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Still Green

Still Green

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An evening walk after rain, fir trees dripping, sky a mottled blue with pink around the edges.  I take my time, and Copper wants to saunter, too.

It’s slightly cool and very moist. The sound of gurgling from the neighbor’s fountain matches the general wetness, though I notice that our driveway seems much damper than the street.

Two doors down I spot a bluebird flitting from branch to branch, flashing its bright plumage in the dusk.  A few steps away a giant arborvitae towers over a small culvert that is fenced off with split rails and a tough vine that sports purple flowers earlier in the season. In the meadow, a soft mist is gathering in the twilight.

Copper and I turn around under the large maple that will be flaming scarlet in a month or so. But for now … it’s still green.

Sweet Little Liriope

Sweet Little Liriope

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I know few plants by their proper names. I only accidentally learned the name liriope when a friend, an avid gardener, admired it in the yard. I acted like I knew what she was talking about: “Oh yes, the liriope. I like it too.”

In truth I didn’t know what it was, and I certainly didn’t know that it flowered. I thought it was a grass-like ground cover that never bloomed. But I’ve learned to appreciate its sweet lavender blossom, its hardiness. Like the crepe myrtle, it brings color to the late-summer garden.

It’s also demure, and I’ve come to realize that I admire that in a plant. Something that doesn’t call attention to itself, that improves on second glance, that brightens the dreariest corner.

And that would be … liriope.

Butterfly Garden

Butterfly Garden

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Morning in the backyard, monarchs light on the coneflowers. I only capture one each in these photos but there have been pairs and trios and even more.

Meanwhile, in another section of the garden, a female cardinal splashes in the bird bath, wiggles her little body around, then jumps out.

A small plane and a loud lawnmower provide the background noise to this seasonal tableau. It’s July, summer’s in full swing.

Buds, Blooms and Petals

Buds, Blooms and Petals

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The climbing roses reached their peak yesterday. I snapped photos of them from every angle, and Claire took photos with her new phone camera, too.

I tried to drink in their beauty as I scrubbed the porch table and chairs, as I removed the green film from the outside of the flower pots.

I tried to enjoy them during dinner with the storm that would be their undoing already making itself felt in the heavy air and ominous clouds.

I think I was successful, in as much as we humans every fully are. To savor the moment, the perfection of the bud and bloom, knowing full well the pile of petals that will follow — that about sums it up, doesn’t it?

From Above

From Above

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The climbing roses are hitting their peak, creamy pink flowers on a carpet of green. While you can enjoy them from the deck or yard, they are best seen from a second floor bedroom window, where I snapped this shot.

I think there may be a life lesson in this: getting up and above things to see them whole.

With the climbing roses, as with life, perspective is all.

Begin the Day

Begin the Day

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May is unfolding slowly here, with cool nights and days that stay firmly in the 70s. I think that’s about to change soon, so I’m enjoying this cool morning and the bird song I hear as I write this post.

The trees have fully leafed out and the annuals I’ve planted are taking root. In the front yard, the breakout roses have snuck up on me again. (They’re not as full and healthy as the roses here … I wish … but given the shade in which they struggle, at least they’re still alive.) In fact, all is green and growing here, especially the weeds!

Inside, clocks are ticking, Copper is napping (after our walk at 7) and I’m grabbing a few quiet moments of what promises to be a busy one.

Thinking of all the possibilities …

It’s a good way to begin the day.

Peony for your Thoughts

Peony for your Thoughts

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It’s been here for decades, this peony. It doesn’t always thrive; some years it doesn’t even bloom. But it remains. A stalwart.

Does it like where it’s been planted? It looks more comfortable than usual this year. The greenery is full and the ants were in place (which is required, I believe), so I tucked the mulch carefully around the stems, and snapped this shot.

The peony was one of the originals I ordered in my early attempt at an English cottage garden, an idea that didn’t flourish in this hard-packed Virginia clay soil. But it reminds me of my youthful enthusiasm and my gardening naïveté. It harkens back to a time before deer ate most of the plants and stilt grass had yet to invade our turf.

But enough of this gardening gloom. It’s May, and the peony (singular) is in bloom. All’s right with the world!

Fallen Petals

Fallen Petals

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In a slight twist on “March winds and April showers,” we’re in the midst of an April wind that follows on the heels of an April shower.

That has meant that the April flowers, in this case the lovely pink rose-like blooms of the Kwanzan cherry, are no longer attached to the tree but strewn about the grass.

This is the way of the world, is it not? And has anyone expressed this more simply and more beautifully than Robert Frost?

“So leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.” 

Flower Power

Flower Power

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Saturday I impulsively bought two hyacinths at the grocery store. They were tidy little plants then, barely open at all. But even on the short drive home they filled the car with their scent. Now they’re doing the same in the house.

I thought they would make a pretty Easter centerpiece, but they’re opening so fast that I may have to buy another arrangement before Sunday.

The point is, they are blooming now, I tell myself. So enjoy them. Savor the blooming and the bending. Prop up the heaviest flowers with skewer sticks so they stay upright. And then … inhale deeply.

Procession of Bloom

Procession of Bloom

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According to my favorite weather site, the cherry blossoms may last as long as 10 days this year. Though I haven’t checked on the Tidal Basin flowers since Monday evening, I can tell by the hordes on Metro that hanami is still in full force.

As the blooming season moves out to my neighborhood (always a few days later than the city trees), my ho-hum daily drives are taking on a hanami quality of their own. I’m slowing down, seeking out the streets I know from years past.

There are the Bradford pears in Franklin Farm, the redbuds on Folkstone, the Kwanzan cherry in my own front yard. All of this, if the weather cooperates, in a slow steady procession through dogwoods and azaleas — a riot of bloom that takes us from the gray trunks of winter all the way to the vivid fuchsias and scarlets of  mid-May.