These crocus more than two weeks early this year
The weatherman says things are warming up early.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/15/10704138-warming-up-mighty-early-across-parts-of-us
We really didn’t need him to tell us. I’ve had sonowdrops and crocus blooming already for several days. I have daffodils heavily budded and one hyacinth near the house showing purple too. Al Sgroi says he has already planted peas.
Every gardener sh
ould have a tall sunflower jungle picture. So this year is my chance. I planted a few in what I thought was the least favorable corner of the garden. And they grew and grew. Now I’m cutting for the table for us and feeding the birds outside. The goldfinches are already eating to their heart’s content and yesterday I saw cardinals, another seedeater, flying nearby. The tallest is 4 feet higher than I can reach which means it’s about 12 feet tall. I planted several different types so I have lots of different colors too. Delightful!
You could call it the mother lode of daylilies, but I just cannot resist the sheer beauty of a hillside filled with a variety of hemerocallis in bloom. That is what you see at Grace Gardens. (Hemerocallis is the formal scientific name for a daylily.) I try to visit at least once each summer and I have already been there twice this year. Each time I go I end up adding one or two more of these elegant flowers to my own collection. Tom and Kathy Rood invent new daylily varieties too. Kathy has one named after her now that has been featured in a magazine because it is very fragrant. I knelt down to smell its pleasant fragrance on this trip. I recommend visiting just to enjoy the beauty. But be prepared to get snared by the charm of hemerocallis too. Open house is this Saturday.
http://www.gracegardens.com/
E. M. Mills Rose Garden visit June 20, 2011
This last weekend was a big celebration weekend for me and for my wife too. It was Father’s Day and I enjoyed appropriate attention and good food on account of that occasion. It was also the weekend we could tell our friends at Community Wesleyan the good news—those who had not read my blog or heard by the grapevine—that our daughter and son-in-law are expecting so we are going to be grandparents for the first time! That is cause for celebration! I hear that grandkids are the greatest!
Then to put the celebration over the top, Monday, June 20, was our 41st anniversary. We spent the bucks last year for the big four-O. So this year was lower key. We soaked up some sun amid the beauty of the Syracuse Rose Garden—delightful smells and eye-popping beauty. Then it was out to dinner at Red Lobster—I highly recommend the maple glazed salmon and shrimp. JoAnne says our wedding happened on a bright sunny but windy day a lot like this June 20! We consider each other a treasure and pray that God grants us many years of good health to enjoy together.
A few weeks ago we visited Keely and Mark and while we were there we took time to relax in the gardens at Elizabeth Park in West Hartford, Conn. I have written before that I like to look for quiet spots to relax. Well, this is a beautiful one. It’s main feature is the extensive rose garden which was not in bloom this early in the spring. But it also features this exquisite annual garden which is very well tended. In the spring it is planted to tulips. It also has goldfish ponds and grassy areas. I have not had time to blog about it until now so here is a gallery of some shots we took.
One of the great joys of summer for me is daylily season. Hemerocallis is one of my very favorite summer flowers. It is hardy, easy to grow, makes a good display and has few enemies. It transplants well, divides well, and is generally hard to kill, although the voles have been trying. When I arrived here, there was only one kind, the old-fashioned one, growing here. Now I have collected about three dozen varieties and every year I try to add a few more. Some I get from friends, some I buy in stores or from specialty catalogs and I have purchased several at Grace Gardens (http://gracegardens.com/), a daylily garden near Geneva that I love to visit. In recent years, I have tried to be better at recording the names, but with the way CNY winters beat up my name plates, I unfortunately have lost names regularly. Several of my lilies I inherited from my Grandmother Isaman, including one called Frans Hall that is still sold in catalogs today.
The name, daylily, comes from the fact that each bloom lasts only one day. (However, I have collected one strange but very fragrant variety that blooms each evening and closes in the morning). Many people are not aware that some strains are fragrant. In a way, it is sad each evening as beautiful displays come to an end with the setting sun. Yet in another sense, I always think about how every morning I have a brand new garden display! It is one small way God’s mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3: 22,23 ESV). The old blossoms of the night before were faded in the sun or beaten up by rain, but the new ones of the morning are perfect. So each morning all summer during day lily season, I go out to see what has opened for today. I have observed unusual things on those morning walks too. One morning, I found a green tree frog backed down into a large daylily blossom. If I extend the spiritual analogy, as a Christian, I can look forward each morning to how God’s grace will make this day a fresh experience walking with my Savior.
I’m including a few pictures from this year’s gardens. You may notice that I tend toward the jungle look in gardens as opposed to the neatly-separated-plants look. I like the happy coincidences that happen as plants overlap. I’d rather they fill in the spaces, and then I don’t have to. If it’s weeds – well, I will eventually get to them…
