Archives for May 2007

Strolling around the garden early this morning, camera in hand, I surprised Vincent Van Bunny (Surely there’s no better name for a one-eared rabbit!) hiding in a corner of the back patio. He bolted out, hopping straight toward me in a panic before veering to the left and under the fence into the neighbor’s yard a la Peter Rabbit. Time to spray that Liquid Fence again. I’m not too upset by his presence – in fact you can probably tell I get a kick out of seeing him – because after all these weeks I’ve seen no evidence that he’s eating my plants. As a precaution, I netted a lot of the vegetables, but even the unprotected ones seem fine. And believe me, I check them every day. Some would say obsessively. I justify that obsession this way: yesterday in my lunch salad I was able to include a handful of tiny, sweet Blue Lake green beans fresh off the vine. Yum.

Lots of new blooms to report. Darlow’s Enigma is another of the heirloom climbing roses we planted early in the spring. The flowers are tiny and sweetly scented, but a LONG way from covering the trellis by which they are planted.

The hydrangea is loaded with flower clusters this year after a particularly hard pruning last fall. The color, although perhaps not so interesting or intense, mixes well in bouquets. Like the lady’s mantle, it adds a note of the green I love as a foil to the other flower colors.

The Zephirine Drouhin climbing roses, nearly thornless as promised by J & P, are just beginning to bloom. They will eventually climb the trellising over the front and back gates.

Reclaiming its regular patch of ground is the bee balm (Monarda) I planted a few years back. Every year it spreads a bit further and by mid summer has gone all leggy and unattractive. But now, in late spring, it attracts the bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds in abundance, more than living up to its name.

The baby sweater is nearing completion, especially if I decide to leave off the hood and make it a simple cardigan. I want to be done with it by the end of the first week of June, and since the only seams will be at the shoulder (three-needle bind-off: easy peasy and good-looking to boot) and fitting the sleeve caps into the armholes, that should be doable. After I wash and block it to soften up that Tessin yarn, I will return it to my friend who made the sleeves so she can sew on some cute and colorful buttons.

With my 50th birthday fast approaching, I’ve decided not to indulge in any age-related angst and simply to milk it for all it’s worth. Any friends reading this who’d like to take me out for lunch, dinner, or a drink, I’m saying YES to all offers. And I promise: no whining, no pity parties, no pulling my eyelids up or my neck down to ask, “What do you think? Eyes or neck first? Botox or collagen?” Nope. You won’t hear it from me. The women in my family have good genes; my paternal grandmother lived to 94. If I’m lucky, I’ll do the same, and I’ll be one of those in the scarlet high tops, whacking disrespectful children out of the way with my cane as I skateboard past them in the mall. Then I’ll climb (slowly and carefully) back on my Vespa and putt-putt back to the senior living community.

Having admitted to myself (the first step to recovery is to admit there’s a problem, right?) that when I’m not in the garden it’s because I’m knitting, and when I’m not knitting it’s because I’m in the garden, I’ve decided to include knitting in the blog (so much for the concept of recovery). For those whose interest is exclusively the gardening, I will continue to post photos of my garden throughout the seasons. But for those who share my alternative passion (knitting, that is) my projects both on the needles and off will now get air-play as well. Such as these tipless gloves I made last fall out of Koigu KPPPM from Sandi Rosner’s little book Not Just Socks.

I try really, really hard to stick to one project at a time. I like to think I’m disciplined when it comes to knitting, although anyone who has seen my yarn stash is falling on the floor laughing by now. But the actual knitting, come on. Seldom will you see me with two or more projects in progress simultaneously. Although below is one project that languished in oblivion – I mean in progress – for the better part of three years while I attended to other urgent matters such as my husband’s birthday sweater which he received mere days after his actual birthday and weeks before Christmas so there.

Shadow the Queen of All Cats loves this beaded shawl, made out of Schaefer Helena from a pattern by Lily Chin. I figured out where to place the beads (not part of the actual pattern) using the “Hoisted Atop Stitches” method in Chin’s book Knit and Crochet with Beads . I had only the one skein, so the shawl is more of a shoulder wrap, but cozy nonetheless.

Thus, we reach my present conundrum. No sooner did I start a new cardigan for myself out of the soft Classic Elite Princess (40% merino, 28% viscose, 10% cashmere, 15% nylon, 7% angora):

than a friend and I decided to share the work of making a baby sweater for another friend’s daughter, who is due with her first baby in mid-June. She’s making the sleeves (read: has already completed the sleeves), and I am to make the body and hood. Well, this morning I finally cast on… because I’d really like to finish my cardigan first but let’s face it, Little Miss Alacrity is making me look bad.

