Blowing Hot and Cold

So much new energy arrived with the chilly Easter holiday. I traveled to Virginia for an Easter egg hunt in the bluebell fields with Barrie Ann and my family.  She is such a treat!  

She loves to paint too.  So we had ourselves a painting day in her playroom at the nursery. While her Mom helped all the customers get introduced to all her new offerings for the season. The nursery is so beautiful right now. It was hard not to stuff my truck full, but by the time I made it home I had it filled with Dee Runk Boxwoods, scented geraniums and other things I had to gather for clients here at home. 

I will spare you the hundreds of photo's I took of this funny little angel over the entire weekend. Everything she says and does is hysterically funny.

The Dee Runk Boxwood is a conical form of boxwood, a beautiful dark green evergreen that can take the Blowing Rock winters. I think it should replace all the Dwarf Alberta Spruce that yellows in the winter and gets spider mites in the summer. So I am trying to introduce them to the gardens here.

We also took Barrie for her first visit to Oatlands Plantation for the Point to Point horse races,  and a romp through the boxwood gardens.  I am so happy to be there with her as she saw them for the first time. There is no more magical place for a child to explore.  She kept trying to tell the other children the Teahouse was her house.

It has been a challenge knowing how to dress for work these days. I am a month ahead into spring in the foothills, where as, on the top of the world, 18 miles away in Blowing Rock, we had snow on Monday.  My Geurnsey Cream Clematis is in full bloom, but up  top, things are just breaking dormancy. I get a very long spring as I travel between the two geographical locations.  

Last week, my little friend Lindsey came around for the first time since Thanksgiving. She said, in her sweet little Carolina accent..... "I'm sorry I haven't come by for so long, but it's just been so cold! It really ought to be  be summer by now." I had a giggle about that statement all week.

Today the lawnmowers are buzzing away in the foothills neighborhood.  Managing our landscapes takes precedence now over anything that involves idol laziness, or we will be eaten alive by honeysuckle, weed trees and tall tall grass.  It all smells so good!  My tomato seedlings are finally starting to grow in their little pots on the sunny deck, instead of shivering in the cold.  

I have a lot of transplanting to do this evening, as everything needs a bigger root space than the seed trays offer.

We feel a month behind on our jobs, but are catching up quickly, now that we aren't being rained out daily.  Now, we have to patiently wait for the last frost date, as clients call and say can we plant the annuals yet?  We are accomplishing much. I have been good about taking the before photo's of projects, but by the end of the day I forget to take the after photo's. Such is the life of a busy gardener. 

There has been no time for painting. I stare nightly at a half finished portrait of a bouquet I picked weeks ago.  My camera stays busy though,  photographing the family fun and all the gorgeous blooms I find for future paintings. 

One of the weeks most exciting moments was the emergence of Patty's Crown Imperial Fritillaria.

She had traveled to Amsterdam about a year ago and ordered some bulbs.  We planted them last fall, and forgot about them.  She saw them this spring and was delighted to find these exotic creatures blooming in her cut flower garden. They will be interesting to paint one day so I took a lot of photographs for her and  future reference.  I think just about every gardener in town has been invited to see them.  The Fritillaria have a very strong odor. Helpful for repelling moles.

Last evening, after a day of major spring cleaning, I began tending to my own garden. Just as the sun was going down, I grabbed the camera once again.  In this heat, all the spring beauties will soon be gone.  The cool colors of the moss phlox, Phlox divaricata, white flowering Vinca minor, Tree peony, Thalia Narcissus, Trillium, Solomons Seal, Ferns and the helleborus blend so beautifully.  After two years the garden is filling out some and looking more like I want it to. My neighbors dog Buck likes my garden too.

Enjoy!

  

Bounty Season

It is late August already! Where does the time go?

The beach trip accomplished what it needed to do...it put me into the wonder zone. The season of the golden light arrived on a Friday, August 8th. A clear golden breezy day at work, that shifted me into the awareness that summer will soon fade. The enjoyment of it's last moments has become priority. Everything I see is so fully blooming and lush, in spite of a serious dry spell. It puts me in a beauty buzz. All I want to do is hang in the gardens, water thirsty plants to make them happy, dream and paint.

I arrived home to the harvest season. Celebrating with large pots of gumbo, tomato sandwiches with whole leaves of basil and fresh mozzarella on crusty ciabatta, and an out this world squash casserole that my friend Carol recommended, with her recommended additions of peppers and such. Yum! I harvested a beautiful bag of carrots this week that will go into a batch of samosas, as will some potato's dug last month. The samosas, frozen and reheated make such a simple, delicious meal after a long day of work. I am addicted to the cilantro chutney I dip them in.

In between cooking and painting I stare at my garden. The Nicotiana 'White Jasmine' is beautiful and so fragrant, bouncing back easily from the neighbors clumsy golden retriever, who has no respect for plants.

I love Pans crown. I keep photographing him in different light. Someday I will try to paint the image.

Finn unlike the retriever, 'tippy toes' into the beds more often than not, to fetch the occasional ball from my wild throws. He also steers the other dogs away from the garden if things are getting rowdy. I do try to heft the ball or stick over the hedge into the neighbors yard. They have no gardens. But they did recently mow. Finn brought home four balls he recovered from the field over the hedge yesterday. I have a large collection of sticks on my roof.

Finn stashes balls on every property we work on. I'll catch him plunging his head into a huge hosta to grab a saved and treasured toy when he needs one on the job. Michael has been away, putting in another beautiful pond, leaving Finn confused and whining for him at work.

Fortunately Matt helps out a bit making Finn very happy. When I am working I am not as easily distracted by ball playing as the boys are. Actually, he barks obnoxiously at them til they relent and throw the thing. Finn knows, when I grab the hose, it is time to hunker down in the shade of an evergreen and supervise me.

I do enjoy this cross quarter season before labor day. I call it bounty season. A stillness accompanies these golden days, the plants seem to pump up their life force, knowing time is short for showing off. The insect chorus provides the background music, I watch the 'Empress of India' nasturtiums glow in the sun, the moonvine and datura glow like the moon, and the butterflies flit from bloom to bloom.

It is magic, and makes all we did in the spring so worth the sweat and effort.