Weekend in Maine...

I had the pleasure of spending some time in Maine this weekend.  

Lot's of Red winged black birds.  

Gorgeous weather. Beautiful beaches. Delicious lobsters.  Friendly people.  

Meanwhile back at the house, the garden beds are planted.  

The irises and poppies are blooming.  

New friends...

I wanted to be sure to share this picture as well... Nugget is the kitten.  A stray rescued from the pound by one of my nephews.  Delta is the bunny... lost and unclaimed on a garden lawn and rescued by my sister.... They are fast friends who now sometimes share a nap.  In this shot, Nugget fell asleep on top of Delta who just wanted to eat her carrot in peace.  

Today's writer's compost:  "Strange bedfellows"

The Iris has arrived and with it, Rainbows

This weekend brought an inch and a half of rain and iris buds... A few have bloomed.  This one is in front of the Alliums ... 

Now the garden is looking quite full... The peony buds continue to grow... the lupines and bee balm is gaining in height, the poppies are rounding out.  The columbine has bloomed as well.    

In the moon garden all four "corner" shrubs are in full bloom.  The Snowball Viburnum and Bridal Wreath spirea at one end; the white beach rose and another Viburnum with horizontal blooms anchoring the other by the arbor.   I am debating pruning the horizontal viburnum back this year vs. moving it.  Anyway, these are common shrubs for a garden.  They are striking and grouped together to anchor the Moon Garden their profuse white spring blooms are frame the space quite nicely.  

It's been heavy on the rain and work... but I'll post more pictures of the irises as they bloom... I have some 40 or so around the gardens.... stay tuned... 

Writer's compost:  The Greek Goddess Iris is known as the 'Keeper of Rainbows'.  Imagine you are her, where would you keep them?  When might you share them?

Getting ready for the Peonies

Peonies are native to Western North America, Southern Europe and Asia, however, they manage quite nicely here in Connecticut.  Best planted in the fall, the peony depends on that cold snap to bloom so mulching is not necessary.  Cool well drained soil is best. 

My garden has quite a few plants.  They are full of buds and growing nicely.  

Yesterday in my basic garden chores I staked a few plants which didn't have garden rings yet.  Usually I place the rings around the Peonies before they gain any height.  3 Weeks ago the peonies were just popping up through the soil.  Today they are 1-3 feet tall.  It was now or never for the rings.  

They support the Peony stems which will have full heavy blooms.  They'll stand on their own at first but with a single rain they are likely to slump over and their blooms will be more difficult to see amid the garden growth.  Thinning the buds is recommended leaving only the main terminal bud.  I don't do this.

By the way, the plants without stakes are ones I moved or "split" last fall.  I knew it was a risk. Peonies don't like to be moved and can "punish" the gardener by not blooming for a few seasons.  But it looks like it will be an abundant bloom year despite my tempting the mischievous Peony nymphs. 

Anyway -- Just a quick comment about the buds.  If you love this plant you should be aware that ants do too.   Ants crawl all over Peony buds.  Sometimes dozens per bud well into dusk.  They are eating the sweet droplets on the bud itself.  For this reason, consider carefully how close you plant Peonies to your foundation.  The ants wont hurt you.  They don't hurt the plant.  But they will find your peonies.  

Recap

So the rain stopped.  The wind stayed.  But still, it was a good day to garden.  Today I was able to start some new projects and do some "housecleaning".  

First the Allium.  Gorgeous.  Last year it was lost in the back of the perennial garden.  I moved it up to the middle/front around the bird bath.  It's happy.  I'm happy.

Next.  I managed to get a shot of our visiting Turkey today.  She hung out on the front lawn for a bit and then down the street she went.  Not the best shot but you get the idea.

Today I weeded the Pergola area.  I mulched the new shrubs I put in last weekend and installed a soaker hose through the shrub area.  Soaker hoses allow the water to drip from them along their entire length.  This allows water to seep into the ground without "spraying" the water in the air where some loss occurs from wind/dissipation etc.  Therefore for managing new plantings soaker hoses are very resource efficient.  

I had lost a silvermound in the garden outside my living room so I weeded this garden and replanted a new one.  Not sure what happened to the silvermound.  It was in its third year and seemed okay but these things happen.  This is a standing garden -- I don't change it year over year.  Its design is meant to be viewed straight on AND at an angle from East to West --- The silvermound was there for a balance effect in the former and a center line of sight in the latter.  

Finally my family installed the raised beds in the vegetable garden today.  More soil is needed so I'll get clean fill this week.  I mixed organic soil with Peat today to fill two beds.  Two more to go.  

I did see the deer but not the fox and not the hummingbird.  Oh well.  There's always tomorrow.  "Til then, E

Rain, rain go away...

So it seems "April Showers, May flowers" is more of a guideline.  

This first week of May has been nothing but rain.  The tulips are gone. The daffodils are soggy.  The rhododendron flowers that the bumble bee was enjoying with abandon are scattered.  While it rained the Allium bloomed as did the lilacs and Columbine.  Unfortunately, the rain was all the dandelions needed.  The lawn, mowed last week is knee deep and a sea of yellow. 

