Tags : garden | gardening | spring

Bookish Gardener
Sun May 9 22:23:10 EDT 2010
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Bye, bye, Beetle - A small commemoration, two years on, of the day my trusty Volkswagen Beetle, slug bug blue, was T-boned and totalled. The week or so after impact was mercifully lost to Morpheus, then followed by a crazy quilt of memories distinguishable...

Evonymus, to Linnae(v)s - Euonymus alata 'Rudy Haag'. (Photo credit: Jessamyn Roll) Our little* burning bush bloomed for the first time this spring, with barely noticeable yellow blooms, the size of a pinky nail. This fall's first berries are sprinkled delicately throughout the denuded...

Nifty - "Where's my coffee?" (This MadMom incarnation comes courtesy of my 12-year-old.) The Twilight Zone turned 50 this month, too...but it never gets old. Much has been said about the suayve and deboyner "Don Draper", but I like to think that...

It's its own Grandpa - Since the climbing hydrangea here has (a) decided it's never going to bloom, at least not this decade, and (b) become favored fodder for this summer's roaming swarms of Japanese beetles, it's just as well that 'Grandpa Ott' morning glory...

I hope that someone gets my I hope that someone gets my I hope that someone gets my - message in a moblog. (Especially since the airwaves have eaten this post once already, ahem.) Came for Elvis, stayed for The Police. His Stingness was ON all night, Andy Summers even cracked a smile by the last encore, and Stewart...

When the heat gets subtropical - (...and the talk gets so topical*) The caladiums are happy in today's humid heat. I used to think that I didn't like caladiums. I'd seen them in too many desultory container plantings, where it seems that they could be swapped...

Beauty by the off-ramp - Observed, this July morning, while waiting for the left-turn green light off the Rimrock Road exit: sky-blue chicory next to violet thistle next to ivory Queen Anne's Lace, with rust-colored seedfronds of dock for contrast, and egg-yolk yellow bird's-foot trefoil...

Incredible edible - In the modest 48-square-feet-plus-whiskey-barrel allocated to edibles in my garden, form often trumps function in the things I grow to eat: lemon cucumbers, red okra, scarlet runner beans (two varieties), rainbow Swiss chard, Chinese long beans, Green Zebra tomatoes, purple-black...

Like looking in a mirror - My Simpsons avatar, courtesy of my 10-year old, from this site. It's a shocking revelation of both my inner Milhous and the fact that I really should become reacquainted with the gym sometime soon.

Will yew be my valentine? - The yews made it out of rehab this year, and the garden is benefiting from their triumphant comeback. Five years ago, they were the typical overlooked foundation hedge, trimmed into the classic crew cut, barely concealing barren, knobby-kneed branches and...

Drive, she said - Corinna: It says here that Sweetwater hosts the annual sorghum festival. What the h*** is sorghum? Alex: Third most popular cereal grain in the country. Corinna: How do you know that? Alex: I'm a gardener. I know crops. What's the...

Mullein spice - I'm told that our house sits on what used to be farmland not more than a generation ago, and mullein (Verbascum thapsis; common mullein, wooly mullein, flannel plant...you get the idea) is a farm weed that shows up here and...

Long live Sempervivum! - Power to the flower! The solitary fist (with a few extra knuckles) is upraised in a final, defiant, dramatic gesture. "Mansei!" (Korean for "10,000 years," equivalent to the Japanese "banzai") it cries, but it's this monocarpic hen's last stand.

Soundtrack - From Jontillman.com, via Asymmetrical Information: "If your life had a soundtrack, what would the music be? Here’s how it works: 1. open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod) 2. put it on shuffle 3. press play 4. for every...

Eminence verdigris - Statue of Linnaeus, The University of Chicago, early fall 2005. Photo credit: Jessamyn Roll When they named any thing, they turned toward it, and as they spoke, I saw and remembered that they called the thing they would point out...

Back to bookish - My review of Tom Turner's Garden History is posted at Human Flower Project. I'm very grateful to the delightful, generous and patient Julie Ardery for the chance to read and write about this very cool book.

Put on the red light - Geranium 'Rozanne' Ah...the weekend that was. Three Whole Days of weeding, and mulching, and (plant) shopping, and (plant) planting, and (picture) snapping, and (garden) gazing (the peonies this year are early, tall, and gorgeous), all under temperate skies—not too hot,...

Try to remember - Last summer's June: Lavender, penstemons, mullein, petunias, snapdragons, hops, marigolds and cabbages. Snow Friday, snow Saturday, snow today, snow tomorrow, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The shrubs are waist-deep in it. The night sky, glowing white, softly pelts its...

Bud by bud - Afghan iris. I saw this flower open last spring. The blossom was furled in a tight, pointed whorl. I looked away. When I looked back, one of the falls had snuck out from behind the curtains, as if to say...

"Congratulations, Universe. You win." - It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Laurie Colwin, "A Mythological Subject," The Lone Pilgrim. So! Within 48 hours after I last rang off with such high hopes, we had a bit of unwelcome...