Category: Garden

Death in the garden

July 11th, 2022

Sometimes decay can be beautiful. I walked the garden one day looking for dried and cracked textures, for discarded parts, for nature in a state of decomposition. For something different than I usually look for. There is so much to see when when you look beyond the fresh bloom at the beginning of life. This was a a wonderful reminder to observe more than the obvious: flowers and butterflies are beautiful in all their colorful glory, and so are brown branches and brittle dry flower petals.

Remains of cut flowers in the compost pile

Hydrangea in the compost

A rose bloom in its death throes

Hydrangea in the leaf litter

Of course, all of these dead and dying things are fodder for other life: ants, fruit flies, centipedes, and worms all feed on them. Rain and wind, friction and feet, biting mouths and digestive tracts break them down until they are dirt again.

And sometimes, before that happens, a creature will gather these shed strands, forgotten fragments, and castoff clumps into soft shelters for new life to be born.

Bird nest and egg
Morning walk through the garden

May 23rd, 2022

I stepped onto the back porch with my coffee this morning to enjoy the cool air. The past two days, the sun blazed hot, and the muted gray morning was a welcome reprieve from the heat.

As it usually does, looking out over the garden led to walking down the stairs to be in the garden. We’re in the time of year now where everything green is bursting forth. Early summer flowers are starting to bloom, bunnies nibble on tender shoots, ornamental grasses are coming in, slender and graceful, and even though it’s not even June yet, I saw my first caterpillar of the season this morning. Things are starting to get good in the garden.

Hello bunny!

Blue fescue grass in bloom

First caterpillar of the season: swallowtail caterpillar on rue

Blue fescue in bloom

Milkweed 1 returning

Milkweed 2 returning

Milkweed 3 returning

I’ve been waiting for the swamp milkweeds to re-emerge; only 3 of 5 came back

Scabiosa flower

Jethro Tull coreopsis flower

Yarrow and salvias in bloom
Playing with lenses

May 6th, 2022

I don’t branch out much with photography. I think I take the same photo of dogwood flowers, the same photo of lilac flowers, and the same photo of salvia every year. I use the same lens on the same subjects. I did shoot in the soft evening light the other day and was really pleased with how it illuminated my tulips and columbine.

I want to branch out with photography. When I was young and less self-conscious about portraiture, I took some photographs I was proud of. It helped that I had willing friends to go out shooting with me. Now I’m shy of getting my camera out and photographing people. I’d like to get better at it, but I’m not ready for that yet.

I’ve got a couple of other places to start. First, I can work on being patient for good light. This is really the secret to photography. Also, it is hard. I am not patient.

Second, I’m eager to try a different perspective. We’re going to Iceland at the end of the month, land of landscapes, so I want to try a wide angle lens. I bought one, and it arrived while I was away last week. I finally took it today for a test run in our back yard. I still took standard shots with my 35mm lens, but I was excited to play with my new 16mm. I could capture the whole garden while standing nearly in the garden, and I particularly like trying to focus on something in the foreground while still being able to capture a wide angle background. I need a lot more practice, but I’m having fun.

The entire hill garden, with new plantings in the raised bed and the adjacent new bed

The rue is about to bloom

Back bed before it fills in

New plantings: cuphea, straw flowers, red salvia

And of course I took tried and true shots with the 35mm lens.

The nepeta is blooming
Back home with my garden

May 5th, 2022

Late April is a time of year where things start happening in the garden, but slowly. I walk the garden every day and can see small changes – a new leaf, or one bud in scores opening up. I was eager to leave town for a week because I knew the garden would make noticeable progress by the time I came home. When I returned, the night was dark and I couldn’t see. But when the sun rose the next morning, I was not disappointed: the grass is lush and green, the yarrow is filling in, the salvia is blooming, tulips have opened by the mailbox, and the columbine I planted last year finally bloomed. I’m happy to be home again.

Pink columbine

Tulip and salvia

Burgundy columbine

Purple columbine

Salvia and tulip
Moon is up, birds are singing

March 21st, 2022

I’m waiting for the sun to rise. Outside, the sky is a deep dusky blue. Soon it will brighten to pink, and I’ll be able to see my new little bird bath in the rose bed, and the fresh mulch I spread yesterday out front.

My gardening vacation is underway. I had 15 yards of mulch delivered Friday. I couldn’t start shoveling right away, though — I needed to weed, plant whatever new stuff I could get my hands on this early in the season, and fertilize. Then I could start mulching.

Saturday, as soon as I dropped our daughter at swim practice, I sped away to the nursery to see what perennials they had in stock. I blew my budget, of course. The bowl of my beautiful big birdbath cracked and then fell away in our recent winter storm. Watching birds splash in water is one of my favorite past times, so I had to replace the big bath, it was not optional. And then there’s the new little bird bath, which was too cute for me to pass up. And also, new plants. The nursery often runs out of some of the harder-to-find plants I want if I put them off too long, so of course I had to buy all the stuff on my list right now if they had them in stock. Plus a few others that weren’t on my list. And it turns out the size of the garden now requires two bags of fertilizer, not just one.

I tell myself it’s okay that the garden is more expensive now. The diversity of plants is better than just a giant lawn, right? I’m creating habitat! Birds, bees, butterflies, bunnies – all are welcome here. It’s like contributing to a nature conservancy, except right here in my yard.

Coreopsis ‘Jethro Tull’

Agastache ‘Blue Boa’

Meadow Sage ‘Snow Hill’

Salvia ‘May Night’

Yarrow ‘Desert Eve’ red

Sea Holly ‘Blue Hobbit’
My garden vacation begins today!

March 19th, 2022

I was distracted at work yesterday. I waited for my mulch guy to call, then once he did call, and once he delivered my 15 yards of mulch — one pile in the driveway for the front beds and a second pile at the top of the hill out back for the back beds — I couldn’t stop looking out the window at it, or walking outside to smell it.

Now it’s Saturday, I am off of work for a week, and I’m waiting for the sun to come up so I can get started. I hear birds out there singing in the dark.

My excitement level to go to the nursery is high. I’ve been waiting for months. I can’t wait to see what flowers they’ll have in stock this early in the year that I can go ahead and buy. I have a few spots in the beds that are waiting for their plants before I fertilize and mulch.

Unfortunately, I think I’m going to have to cut down on my grass-killing. My continued expansion of flower beds is starting to get expensive. Between mulch prices going up and me adding another 300 square feet of flower bed last year, my garden budget is pretty much maxed out: I don’t have a lot left over for plants. I spent much of February dividing perennials to stretch what I’ve already got, but I want new flowers too!

I just want to kill a little more grass to round out the new bed so its edges aren’t so sharp, and then I’ll be done, I swear.

Only a few more hours before I can get to the nursery. Writing this got me a few minutes closer.

8 yards of mulch

7 yards of mulch