I often fall into the trap of thinking I must travel to inject novelty into my life. Sometimes I remember, though, that I can inject novelty by looking at my own surroundings with a tourist’s eye.
Yesterday was a gorgeous spring-summer day, and I had the whole day to play. We live near a college campus, and lucky for me, there is a horticulture garden there. I wanted to soak up sunshine, like a plant, so I slung my camera over my shoulder, and walked the two miles to the six acres of tended beds. When I travel, I like to walk instead of driving. On foot, I can see things slowly and up close, hear all the bird songs that go with the place, smell the flowers that are in bloom, or the lunches cooking in restaurants I walk by.
When I do this at home, I get a chance to appreciate where I live, and am reminded how ridiculously beautiful it is.
Feverfew in my garden.Sunlight and lichens on rocks.Silvery fern.Big green leaves.White phlox and textured leaves.Berry cascades.Silvery fern.Sunlight on garden chairs.
My upper body can’t shovel another crumb of dirt. I tried to clean up the rest of the mulch today and my left shoulder pretty much said, No, No more of that. I put the pitchfork and wheelbarrow away.
I’m curious what the gardens look like of people who actually know what they’re doing. There’s a horticulture garden on the Virginia Tech campus, just a couple miles away from our house. I have a Fitbit again, and after four days of it gushing how great I am with all the gardening exercise, I couldn’t stand to have a day without it buzzing to tell me I’ve broken yet another record. So I grabbed my camera and went for a walk.
The cherries and Bradford pears are blooming, so there are soft pink and white petals everywhere. The light was a little flat today and I didn’t get great photos of them along the way to the horticulture garden. But once I arrived, everything I wanted to photograph was close to the ground and didn’t require shooting the sky, and all the flowers are adorable, and I felt like I was in a fairy forest.
Hellebore I think? Also known as Lenten Rose?I don’t know what these purple flowers are, but I love themGrape hyacinthAgain with the purple flowers, I love themI don’t know what these star flowers are either but they’re super cuteSee the robin on the right? Robins are funny. The hop hop hop along.Cherry blossoms (I think? I always think the pink ones are cherries, but I don’t really know anything)These trees with cascades of pink petals are everywhere on campus, and they are gorgeousLittle white violet by the duck pondHellebore budTiny grape hyacinth treesPurple flowers on a leafy floorCherry blossomsForget me nots? Cherry blossoms and Canada geeseCute blue flowers
I’ve spent the past five days in the open air. I am on my annual garden vacation. Instead of listening to news of the coronavirus, I’ve been outside in garden gloves and hat.
Over the past five years we’ve lived in our house, I’ve killed a lot of grass to create flower beds for butterflies. I’ve accumulated perennials over those years as well. In March, instead of the beds being barren and brown like they were when I first created them, green leaves and shoots emerge. They make me giddy every year. Green! Renewed life!
Each spring, I take a week off of work to spend in the garden, to get it ready for the birds and butterflies (and bunnies and deer). I move plants around to change things up year over year, and then spread about four tons of mulch over all the beds.
This week was that week for me. I finished spreading the mulch yesterday. With the lockdown in place, I’m grateful for five years of plant-buying. I don’t need to go to the nursery; I don’t have any big gaps to fill in, and I do have packets of zinnia and cosmos seeds for the places that do need filling.
Now I can sit back and watch it all grow.
Front Beds
Redbud budding
Rose and redbud bed (and herbs, lilac, silvery blue wormwoods, and artemesia)Dogwood budDogwood, butterfly bush, yarrow, and lavender already visible; butterfly attractors of milkweed, gallardia, salvia, liatris, and agastache, plus the delicious smelling lemon balm will come laterHostas emerging under the dogwood; lavender and dianthus at the foot of my chair; Karl Foerster grass shorn for new growth in right of frameThe bed in front of the stairs is a prairie type bed, with switchgrass, prairie dropseed grass, little bluestem grass, black eyed Susans, white coneflowers, liatris, sage, New England asters, calamint, Russian sage, and nepeta (catmint with blue flowers)
Back Hill
Rhododendrons in bloomLeftmost bed: grasses, agastaches, bee balm, rue, Joe Pye weed, nepeta, black eyed Susans, lollipop vervain Middle bed: wind dancer grass, echinacea, sedum, marjoram, scabiosa, indigo salvia Right bed: rue, Mexican feather grass, lamb’s ears, pink veronica, mums, Shasta daisies, blue gramma grass, little bluestem grass, milkweed, goldenrod, bee balmRain on sedumsSpicebush in bloomMy throne at the top of the hillHosta emerging; I caught it before the deer eat itBack bed and hammock treeBirdseed and rosemaryLate afternoon from the top of the hill
This is my entry for the Discover Open prompt. Also, if you like plants and butterflies and other gardeny stuff, I publish progress of this garden throughout the butterfly season at garden.andreabadgley.blog.
What better way is there to reflect than to go on a hike? The day after Expo ended, Support Driven organizer Scott Tran and I wandered the Portland International Rose Test Garden while we thought about what went well at the conference and what we will need to improve on next year.
What a treat! June is peak rose season in Portland. We were surrounded by hundreds of rose bushes, row upon row down the slope of a hill. Every bush was drenched in blossoms, in white, yellow, peach, orange, red, pink, lavender. The only color not represented was blue, and the blue Hydrangeas made up for that.
Fluffy yellow rose
Peach colored rose
Lavender roses 😍
So many roses
Maybe my favorite.
Rows of roses
So pink
I love the backdrop here
More peach roses
More lavender roses
A whole hillside of roses
And a blue hydrangea
After reflecting quietly among the roses, we hiked through Washington Park to talk and plan. I had no idea there were even more treats in store. I’ve always wanted to go to northern California to see the redwoods, and it turns out there are redwoods right there in Portland. We hiked through a grove of them, and I was awed. I wish our son could have been with me to see them. He loves rain and trees. He’d fit right in in Portland.
I drove to Durham, North Carolina yesterday to meet up with co-workers who are here for their team meetup. As soon as I arrived, I picked up a text message that the group was leaving in 15 minutes to go to the Duke gardens — did I want to join?
I dropped my bag in my room, grabbed my camera, and met them in the lobby to ride over together.
The gardens were stunning.
Narcissus flower (daffodil)
Azaleas
Garden path
Hydrangeas
Phlox
In the quiet shade
Hidden ginger flowers
I didn’t get much work done yesterday, but I sure enjoyed these flowers, and the time I got to spend with my colleagues.
Butterfly Mind 