garden — Page 242

The Garden, Leaving and Loss

April 30, 2011 at 8:51 am by Claudia

From the garden, as I prepare to leave tomorrow morning:

Texture.

Lamium – Dead Nettle

Lamium – Yellow Archangel

Jacob’s Ladder – poised to attempt a garden takeover while I’m away.

Catmint

Tulips – ready to bloom (but not, apparently, before I leave.)

My other daffodils (white with delicate yellow centers)- ready to bloom
(but not, apparently, before I leave.)

What’s blooming?

Violets scattered throughout the grass.

And my Wiegela bush.

Why do I have the feeling that bright and early on Monday morning, as I rise in Wisconsin, everything here will burst into bloom? I try to take comfort in this – since this has been such a late spring, maybe I’ll be able to catch a little of the Catalpa tree in bloom (which usually blooms the second week of June) and the tail end of the peonies when I return home on June 19th. Cross your fingers for me.

I’ve been waking up too early lately. There is much on my mind and much to do. Today I do laundry and pack – the usual ‘what to take for 7 weeks’ challenge. Don’t want to go. Don’t want to leave my husband, my dogs, my garden, my cottage.

On a sad note: Several bloggers have had to say goodbye to their beloved pets in the last week. My heart breaks every time I read one of these posts. Yesterday, my dear friend Donna had to say an unexpected and painful goodbye to her dear Fezzik. Fezzik was only a year old. He was still a puppy. Please know my thoughts are with you all. Saying goodbye to a beloved family member, whether at the end of a long life or suddenly without warning, is gut-wrenching. I can only say I understand your grief, your pain and the profound loss each of you has suffered. I do believe, with all my heart, that your beloved pets are with you in spirit.

Much Mulching & Pretty Pottery

April 27, 2011 at 8:59 am by Claudia

Alliteration makes me smile, hence today’s blog post title. Greetings from the land of mulch! And I mean lots of mulch. Yesterday, this crazy, extreme spring gave us a sunny day in the 80’s. I knew what I had to do. It was mulch time.

Don usually helps me with mulching but he had to go into Manhattan at the last minute. So it was just me and 8 bags of mulch. Since I’m leaving Sunday and big thunderstorms are forecast today and tomorrow, I had to grab my chance. I mulched. I planted. I mowed the dogs’ corral.

And I can barely move today. My arms are sore from carting bags of mulch around. My back is sore from bending over. I got a little sunburn. But, gosh darn it, except for a little bed on the side of the house and the beds in front of the shed, all is mulched. I’m trying to keep potential weeds at bay but I’m sure that upon my return in June this will all be overgrown. Don is afraid to pull anything that might be a real plant and not a weed. I’ve given him permission to yank the Jacob’s Ladder when it gets too pushy, otherwise it will take over the garden bed.

I took a walk around the property – everything is just starting to bud.

The big sugar maple will probably leaf out right after I leave. I’m crossing my fingers…maybe it will happen sooner.

My little lilac – will it open before Sunday?

Tiny, perfect buds on the Wiegela bush. Please open before Sunday…

By the way, I have to get up at 4 am on Sunday to catch a 6 am flight. I had two choices: arrive in the morning or late at night. Since I will be using a rental car and I have no idea how to get around in Wisconsin, I thought the wise choice would be driving in daylight. So I can see where I’m going. And find the condo where I will be staying.

And, unbelievably, Sonja (who sent me some Roseville pottery a while back) sent me another piece! I am amazed at her generosity. How did I get so lucky?

This is the Zephyr Lily pattern. I have a shallow dish in the same pattern – it might have been the first piece that I acquired. Isn’t it lovely? And those little rosettes? The vase was full of them.

Right now they are in this unattractive zip-lock bag but they will soon be headed up to my studio. Thank you, Sonja. You are a truly generous person and I am deeply grateful for these gifts.

I’m going to do a bit more work around here today, if the rain holds off. Carefully. Gingerly. Don’t want to be hobbled by a bad back when I get to Wisconsin.

A Frustrating Spring

April 25, 2011 at 9:23 am by Claudia

Yesterday, during the 1 hour of sunshine Mother Nature decided to allot for my use, I did a little clean up in the garden. This part of my hyacinth had bent over to touch the ground so I decided it needed to be in a little McCoy vase in the house. What an amazing scent hyacinths have. During the rain that descended later in the day and continues today, I have often stopped to breathe in that perfume.

What a frustrating spring that has been! Day after day of unseasonably cold, rainy weather. Only a few days of sunshine, and never two days in row. Nothing is blooming yet, save for the daffodils and forsythia, even at the end of April. When I decided to take the coaching job in Wisconsin, I was cheered by the fact that I wouldn’t be leaving quite as early as I had to when I was working in San Diego. I was sure I would get to see more of the garden in bloom. No such luck. In fact, there is much less in bloom than there was right before I left for San Diego last year. A quick look back in my blog archives shows me that.

This is our weather forecast for the next 5 days:

I have to mulch, pot more flowers, plant the window boxes. Oh, and I have to pack, organize everything here before I go, write lists for Don. I don’t feel motivated to do any of it, partly due to a reluctance to face the fact that I have to leave for 7 weeks and partly due to this unending dismal weather. Winter was terrible this year. Spring, so far, has been an extension of those gray winter days. I was counting on this time not only to work in the garden but to be in the garden. Being in the garden, working there, takes me to another place. I lose all sense of time. For a little while, my worries fade away as I work with the soil. And there are many worries at present. So I look forward to this particular form of meditation all winter. I feel a bit cheated this year.

I’ve been reading the journals of poet and writer May Sarton. She moved to Vermont in the early 1960’s and writes about her solitary life as a writer as well as the joys of gardening. From one of her journals, Plant Dreaming Deep, she writes:

“Making a garden is not a gentle hobby for the elderly, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion.
It seizes a person whole and once it has done so,
he will have to accept that his life is going to be radically changed.
There are seasons when he will hesitate to travel, and if he does travel, his mind will be distracted by the thousand and one children he has left behind, children who are always in peril of one sort or another….whatever he has considered to be his profession has become an avocation. His vocation is his garden.”

I recognized myself in the words of this passage, especially the part about having to travel. This is the fourth year in a row that I have had to travel during the time the garden is at its best. I have no choice. So I will grab what little time nature gives me this week and do my best to prepare the garden for the burst of blooms that will happen in May.Edited to add: The sun came out this afternoon for about 3 hours. What a difference it made. I got some planting done and tomorrow I mulch!

The Garden, Leaving and Loss

Much Mulching & Pretty Pottery

A Frustrating Spring

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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