but other than that, we leave them be. They’re safe there. They don’t harm anything. And they are amazing.

This year we might paint the wheelbarrow with an ant design, officially making it their home – even though it already is. So that’s why I had to buy a little cart, so that I can use it to move the mulch as I spread it here and there in the garden. It will come in handy in all sorts of ways.

It’s too hot, of course, with the high today going to 87°. But it’s sunny and I can work outside.

And I made it through the night without coughing for the first time in over a week.

Happy Friday.

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Lilacs At Their Peak

Lilacs, Mulching & Mistaken Identity

Dogwood (That Might be a Crabapple!)

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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