During all of this the cats remained inside or stowed away in the shed and on the porch.  

Today, the rain stopped.  I enjoyed a brief garden walk this morning with my coffee.  I saw the Bleeding Hearts bouncing as if still dancing amid raindrops.  It was the hummingbird.  The first I've seen of her this season.  

Before I could grab my camera a Turkey appeared. Then another.  The first was female.  The male was following her.  They walked from the back of the property to the front and then ran down the street to the Farm entrance.  

I had a lot of errands to run today.  But when I came back I happened upon a red fox making his way through my yard.  

A hummingbird, two turkeys and a fox.  So much better than the ticks hitchhiking on Munchie's sleek grey coat.  

Either way, they are all welcome.  They are excited to be out and about now that the rain has stopped.  I went grocery shopping.  They are foraging, hunting, making their way through their day.  I can't wait until Tomorrow.  I wonder what else I'll see.  

The power of punctuation

Yesterday it rained. Now, the tulips, rhododendrons, and daffodil petals litter the garden floor. But it looks like today will in fact be a good day to get into the garden.

For me a rainy day is a day to write. I did in the early morning. Yesterday was also a day for me to visit the local garden center. The garden bordering the moon garden is on tap today. Some prep was done for this garden last weekend but today is the big day to replant it. It will be a shrub garden with a red theme. I also went to the lumber yard to buy new wood for the vegetable garden. I think this year we'll use raised beds. Anyway, more on this later. Let's look at the recent dilemma.

Editing is an important part of writing. Edit: thinks correct, adapt, cut, eliminate, revise, prepare [for publication] etc. I do a lot of editing of my own work but I also reach out to respected peer poets. In this latest case a peer expertly suggested a revision of line breaks.

18 lines tightened to 12
Impact: the poem is much more powerful because each line is strong -- less fragmented.

In the original version the line breaks of these words flowed as follows:
["the cut of blade jagged/desire unwanted/children..."]

The suggested edits are : ["the cut of blade -- jagged--desire /unwanted children..."]

The tightening is good. The problem is that it's not the children which are unwanted. It's the adult's presence unwanted by the child.

There are many possible additional edits under consideration.
1. put a comma after the word unwanted so it reads "unwanted, children..." (problem is the poem is w/o punctuation currently)
2. move unwanted up a line so it reads "jagged --desire unwanted/children..." (problem is the line is too long then -- breaks the rhythm)
3 remove the word desire (changes meaning)

it's not the only dilemma. I also have a decision to make with ["a penny in a fountain/ without water --we wish you gone --silent..."] vs. ["a penny in a waterless fountain/we wish you gone - silent/"]

Anyway. The poem is called Rough Cut. It's a day old so it's VERY early in it's editing lifecycle. Sometimes it's good to ponder these poetic dilemmas from a different vantage point. Say, the garden. The "red" garden. I think that's what I'll do!

Tulips fall prey to deer and spring rains

It's Friday, the first day of May and it's raining.

I have enjoyed my tulips for almost a week now...

A line from one of my in progress poems currently reads...

["drinking

tulips clink blush red cups

fall over in the rain"] (Eli)

This year at least I saw some tulips. I surrounded them with daffodils to hide them from the grazing deer. They love to eat tulips.



In this picture you can see Whisper who insists she is not the culprit who broke this stem.

In all likelihood it was Munchie. This tulip had the misfortune of being planted next to the catmint. Munchie can't help but roll around on it. He insists he's protecting it. I insist he's smothering it.

In the front garden I tend to stick to the lavendars, pinks, whites etc. offsetting the yellow and cream daffodils.

In the main back garden where we get full sun, I planted a mix of colors and bloom times. early spring, mid spring,late spring etc.

They are in the second layer of the border and intermixed between the summer bulbs and irises to protect them from curious doe. It was a risk but it seems to have paid off. The risk being that the deer might "step" into the garden to find them and harm other plants.

Anyway, I lost some tulips on the border but not many. Much better than last year.

And in this last garden under the pink dogwood, a garden which I have been slowly deconstructing, the tulips have arisen with a new fierceness. They will not be defeated.

It's inevitable I suppose that where I want to plant them the deer notice them. And where I want to move them from, the deer leave them unnoticed.

Now as a point of fact, I don't mind sacrificing a few tulips to the deer. I don't even mind that they eat them, really. It's a game. Find the tulips.




For the most part we learn that if we want to see spring bulbs bloom plant daffodils. We accept this. We may plant tulips. But after that, it's out of our hands.

I point you to the last line of one of my pieces is something my mother said to me the spring before she passed away... She was referencing the rain more than the deer when she said it after finding her front garden tulips beaten and battered by showers.

["This fall," she instructs, "plant
daffodils. They bloom so much
longer than the tulips" ]

I'm off to the opera. Have a great night! Eli