This Spring's Surprises

For years, I've grown squash in my veggie bed. And for years, the experience has been predictable. The little squash plants grow big and impressive, showing off their yellow flowers like nobody's business. Take this photo from 2005, our first garden at this house:



Soon a zucchini or yellow squash arrives, just one or two that seem teasers for what's to come. Witness our younger selves here, harvesting our first squash of that first season:



Don't we look proud and hopeful? In only days we'll look dismayed. That year and every other year, my squash plants fell like the hero in a Shakespearean tragedy. The squash vine borer--the Iago of the veggie garden, working its malice behind the scenes--gets us every time, and our plants go from lush to dessicated in no time flat.

This year I decided to skip the squash. I've planted tomatoes, peppers, bush beans, herbs, okra, but no squash.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my old compost pile started sprouting. And sprouting some more. And before I knew it, a world of squash vines were running across it. I've not watered them, not tended them, but they're flowering and starting to set the first of their squash. What kind of squash? I have no idea. If I find out before the borers set in, I'll let you know.



Other surprises this season seem designed to make me feel I may actually be becoming a gardener . Volunteer snapdragons have shown up out front, scattered near the tire bed where last year I grew a gorgeous array of snapdragons. Welcome, I said. And welcome to the flame acanthus babies (which I'm happy to give away to a good home). Welcome to firewitch dianthus popping up where some died two years ago. Welcome!



Then the happy surprise I came home to this afternoon. Two small vines, lovingly tucked into wet paper towels and plastic bags and set on the chair on the front porch. My goodness, I'm tickled pink. Once, years ago, I visited a poet in San Antonio, and after walking to lunch from her house, we came home to discover someone had left her a jar of honey on the front porch. I was charmed. Now someone's left me vines.

I've brought them inside and set them in the dish drainer for the evening.



I hope my benefactor identifies his or herself, so that I can plant these babies appropriately, gardener that I am becoming.

Mid-April Larkspur Love Fest

When Chris and I got engaged last June, we decided to hold off on setting a wedding date and just enjoy being engaged for awhile. That lasted a few months, but by autumn I was getting fidgety. What I knew was that our backyard wedding was going to be a fine excuse for overdoing it in the garden. So I said, "How about mid-April?" and he said, "Sure!" And then I sent a note to a bunch of friendly fellow garden bloggers and asked for suggestions about flowers. They delivered.

"Roses!" they said. "Bluebonnets!" "Poppies!" "Larkspur!" How right they were! The past few weeks in the garden have been outstanding, including the blooms my friends suggested. The larkspur in particular have knocked me out.





Since we moved in, we've only used half of the raised bed the previous owners made for the veggies. We can't handle any more veggies than that, and often can't even handle that. The back of the bed has been covered with black plastic to keep the weeds down and the area fallow. So last fall I uncovered it, turned the soil, and threw down larkspur and poppy seeds.



What was once an ugly area of plastic became a meadow.



Ahhh. But what about the wedding? Well, we moved it to October. New jobs and busy lives and poor planning made the April wedding seem heavy on stress and light on joy. We'd rather it be the other way around. So we're enjoying our roses and sages and poppies and planning for the cosmos and esperanza and pride of Barbados and fall aster and morning glories of October.

When we changed the date, we agreed to have a get-together on April 12th even so, to celebrate the day. So last Saturday we had 21 for dinner in our new screened-in deck, a fabulous gathering of good friends bringing good wishes. As I scrambled to get dinner together, I gave two friends scissors and vases and sent them out back. On our tables that night and all through the week? Larkspur, of course.

I Am Slow in My Thank Yous

I arrived home from last Saturday's Garden Bloggers Spring Fling abuzz, telling stories of gardening conversations, our stunning stroll through James David's garden, those 100 buds waiting on Pam's Belinda's Dream, and so happy to have heard Mary Oliver aloud again during Tom Spencer's lunchtime talk. But it's taken me a week to say thank you. What an amazing event! Thank you to Pam, MSS, Bonnie, Diana, and all who chipped in to make that beautiful Saturday even more beautiful. I'm grateful to have been included.

March Bloom Day

As the garden returns after the winter, so I return to garden blogging. First, the fabulous bulbine that really hasn’t stopped blooming since last March, backed by purple trailing lantana.




It isn’t winter, really, that’s kept me from blogging. For awhile it was how overwhelmed I was with the garden itself, after the summer’s heavy rains made the weeds entirely unmanageable. Then it was the busy-ness of a new job with its new demands. Then a desire to back off my internet time, which was becoming consuming. In the end, however, I haven’t been blogging because I blog much as I garden: in fits and starts. I’d love to be an industrious gardener, digging out weeds and mulching the beds regularly. I’m not.

Even so, I greet my messy blooms with great enthusiasm. And mid-March starts to get very exciting in Texas. Here are some things that got me going on Friday afternoon, after flying back from a trip to Chicago, where the weather was warming but the ground very brown.

I hadn’t realized that gopher plant had a hint of red in its middle.



Old blush rose in a pot peeks over the fence. Old fence, new fence, rose.



Also blooming: oxalis in purple, pink and white; firecracker plant; lots of lantana; salvia greggi in pink and white…



The wooly butterfly bush, which was cut way back in the winter, has its first bloom; the Carolina Jessamine has its only bloom. Also, shrimp plant, prairie verbena, Meyer lemon; blue aloe; and the lacy flush of cilantro past its season.

Columbine looks cheerful and determined against a lavender wall.




