Calla Lilly, Side Yard
These have appeared all over self’s yard. None of them were planted by her.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves 3
June 17, 2013 at 6:58 am (Flowers, postaday, Sundays, Surprises)
Tags: flower photography, Flowers, Gardens, photography, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting 2
June 11, 2013 at 5:53 am (Flowers, postaday)
Tags: flower photography, Flowers, Gardens, Mondays, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
Against a Backyard Fence: Climbing Don Juan
Self’s climbing Don Juan rose blooms only once a year, around April. During the summer (now), it shrivels away to nearly bare twigs, because of where self planted it: it gets intense afternoon heat from noon to seven p.m. Self planted several things in front of it to help absorb the glare, but those other things remain slender saplings and barely cast any shadow. Live and learn.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Experimenting (1st Tuesday of June 2013)
June 5, 2013 at 3:15 am (Flowers)
Tags: discoveries, flower photography, Gardens, photography, summer
Indeterminate
Indeterminate II
Self has been experimenting with her garden photography. This morning, she noticed her newest clematis, which goes by the name of “Regal Josephine,” has one gorgeous almost-bloom. So she bent down to try and take a close-up, but this new camera isn’t as good as her old one and she just couldn’t get the flower into focus. But, hola! She saw something else while peering through the viewfinder: this camera is very good at taking blurry foreground shots! Happiness! Just take a look at these!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Look! Look! Look! (May 2013)
May 7, 2013 at 4:13 pm (Flowers)
Tags: flower photography, Gardens, happiness
Against a Backyard Fence: Climbing Don Juan
More Backyard Flowers: Gertrude Jekyll Rose and Euryops
Side Yard: Geraniums Beneath the Dining Room Windows
Blooming Today (First Tuesday of April 2013)
April 2, 2013 at 11:22 pm (Flowers)
Tags: flower photography, Gardens, happiness, pets
It was a bee-yoo-ti-ful day!
The man had jury duty. In the afternoon, he mowed and watered.
Self successfully bundled The Ancient One into her car, made it to Petco, and wheedled the young girl there into giving Bella an extra-fragrant shampoo and blow-dry. Self sat on a chair and waited until she was done. So relaxing! It was worth it, especially to have Bella smelling so good, after such a long time!
Then she was able to return home and gaze with extreme happiness at her garden:
Powder-Blue Crested Iris: Self thinks she’s in love!
The Polka started blooming yesterday!
More and more of those blue irises are coming up. Happy happy joy joy!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Her New Clematis
March 31, 2013 at 11:28 pm (Flowers, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: flower photography, Gardens, happiness, indulgences, Sundays
Here’s my newest clematis: an anemone clematis called “Freda.” There were about 10 left over in the parking lot of Wegmans, last week.
Self’s newest indulgence: a Clematis montana “Freda”
Self has decided she’ll take a chance and grow it in a pot, so that she can fill up her front porch:
These little suckers are going to burst into bloom ANY DAY NOW!
A very fulfilling end to self’s Easter. Happiness, happiness.
Stay tuned.
More Flowers! As Well as Another Passage from DON QUIJOTE
March 31, 2013 at 5:20 pm (Books, Flowers, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: flower photography, Gardens, novel, Sundays
More Irises Blooming Today!
Happy Easter, All.
Self is about a third of the way through Don Quijote (the translation by Burton Raffels). It is epic. Going from Anna Karenina to this (bypassing War and Peace) was the right decision, after all.
Here’s a passage self read this morning, from Volume 1, Chapter 38. It happens to be about war and about Don Quijote’s reflections on gunpowder – an infernal invention that forever killed nobility and knighthood. Self finds it very moving:
Those were indeed blessed times which knew nothing of demoniacal cannonading ‘s ghastly fury, the inventor of which must be in Hell, receiving his due reward for so fiendish an invention, which allows a vile, cowardly arm to pluck the life out of a brave knight, who without knowing how it happens, or from whence it comes, and in the full sway of that courage and energy which burn in brave hearts, is struck by a wandering bullet, fired, perhaps, by someone who fled in panic at the roar and glare when he touched off his cursed machine, thus cutting short and forever ending every thought, and indeed the very life, of one who deserved to live all through the long ages. And when I think of this I must say that my heart is heavy, having taken on this profession of knight errantry, in an age as loathsome as that in which we now live, because although I am myself afraid of nothing, nevertheless it makes me regretful to think that gunpowder and tin may deprive me of the chance to acquire fame and great reputation, across the known world, for the courage of my arm and the keenness of my sword.
Polka is about to bloom!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
More Irises!
March 30, 2013 at 5:52 pm (Flowers, Recommended, Surprises)
Tags: flower photography, Gardens, photography, Saturdays
Self ordered about 15 iris bulbs from Dutch Gardens last year. A dozen were Powder-Blue Crested Irises, and three were “Purple Rain” irises.
She started to think the bulbs were a dud, but suddenly about half a dozen blue irises popped up in the side yard, where self forgot she planted them!
Powder Blue Crested Iris, suddenly presenting in backyard!
(Behind, on the fence, is a wooden angel)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Blooming Today (Last Tuesday of March 2013)
March 26, 2013 at 6:26 pm (Flowers)
Tags: discoveries, flower photography, Gardens, happiness, photography
These are bulbs, today of all days self cannot recall their names. She’ll hazard a guess: fritillaria?
It was only after she went to El Mercadito Latino last Sunday that she found out her small apple tree is a “Hawthorne” — the market had bottles of tiny apples, exactly like the ones this small tree produces every year, and the label on the apples said “Hawthorne Apples”.
Self is planting. It is an absolutely gorgeous day. It takes her longer than it used to, to dig a planting hole. The plant she hopes she can finish putting into the ground today is a Salvia “Wendy’s Wish.”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Blooming Now in Self’s Garden, Last Tuesday of February (2013)
February 26, 2013 at 11:52 pm (Books, Flowers, Recommended, Weather)
Tags: flower photography, Gardens, happiness, novel, Russian literature, seasons, transitions
It was a bee-yoo-ti-ful day! The second beautiful day in a row.
Neighbors on all sides were out in their yards, pruning, staking, watering, and so forth.
The tallest cherry tree in the backyard is covered with blooms, and the plants in the side yard are covered with flowers:
Viburnum Tinus, Side Yard
Self was so pleased with this specimen that she purchased another Viburnum and put it in the front yard, a few weeks ago.
Cherry Blossoms! One of the cherry trees in self’s backyard began blooming last weekend.
And, wouldn’t you know, on p. 162 of Anna Karenina (the Modern Library version), self reads this:
For the last few weeks it had been steadily fine frosty weather. In the daytime it thawed in the sun, but at night there were seven degrees of frost. There was such a frozen surface on the snow that they drove the wagons without staying on the roads. Easter came in the snow. Then all of a sudden, on Easter Monday, a warm wind sprang up, storm clouds swooped down, and for three days and three nights the warm, driving rain fell in streams. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a thick gray fog brooded over the land as though hiding the mysteries of the transformations that were being wrought in nature. Behind the fog there was the flowing of water, the crackling and floating of ice, the swift rush of turbid, foaming torrents; and on the following Monday, in the evening, the fog parted, the storm clouds split up into little curling crests of cloud, the sky cleared, and the real spring had come.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