The good news is, the hooded baby sweater is a quick and easy Noro pattern: simple six-stitch cables down the front and around the edge of the hood, on size 9 needles (we’re using Muench “Tessin,” a machine-washable wool blend that gets softer with each laundering).

Spent a solid hour dead-heading the roses yesterday, and realized that the first flush of bloom is nearly over. Time to fertilize the plants and do the Full Moon Dance to the Gods of Rebloom. There are still buds on several of the rosebushes, and if memory serves (god only knows who memory serves lately – certainly not me.) some of them are late season bloomers anyway. This Crown Princess Margareta from J & P has loads of new buds on it and new growth appears virtually overnight just below the latest dead-heading cut.

Below is the first bloom of a new “Arctic Queen” clematis from Chalk Hill Clematis, which I planted early in the spring by the back gate. It has only two forlorn and skinny shoots at this point, and they are so wobbly I had to prop them up with plant supports. The flower, however, is gorgeous. I look forward to the day a couple of years from now when these blossoms smother their section of fencing:

This was given to me by a friend who couldn’t remember its name. It is an evergreen perennial, and the original clump has doubled (perhaps tripled) in size since she gave it to me. I think, from a perusal of my Sunset Western Garden Book, that it’s Stokesia laevis, or Stokes Aster, but if anyone knows differently, please educate me. Maybe sea holly, or sea lavender?

Our front garden is full of volunteer California poppies in the standard neon orange-yellow. I love their cheerful brightness among the roses, and encourage them to spread. The following, however, brought me up short. Never before have I seen anything like this in the California poppy family:

That’s it for the UFOs, but here are a couple of new flowerers I particularly like. This geranium is of the “Firecracker” variety, with brilliant magenta flower spikes. They’ve been very happy to share a pot with the pink snapdragons.

One of the new climbing roses from Heirloom has begun to climb and bloom. Frankly, the climbing is a little slow for my liking, but the blooms are lovely. The variety is “Super Dorothy,” and the deep rose shade is absolutely splendid. If I close my eyes, I can already see them covering the pergola in the back garden… although that is years into the future. I hope I’m still living here then to enjoy them. The blooms are teeny-tiny bits of rose perfection, and the buds – well, we’re talking the size of my pinkie fingernail. Lovely delicate fragrance, too. One floribunda stem would make a bouquet worthy of Tinkerbell.

Oh, how quickly the pristine trickling waters of the new “water feature” devolved into algae-coated, mosquito-infested sludge… and so much for the advice of the delivery guy, who blithely suggested, “Just pour a capful of Listerine into it from time to time: No Problem.” Hah!

The local nursery offered Pond and Fountain Water Cleaner, and I hope it works, because you can see the less than satisfactory results of the Listerine Solution above. Blech! And since I just learned that the new owners of the house next door are planning a 1,700 square foot addition that will virtually double the size of the house, the sound of that fountain may help me keep my sanity while the project is under construction. So much for my fantasy of sitting outside under the pergola this summer, writing and knitting to the splashing sound (not jackhammers and drilling) of the fountain.

A distant cousin of Peter Cottontail’s seems determined to take up residence in the garden. I’ve spotted him sitting still as a stone among the primroses, and cozying up to the strawberry pots with their unripe berries dangling temptingly from each pocket, and even – not surprisingly – checking out the vegetable garden. How do I know it is always the same rabbit? Easy. He has only one ear… definitely a distinctive feature, or rather LACK of feature, among the rabbit population.

This guy is obviously a tough customer. No shy little Easter bunny is he. Oh, no. More like the mafia capo of the rabbit species, surviving in the wilds by dint of his cunning and speed… except for that unfortunate incident that cost him an ear. The only rabbit allowed to stay in this garden is this one here: A gift from my daughter for Mother’s Day.

You’d never know it to see this tree, bowed as it is under the weight of ripening fruit, but I have pulled a couple of hundred baby peaches off of it, to try and give these thin, young branches a fighting chance. Sacrificing any of the fruit is always hard; every handful that goes into the green waste bin is one less pie or tart, or one less jar of peach jam I’ll be able to make in July. Better to be noble now than to watch the whole tree rip out of the ground because the peaches are too heavy for it to support their weight. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

The first baby artichokes are making their appearance on the new plants. I’m hoping for three this season, so we can each enjoy one without having to share… because if there aren’t enough artichokes to go around, dinnertime can get ugly in this house!