perfect timing...
It just started pouring and I just finished planting some more flowers in the kitchen door garden. I finally finish painted the new siding I put on the bay window last year (yeah, I know, these things take time...). I dug out all the cactus under the window last year and it's been bare ever since, so today I planted a dozen seed grown Rocky Mountain Scarlet Geraniums, which are now about ten inches tall and were outgrowing their bedding pots. I also picked up three Asparagus densiflorus 'Sprengeri', commonly known as Asparagus Fern and potted them in a twelve inch container that will work nicely to transfer them into the reading nook off the kitchen when the weather turns too cold for them in the fall. My Father's mom, "Nana Toot", had a huge three foot tall by about two foot wide Arts and Crafts urn on her sun porch with an Asparagus Fern that had taken on a fantastic proportion, it reached the ceiling and draped almost all the way down to the floor. It was in a windowed corner and served as a backdrop for a beautiful Arts and Crafts gaming table, with an inlaid chess board, on which we played marathons of checkers, cheating and laughing for hours. She and my Grandfather, "Pop", lived in a beautiful Craftsman bungalow about two blocks from the Raritan Bay front in Middletown, NJ. The front yard had two huge Black Spruce trees and the front grounds were covered with Irish Ivy, which, never until just now, I realize is exactly what grows in the front yard of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor. How about that. Their property was edged with nicely shaped hedges of privet, sheared traditionally, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. Their side flower garden, which was built in a circular pattern, contained a tall lattice-work obelisk, on which grew the ever present Morning Glories, surrounded by Shasta Daisey's, many different varieties of Ferns, green and white variegated Hosta and the perimeter was surrounded by huge chunks of sharp-edged "rocks" of split glass, which were tailings my Grandfather mined from the banks of Delaware Bay in Cape May, NJ, where there used to be a glass factory in the 19th Century. They would dump the left over crucibles of molten glass into the water and it would solidify and fracture into strange and interesting shapes. The glass "rocks" were all shades of pink and green and blue and crystal clear and were a fantastic sight when struck by the sunlight. Their driveway was the typical "twenties" style, two strips of poured concrete, with a strip of grass between them, bordered on the side closest to the house by perennial gardens containing Lupine, Foxglove, Delphinium and the old style single Hollyhock. Around their feet grew a tangle of Nasturtium that would sometimes twine up around the flower stalks. Their back yard was dominated by a huge Weeping Willow, a Salix babylonica, it's pendulous branches sweeping the ground and affording a wonderfully dark and cool sitting area on hot summer days and nights. One of my most precious memories is sitting under that tree with them, watching a summer full moon rise into the clearest of night skies, smelling the drifting scent of the flowers mingled with a hint of salt water, carried on the barest of breezes off the bay, and mixing with the odor of the damp earth under the tree and the green smell of the leaves. No one spoke, the only sound was the shrill calling of the night-time insects and the swishing sound of the willow branches as they slowly moved in the zephyr... the only thing that could have made that scene more complete was someone strumming "Lazy Moon" slowly on a ukulele...
But I digress... and the sun has come back out to play, so I'm going to go tidy up some things and take some pictures for later.
Enjoy your day.


sow what you will...