smatterings

walk with me wednesday..

Look at this, I’ve found proof.  The seasons are changing again and spring is on the way.  It’ll take months, longer than the groundhog predicted only a couple weeks ago in Punxsutawney.  What can he know of our seasons so far to his north?  It is only the middle of February and here in the Kingdom, the snow will still be hanging around the back of the barn well into May.  But the light is changing; the days are somehow less grey.   Against the snow there is a brightening of color; last year’s new growth is swelling. 

This is the only pussy I found today.  One day of sun would be all they need to pop.

    

Last spring, I was miserably disappointed when I found the tall line of willows I’d planted along the dam munched down to nubs by the newcomer beaver.  I'm usually pretty good at dealing with offenders.  Not this one.  He eluded my trap time after time, tripping the door with well placed whips from my lovely willows.   This is the one that got away.  But that is another story.

The willows are making a comeback.  Weeds that they are, it won’t take long.  I admit that I was  curious to see what would happen to my pollarded plants.  It was something that I was thinking of doing before the beaver beat me to it.

The shape of what remains is hardly orderly.  If I were truly a gardener, a lover of order, I’d prune them to a respectable form.   I’m intrigued, at least for now, by the wild shapes that have been left behind. 

 

 

With luck, there should be new willows popping up along the shore where the beaver left his tender snacks behind to root.

winter gardens.. light catchers

I'd thought to show you pictures of the January thaw.  But, there weren't any walks for me the past week, and now it is February.  I've had a terrific cold, perhaps enhanced by the H1N1 flu shot that I got at a free clinic.  I was down for the count by 7:30 that evening.  Coincidence, probably.  None the less, walking in the cold and wind with aches and chills, didn't happen.  The thaw continued without me.  Almost.  Most of the thaw is extra work; raking snow from the roof, chipping away heavier ice packs to free up the walks and drive and pushing away accumulating slush when it finally melts.  One part, my favorite to be sure, is the formation of icicles.  Big, shining, light refracting stalactites of frozen water. I know that icicles and stalactites are different in composition, but they are alike too.   It is an interesting article.  Early in the thaw, as I do every winter if the icicles are large enough, I filled my planters with frozen light catchers. 

Backward seasons...

After a warm sunny reprieve, it is back to the cold damp days of a New England spring.  No matter.  During the late winter months, as the days grow longer and brighter, my indoor garden begins to set buds.  By March, the orchids begin to bloom.  Yesterday, I counted over a dozen plants blooming or soon to be.  The jasmine is at it's peak, the fragrance overwhelming.  There is an amaryllis that surprised me this year, it's red blossoms showing themselves through the branches of a smallish tree.  The hibiscus that I cut back severely, just before bringing it indoors last fall has forgiven me and although still nearly devoid of greenery, has begun to bloom with dozens of buds coming along behind.  Come May, when the outdoor canopy leafs out, it will be dark indoors, fall to my indoor garden.  

 

waiting for allium

It was in my Grandmother's garden, that I first saw allium.  She had ordered the bulbs and planted them, as you do most bulbs, the previous autumn.  Now it was spring, the time when the smell of honeysuckle filled the air.  She walked us out, along the garden paths to show us her treasure.  They were the most amazing flowers I had ever seen.  Not of this earth, surely.  It was in the days when space exploration was new.  We had put a man on the moon.  This flower, this strange orb, must have hitched a ride home in the bag with the moon rocks.  I have loved them since. 

just like magic!

my indoor garden