Garden Walk – Day 1
I love flowers. Not hothouse or florist flowers, mind you – those are usually quite lovely, but a tad too perfect and somehow aloof in their beauty. No, my heart is taken by the ordinary garden variety of flowers and plants that mysteriously flourish throughout cold, heat, drought and the ravages of hungry bunnies in our sun-baked clay.
Over the next several days, I’d like you to walk with me, Oh Best Beloved, on a tour of our little yard, and view the wonders it contains.
Hibiscus: this has been the year of the hardy perennial hibiscus. Soup-plate sized blossoms in shades of white and pink cover plants that are over six feet tall. The seeds that I used to start these are from Monticello, and were harvested from the ancestors of hibiscus plants that Thomas Jefferson himself originally planted.
Morning Glories: the bees love these as much as I do! I started growing Morning Glories seventeen years ago, and harvest the seeds each fall for the next year’s garden.
Climbing Rose: the sweetly-scented flowers on this rose are a delight, slowing changing from a deep red to a candy lipstick pink as a bud progresses to full bloom. The bush is as tough as can be, withstanding winters of -40F and summers that have reached 100F – and is over 50 years old.
Cosmos: my delightful annual cosmos are as bright and cheery as can be, in shades of yellow and orange. These are just starting to bloom, as I only started the seeds outside in June – after our last frost – but they’ll bloom until the first heavy frost (or snow) in October.
Ferns: the entire side and back of our house is smothered in ferns, all grown from a single fern plant Michael’s grandmother gave us from her garden over 24 years ago. I love their cool greenness. The bunnies, too, love them as a hiding place.
And speaking of which…
Bunny: pretending to be a patch of grass and dandelions!
More tomorrow…
Critters, Garden, Village Life, bunnies | JAS | 
August 15, 2007 11:19 pm
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By Kris, in New England, August 17, 2007 @ 9:27 am
JAS – this is lovely! Such wonderful gardens you have, I’m so jealous! We live in such a heavily wooded area that nothing really grows except shade loving plants, which are catnip to the deer. Looking forward now to perusing thru day 2 – and hibicus is one of my faves!!!
By JAS, August 17, 2007 @ 3:34 pm
I just love the hibiscus – they looks so tropical! I have quite a bit of shade in my yard – just one strip that gets really good light and that’s crammed full of plants. But I’m really fortunate that even the areas under large trees get some light during parts of the day, leaving me many more options than you must have. About the deer – one of my buddies calls them ‘four hooved plant thieves’ – and they certainly are, aren’t they? We see deer very rarely on the road in front of the house, but never in our yard yet. We used to have a very destructive woodchuck, however, that could scarf down an entire flower bed in minutes. She and I had words, more than once!