And finally, the first poppies of the season (and my first poppies ever) white linen California poppy. I planted a slew of wildflowers last fall in anticipation of our April wedding in the backyard. The wedding’s been moved to October, but we’re planning to enjoy the imminent color with a spring gathering.


Meanwhile, we plan for fall.

Vento di Rose

My favorite garden of the summer of 2007 was not my own. (We've been calling the entire property -- garden, lawn, driveway -- the Mekong Delta, but more on that later.) My favorite garden (and favorite spot, and favorite days) of the summer was at Vento di Rose , the idyllic B&B in Monterrubiano, Italy, where we spent five days in late June.



Emanuela and Emidio named their hillside home, below the medieval village of Monterrubiano with views over valleys of olive and grape, for the roses they grow in abundance on the grounds. (A rough translation is "Wind of Roses.")



And though the roses weren't blooming when we were there, the property was so gorgeously adorned with plumbago and lavender, bouganvillea and begonias, that my gardener's self rejoiced.

The rest of me rejoiced too, because after an exciting but exhausting trip through Rome, Sicily, and Abruzzo, with visits to ancestral villages and a sumptuous wedding, it was time to relax. Amid all that beauty, with the distant sound of tractors in the fields and hammocks roped between trees, it was easier than I'd imagined.

(Oh, and ask me sometime about breakfast!
The sprigs of lavender or blossoms of yellow awaiting us at our place settings were just the beginning!)

The details were lovingly considered, from the hanging baskets of succulents to the handmade linens from Emidio's grandmother's home. We were overcome.







Since returning in early July, a yearning for Vento di Rose has lingered. Chris and I agreed that we'd never been anyplace more beautiful. So as I return to my garden, and my garden blog, I wanted to share some glimpses. They remain for my inspiration of how gardens can reflect the soul of a place, and Emanuela and Emidio were soulful through and through.

A Profusion of Susans: June Bloom Day

In less than 8 hours I'll be at the airport, off to overseas bloom adventures, and I've hardly got time to blog. But here's a quick and dirty of what's blooming in my garden just a few days before bloom day this June. Perhaps I'll have time to log on and tell you what's blooming in Rome on the real bloom day.

Salvia greggi
Bee balm (horse mint, lemon mint)
Wooly butterfly bush
Gregg's mist
Cigar plant
Lantana (and lots of it)
Purple heart
Shrimp plant


Indigo spires
White yarrow
Bulbine (it just keeps on going!)
Verbena -- red and purple trailing, lavender moss, and those tall tumbling ones from Annie's garden too!
Ice plant
Acacia
Mexican flame vine, new and along the unsightly chain link fence that links us to a vacant lot


Four nerve daisy
Pink rose of no known name
Morning glory
Trumpet vine
Oxalis
Coral nymph and red sage
Night blooming jasmine, reminding me of my 30th birthday in Key West
A few things I've forgotten

And these super fantastic black-eyed Susans that look nothing like I expectred but are gorgeous and gone crazy. I'll miss them when I'm away. Good thing there'll be someone here to enjoy them.


Joy and good summer tidings to all.

May Bloom Day

If the blooms were dependent on me, there might be slim reporting to do for bloom day this month. Entropy reigns around here in my bit-off-more-than-I-can-chew world. Thankfully, gardening is an activity that rewards previous work. Today, that means I still get to enjoy lots of color around the homestead.

I'm a day late for bloom day, but here's a quick-and-dirty list. I bet next May I'll be glad to look back and see what was blooming, even as I scurried around.

Still blooming from last month:

Indigo spires
Shrimp plant
Salvia greggi in white and pink
Woolly butterfly bush
Trailing verbena in purple and red
Moss verbena
Red Yucca
Oxalis oxalis oxalis
Ox-eye daisy
Cedar sage (in red and coral nymph)
Bulbine
Four nerve daisy
Ice plant
Columbine
Purple heart

New blooms this month:

The much-lauded bee balm
Lantana lantana lantana
Orange trumpet vine

Pomegranate
Gregg’s mist
Firecracker plant
Mexican flame vine
White yarrow
Mexican mint marigold


Then there's this fantastic yellow bloom from a Mrs. Maynord plant tucked to the side of the house. Pam has it in her garden too, but I didn't catch the name.



Veggies are blooming too: squash, peppers, tomatoes. And the caterpillars have found the fennel -- oh have they found the fennel!

And almost, but not quite, black-eyed Susan. A little recompense for the heat to come...

Thanking the Leeks

At our Austin garden bloggers tour, Julie talked about a garden writer who talks to her plants, thanking them. I don’t remember the details (perhaps Julie can remind me?) but I remember staying quiet, shy amid new friends. Truth is, I thank my garden all the time.

In particular, I say thank you to vegetables at the end of the growing season, thanking them for feeding us, for making their way to our round dining room table where we eat off green plates and share the stories of our days. Thank you kale, for all those vitamins. Thank you lettuce, for taking so perfectly to my olive oil and balsamic. Thank you snow peas, for the hidden surprises we picked and ate right in the moment.

Today I said thank you to the leeks. They’d grown so quietly in their corner of the garden while other plants got all the attention – exclamations over yellow chard, the first flowers on the squash plants. We’d pretty much forgotten them. But today I pulled them from the ground, laid them out flat, and said a thank you.



Then I cleaned them, chopped them, and added them to the pot with carrots, onions, garlic, rosemary (from the front bed), tomatoes, and chicken for tonight’s stew. If the airline gods smile on Chris, we’ll eat only a little late, with rice and the chard begging to be cut back and brought into the kitchen.