My Lilacs

Lilacs, you either love them or despise them. Those who hold them in little regard usually complain about their dull leaves, lack of season interest, and short bloom while taking big space. Ah, but those that love them speak but one word with that glassy-eyed expression of infatuation: fragrance!

The fragrance is evocative of old gardens, grandmothers, home dooryards, simpler times and simpler values. When what was desired of a garden was a little bit of pleasure and respite from the duties of one's day. The lavender panicles giving musky sweet aroma on the air, lavishly filling indoor vases with flowers that manage to be both opulent and demure were relished by generations of gardeners. Some of us still carry that torch.

from 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed'
By Walt Whitman

In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-washed palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle -and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-coloured blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.

Since I moved to a country place, I have room to spare and one of my early activities included choosing a number of different lilacs for the garden. I have three whites, one is 'Ellen Willmott', one'Mme. Lemoine', and an 'Edith Cavell'. The old fashioned syringa vulgaris was one of the few things that came with the original plantings here. An old bush that had lost its center, yet nevertheless a focal point of the front yard. It now shelters my aging adirondack bench. I sit there while resting between strenuous garden efforts, and it is there where a hummingbird taught me of God's love and concern.

This year I took some pictures of my lilacs in bloom, though they are now finished for the year. I'd like to share a few of the photos with you.

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the outer side of the old lilacs

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'Edith Cavell' and 'Andenken Ludwig Spaeth', the newer lilacs, a single white and deep lavender. They are under trees, but face the western sun

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a "blue" gray color of President Grevy
Technorati Tags: syringa vulgaris, grandma's garden

Garden Work Between the Raindrops

That sums up my goals lately. When there are the few sunny, dry days I try to mow down the lushly grown grass, grub out the lusty weeds, make places for the new plantings and soak my tired bones at the end of the day. But then the rains come....and come....

On weeding: the ground after rain and when the sun first warms everything is usually nice and soft and good for quick weeding. I still bring my whole weeding regalia along for those which don't pull out easily. Grass weeding is best to work on at this time, when the weather heats up and the ground dries the grass roots get entrenched. The wetness of the ground is not as good for removing Canadian thistle or dandelions, however, but they can be pried out- and the sooner the better. The dandelions here have already gone to seed and spread forth their flying tufted seeds.

My broccoli and flowering kale don't seem to mind the cool damp conditions, so it is good they are in the ground growing, but the tomatoes? This is not good weather for them. I've put off purchasing anything until I can get that back garden tilled again, but I believe I will have to make an area by hand and just get those plants in! Some people are eating their lettuces already, but mine are just starting to show leaf. I am a slacker in the garden again this year!

Corn fields around here are not nearly all in, but the ones growing have little three inch sprouts in neat little rows, that go for miles and miles. Some farmers seem to have gotten their Jersey herd again- or pasture them here instead of somewhere else.

My fruit trees are forming fruit- the cherries are little green olive shaped berries all over the trees, both the sweet and sour. This is one year that they seemed to have escaped the frosts and cold winter fingers that Ohio likes to send forth for April foolery. It was a wonderful season for spring blooming trees, and a bumper crop for maples to set seed as well! My gutters are glutted with buckets of maple whirlybirds. My walks are covered in them, and they are in every outside pot promising me much more tree seedling weeding this year. I just got through getting rid of many of those overlooked from last year!!!! (and maybe the year before, from the looks of their size).

I managed to get some spring photos. Next post.
Technorati Tags: garden work,

Making Moss

mossgraffiti: "Moss Graffiti" is something I've tried before, but not with such an easy recipe. Time to try again. there are times you want to dress down your pond area and things like that.... gardeners like things like moss and lichens:)
moss art

The basic recipe is as follows, with more detailed instructions here:

1 can of beer
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Several clumps garden moss

a plastic container (with lid),
a blender and a paintbrush
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To begin the recipe, first of all gather together several clumps of moss (moss can usually be found in moist, shady places) and crumble them into a blender. Then add the beer and sugar and blend just long enough to create a smooth, creamy consistency. Now pour the mixture into a plastic container.

Find a suitable damp and shady wall on to which you can apply your moss milkshake.

Along with the unique idea given, a gardener might want to hurry up the 'moss process' for any number of decorative projects. Giving character to pots and urns, a natural appearance to rocks around ponds, fountains, or making a rock or wall look like it had been there forever.

In growing a moss garden, Joni Blackburn, in Mad About Moss, said,

although I was curious to see if the often prescribed blended-buttermilk-and-moss method would work, I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice my only blender to a botany experiment.

She does, however give a springtime "tonic of manure tea"; also recommended was a book,Moss Gardening: Including Lichens, Liverworts and Other Miniatures

Ferns and moss naturally grow together and make a peaceful green garden. As long as there is little foot traffic, I think it would make a very low maintenance garden for the right conditions: a shady side yard that has sufficient moisture. Add a few stones, a fountain or garden ornament, a bench, and it could become your favorite place to sit and meditate. a small Serenity Garden.

TIME LIFE PLANT ENCYCOLPEDIA

True mosses grow 1/16 to 24 inches tall. They have many tiny flat leaves and stems that are often too closely packed to distinguish. The leaves expand when wet and close up when dry. Thousands of plants bunch together to make a patch of moss. Like ferns, mosses grow from spores. The spores develop green threadlike branches called protonema, which push into the ground and eventually develop leaves. The plants do not have true roots but attach themselves by tiny rootlets to the material on which they grow. By absorbing water, mosses allow moisture to soak into the ground gradually and help enrich the soil when they decay.

More ideas for growing and decorating with moss

Technorati Tags: moss, serenity garden

In celebration of the spring rain

Gentle rains fall to soften my garden beds. The very atmosphere seems pregnant, imparting everything with fecund potential. My heart and mind soar in such enveloping mists and soak in the droplets of the magnified clarity it gives to the light, filtered and diffused in the tenderest way possible. The purples and lavenders glow in this light, the greens deepen and become velveted, the whites glisten and then fade at the edges... nothing is harsh or disordered while the colors of the garden are washed into each other with rainbow gradations.

I imagine my newly planted seeds welcomed in the moist womb of the garden's earth. Every petal of the blooming flowers is preserved in the momentary embrace of the sweet moisture, the prepared soils open and inviting to every growing thing and to my feet as they press upon its spongy surface. Sweet and fresh, the air surrounds with a cooling fragrance and invites my lungs to breathe deeply, glad to be alive. Glad to breathe, glad to smell, glad to take part in today's growing and emerging.

Technorati Tags: ode to rain, I love the rain