A Tour Of The Garden In May, Part I

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All my hard work of past years has finally been rewarded this Spring.  Don't get me wrong, a beautiful garden is a work in process and takes years to develop.  It is not a one time thing as I've discovered, but years of trial and error, hard work and learning from your mistakes.  You can get a landscaper to come in and do it all for you, but my daughter and I love to garden and we wanted our garden, like the inside of our house, to have character and to be "us".

This year, the peonies take center stage.  The profusion and the colors are staggering.  I don't even cut them anymore.  I don't have enough vases in the house and the place already looks like a funeral home!

The photo above was taken AFTER I had already placed some in containers for arranging.

 The first to come out, the biggest and, always the most reliable, is the Sarah Bernhardt peony.  No wonder it has won so many prizes.

I have already cut over 20 of these for both my living room and Madame Mere's

This other is Duchesse the Nemours.  There are two plants, one white with a yellow center and the other a blush pink, also with a yellow center.

Here's the light pink in a vase

There's also Festiva Maxima in white and a dark red which did not do as well and was not as profuse as the others.

The tea roses have also been fantastic, so far.  I have been on top of them treating them for pests which come in every size and color here in Georgia. Let's see who wins this battle.  I would put my money on the bugs, they always win.   I usually give up and swear I will never have another rose in my garden again...until next year.  I have finally compromised and grow only three bushes in front of MM's window.  She keeps guard.  Everyday.  Like a hawk!

The photo above was taken in the afternoon after a brief rain shower.  They never look this good as we get into the hot summer.  We will see how well we do this year.

The photo on top is the New Dawn rose, a prolific climber, now in its third season.

Stay tuned for the rest of the garden...

All photos have been taken by and are the property of Lindaraxa.  

Lindaraxa's Garden In May

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I can't keep up with everything that is blooming in the garden this month. I am like a kid in a candy store!  I am sure the neighbors must think this is the first house I have ever lived in my life.   Every day something new comes out and I am out there morning, noon and night marveling at it and taking pictures.   More often than not, it is something I have never seen before. 

As a city girl for many years and a commuter business woman/mother of two for the rest, I haven't done any gardening since I left Connecticut in 1995.  Then I had what everyone has up North:  lilacs, azaleas, rhododendrons, pachysandra, a pear tree here, an apple one there:  maybe forsythia, oh yes!  and peonies and many ,many roses, always my favorite.   Except for the latter, beautiful but a real pain in the neck, all those other plants sort of took care of themselves.  A little fertilizer and pruning in the Spring and Fall and, voila! flowers in the Spring.

This is different, though.  The previous owners obviously were serious gardeners,  for the amount of perennials in both the front and back gardens is non stop...week, after week.  I have a feeling it stops in about a month when the heat and the humidity become so unbearable that everything wilts, including me.  The house had been empty for a long time and I am sure most of the plants have not been pruned or fertilized in awhile.  As bushes finish blooming I fertilize and trim a little.  Most of the pruning will be done in the Fall, hopefully by someone who knows what they are doing! 

In the meantime, take a look...I am blessed!

I have no idea what this is.  I think it came from a bulb and it just started blooming this week.

This is gorgeous!  and separates our house from the neighbor's.  No idea or how long it blooms.

Along the front of the house next to the path that leads to the front door I have New Guinea impatients in pots and on the ground...just in case.

This little fellow was having a banquet under my neighbor's oak tree until he saw me coming.  See ya!

In the front garden by the street...no idea.

Day lilies...got one! (my daughter told me) These are under the cherry trees, tons of them, together with some beautiful evergreens and perennials yet to bloom.

Lantana! (my neighbor told me) by the side of the house.

The gardenias here have more blooms than any others I have seen.  Welcome to the South.  Eat your heart out Northeners!

More gardenias in the back

No words are necessary....

These we planted... just a few roses to see how they do.

I know what this is but I am having temporary amnesia

On the right of the path, we have planted oregano, two kinds of thyme, lavender and rosemary.  The rest of the herbs are in pots on the deck.

My daughter's attempt at a wild flower garden...work in process.

My daughter came home one day last year with this birdhouse.  Someone was selling them from the back of their trunk at the Walmart parking lot. It has now found a real home although, to date, no tenants.  The azaleas are looking much healthier now that they have been fertilized.

Look at the details, the dog, cat, shoes and the work on the fireplace.

At long last, the hydrangeas.  I hate blue flowers but have to admit they are gorgeous.

Not the intense blue we had by the lake but still....

See? we have cleared the back.  Well, my daughter has.  She did so much work for the last month!

The king of the weeds, or perhaps a sunflower! BTW, those weed looking things in back are supposedly wild flowers, or so I hope.  There are dahlias too somewhere.

These guys came out last week on the side of the house and they almost gave me a heart attack.  I was weeding and pruning and picking up debris after a rainstorm when out of the corner of my eye.....this huge red flower!

I would love to hear from you and perhaps get a pointer or two on some of these blooms.  I intend to do a lot of reading about perennials and by next Spring I promise you I will be rattling off their names like a real pro!

The sous chef wouldn't let me sign off without showing you her grass! It's come a long way and I am so, so proud, although I have to admit we have a great service that got rid of the weeds and fertilized.  Next, aeration!...another work in process.

