Garden Journal 2/16/97
We were visiting Auntie Grace, who has the greenest thumb I know! She first taught me to put little artifacts or statues into the garden, peeking from behind large green leaves, or under dainty foliage, placed just so. This is what I always noticed about her gardens, the just-perfectly-placed items. As I wander her gardens, I spy a little yellow ceramic bird snuggled in the ivy, a tarnished gold saucer holding a wee bit of water for the butterflies, a single rose bloom dipping into the water, and a piece of broken, azure blue glass, placed beside the dark, little pebbles that live under the columbine. The effect is charming.
We were showing auntie a video of our gardens, when the tape went into the next frame which featured our old garden when we first bought our property five years ago. What a shock! I can't believe the difference!! It looked so barren with few flowers, no shrubs but the Juniper, and hard, red clay everywhere. I remember the rains would create rivers of red mud which washed down the slopes of our property each winter and end up at the horse corral. I had been shocked initially when all this mud and water would rage across our lawns each winter. So we created a new paradise and as it had developed slowly, neither of us realized how much we had done over the years.
Today we transplanted the lilac tree and its many off-springs, to the south end along the fence, adjacent to the Knoll Garden. One huge, overgrown cluster became eight small shrubs which would hopefully bloom again. Their location was too shady to produce good blooms and the new area needed more shrubs. So Tim prepared the planting holes, popped them in and we hoped for the best. And wow! They have great, fat buds already, buds soon to burst in lovely, violet blooms. We also purchased two Old Gold Junipers which I put in front of the daffodil bed on the other side of the fence. His gold-tipped new growth is just lovely and picks up that clear daffodil yellow.
Garden Journal 3/22/97
Spring is here! Everything is leafing out, others are blooming, surprises are everywhere! Things I had forgotten that I planted are just lovely. The tulips have large, swollen buds, and the Sir Winston Churchill daffodils are especially lovely. I can see the Rose of Sharon leafing out, Jacob's Ladder with its fern-like fringed foliage starting to come up. Hydrangeas with their stark, leafless limbs are showing life with little green leaf buds all along its branches. Thank goodness I didn't throw them out when they looked dead and lifeless last winter! The forsythia in the knoll garden is such an intense golden yellow, just gorgeous.
The miniature, purple iris have come up strong and are such a delight when happened upon. Tim has reseeded the lawn, covering it with netting to keep the birds and cats out. The magnolias are looking good, they made it through the snow! Large evergreen leaves, a nice rounded tree shape, they will flower soon. Surprises await us at the asparagus beds. Two little ones are peeping out. Next year will be our first harvest.
The wild violets are everywhere! They give us two weeks of the most incredible fragrance! And the pansies, deep violet colors like velvet, have been undaunted by the snow, and are very perky now. Yellow, blue and white pansies all laugh aloud, turning their little faces to the sun. They always cheer my heart.
Tim is whistling while painting our wood, garden chair sparkling white. The notes float up to the green canopy of the black walnut tree and then dance amongst the branches. What a lovely sound. Birds sing in response, flying closer with each trill. The chair looks good -- nice, crisp white against the fresh, new green of spring's grass and the dark, evergreen pines.
Garden Journal 6/12/97
Everywhere I look, flowers are blooming, roses so fragrant, colors like jewels. The setting sun illuminates each petal, seemingly pulsing with life, it simply glows. My first nasturtiums are blooming, garnet and a gold-orange color, spilling out of their pots. Seeds I threw to the winds in spring are growing tall with little, yellow flower bells twisting daintily down each stem. These were harvested from last year's flowers, volunteers, a pleasant surprise! Mexican sage with its wonderful velvety purple and white blooms survived the winter and is already almost nine inches high. The butterfly bush is blooming, frilly purple caplets lifting their colors to the skies. My beautiful coreopsis--golden, double rays, bloom continuously and grow anywhere. The Shasta daisies are exuberant this year, freely self-sowed everywhere, also, magically, along the path to the pond. I love how their glistening white spheres seem to glow in the dark of sunset's end.
Forget-me-nots, little bunches of gray-green foliage hiding the little flowers, are a lovely, clear, true blue. Geraniums are growing tall and stately like ladies of the court, blooming unceasingly in deep burgundy colors. I pick off the spent flowers and soon they will bloom again. Poppies are still blooming, golden nectar among the grass. The four o'clocks are coming up, oh, I can hardly wait for the fragrant, funnels opening in the dusk of summer's heat. I see the agapanthus, tall and beautiful, her flower heads plump and full to bursting, ready to sprout into wild poufs of lavender-blue. The daylilies are blooming now, showy, each bud opening for just one day. Dawn breaks, bringing more buds into flower and the richness of purple, magenta, and dazzling, yellow buds flower again to take center stage.
Garden Journal 7/16/97
Every season is so lovely bringing such gifts I think cannot be surpassed, then another season arrives, bringing new delights and unimaginable splendors. My oriental lilies bloomed around June and July, fragrant and so lovely. Note: plant many many more of these. I had planted gladiolus (glads) in a two-week succession for two months which gave us blooms almost constantly until August last year. I see yellow, white, and pink glads by the fence, and a lovely peach-color glad. I extended it a bit this year, so I expect to have them blooming into November! The gladioli thrust through the sun-drenched soil, spears forming with incredible vigor, flashes of brilliance peeking through its sheaves of green. I never tire of this wonderful display. They will swoon, so plant them in the rear of the bed.
The perennial bed is doing great! The asters are just blooming, tall and purple, loaded with flowers. Many have still not bloomed, waiting for fall. The whispery sigh of the pink cosmos in the breeze calls to me and I visit her and the verbena, her violet colors great next to the Veronica spires of deep purple. The sweet moonbeam coreopsis spreads her jaunty, yellow blooms daintily across the two. The Snowberry is heavy with the white globes at her branches ends. Earlier in the year there were small pink flowers on her branches. This Snowberry is really a wonderful plant and very hardy. The big surprise this year was the pink Mexican primrose, that has spread everywhere and blooms constantly. Reminiscent of morning glories, it makes a great groundcover. Note: Plant more of this in the Knoll garden, on the hot, dry slope near the driveway.
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