On a later note....look who just got busted!

All photos Lindaraxa

Oh Christmas Tree!...A Lifetime of Memories

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In the early seventies, just before my son was born, I saw the most beautiful Christmas tree in the window of Bergdorf Goodman, my favorite New York store.  It was decorated with silk balls covered in pearls,colored stones,  ribbons, silver and gold.  I knew it was the look I wanted for my tree then and forever.  UNFORTUNATELY, the price of each ornament was so outside my budget as to make it a non starter.  No matter, I was going to make them myself.  Little did I know that I would spend the next 12 months making ornaments non stop.

I am one of these people that when they focus on something, it becomes an obsession.  Every night after dinner, I would go down to the basement where I had converted my husband's tool table into my atelier.  I must have stuck thousands of pins into balls and bells in those twelve months!  Thank heavens I was pregnant at the time with my son  and my ever expanding belly became a nice prop to rest my ornaments as I worked.  Mother used to say she wouldn't be surprised if the baby was born with a pin in his mouth! I must have made over a hundred balls, more than 10 bells (they were the hardest) and I don't know how many eggs.  In those days, we did not have Michael's or Hobby Craft but there were nice hobby stores where I purchased the essentials.  The ribbons were from fabric stores, my mother's sewing closet, hats or wherever I could find them. Everyone was alerted to call if they came across a pretty ribbon.

We had a wonderful store in Connecticut called The Christmas Store (dah..) where I bought beautiful gold chains, angels and butterflies to fill the empty spaces around the tree.  Needless to say, it was a long and time consuming process.

The first year I put  up the tree, I couldn't decide which ornaments to put up front.  Every  time I unwrapped a ball it was so beautiful it had to go front and center.  After hours of decorating the tree I finally lit it up and went to the kitchen to make dinner.  All of a sudden I heard this clunk and a scream from my two year old.  The tree was so heavy up front it had fallen on her while she was standing in the den looking at the ornaments.  She was so traumatized that for years she wouldn't go near a Christmas tree.

These ornaments have been packed and unpacked in every house we have lived in.  Several years ago, I gave them to my daughter who carefully repacks them every year.  A lot of the pins and stones have fallen off  but since each is packed in its own baggie, we are able to re pin the following year.  Even though they are over 30 years old there is very little damage.  I think they know how much they are loved!. 

This year we purchased a 10 foot tree for our living room, the tallest we've ever had.  What a great excuse to go out and buy more stuff.  We found beautiful snowflakes and stars at Target for a very reasonable price.

Now that the ornaments are officially my daughter's, I have to contain myself when it comes to the process.  For, you see, there is a process.  Lights, chains, balls, bells, people, angels, eggs, snowflakes, stars... and butterflies last!  I understand that last year my daughter almost killed my son for trying to hang the balls before the chains!

This year it took us two days (and half a bottle of Advil) to decorate the tree.  If you want to look at the photos of the family trip to the Christmas tree farm click here.

Struck by Lightning!

Pin It My favorite bougainvillea topiary died last night, struck by a severe lightning storm that hit Miami in the overnight hours of 6/6/09. It was the pride and joy of the neighborhood and my assistant chef Lucy's favorite place to relieve herself. Our neighborhood will never be the same.

Bougainvillea is a genus of flowering plants native to South America from Brazil west to Peru and south to southern Argentina. Different authors accept between four and 18 species in the genus. The plant was discovered in Brazil in 1768, by Philibert Commerçon, French Botanist accompanying French Navy admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his his voyage of circumnavigation. They grow in warm climates, particularly Mexico, Florida, the Keys, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, South America, the Mediterranean countries, Southern California, South Carolina and Texas. I am sure I am missing a country or two, so if you reside in one of them I'm sure I will be hearing from you.

This is the second bougainvillea casualty in less than two months, the other being ours which is sick from something that has eaten all the leaves. I have been treating it with Bayers Advanced Insect Control for flowering trees and bushes and spraying it with a copper solution and praying that it comes back. The prognosis does not look good, particularly with all the rain we have been getting which bougainvilleas hate.

I am very sorry to see that the topiary will not be replaced. In its stead, there are a couple of pretty bushes by the side of the driveway waiting to be planted. The other show stopper in the neighborhood, my mother's bougainvillea, is a bigger problem because it shades and provides a hanging place for all the beautiful orchids she grows. We will be devastated if it doesn't make it. Ay vey, sometimes we don't realize the value of our plants until they get sick or die.

What I Miss the Most...Spring in New England

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Even though we have beautiful flowers and shrubs here in South Florida, to me there is nothing like Spring (and Fall) in New England.  My friend and classmate (CRH) Libby Wilkie of Libby Wilkie Designs in Poughkeepsie, New York just posted some pictures of what is blooming in her garden this Spring.  It made me pea green with envy, particularly of the lilacs.  I can close my eyes and smell them.  They remind me of the lilac bushes next to my bedroom window in my house in Connecticut.  For two weeks, sleeping in that room was like sleeping in heaven.  I've posted so many pictures of our blooms here in Florida that I thought I should give equal time to the blooms in New England.  Besides, Libby and I are kindred spirits...We love Westies, have blogs and tweet!