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.  

The Garden On Mother's Day

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It's been a long time since I last posted, probably the longest since I started this blog six years ago.  A new Sous Chef named Madison has taken more of my time and energy than I remember a new puppy required,  Add to that the fact that this house then decided it also needed some TLC.

It started with the new roof last summer together with some renovations in the kitchen, a new water heater, plus a new garage door opener.  All this happening while building a new apartment worthy of Madame Mere which, as you know, was a nightmare..  Then we had the two frozen pipes in the winter resulting in extensive repairs to the newly finished apartment.  The death of our beloved Sous Chef, Lucy, took a big toll on the family.  It was the worst experience I have ever gone through, but getting a new puppy right away was the best cure for our broken hearts.  She arrived  two months to the day that Lucy passed away.

Spring surprised us with the need to replace two of the three air conditioning units.  As if that weren't enough, when we turned on the sprinkler system in the garden, guess what?! No dice.  Probably as a result of having to move the pipes on the side of the house due to the rock path we had to build to backstop the water  from the heavy rains we got this Spring.  The maintenance and upkeep of an older house is never ending.

The garden suffered quite a bit this past winter due to the cold weather.  Some of our most beautiful southern plants don't do frost very well,   That includes the Confederate jasmine, gardenias and the hydrangeas macrophylla which bloom on last year's growth.  The poor gardenias which made such a great show a couple of summers ago and were toast last year are now toast crumbs.  They will need to be replaced.  My pride and joy, the Moonlight hydrangea came back and then got hit by the late frost as well.  I am holding my breath and hoping for the best but I seriously don't think it will bloom this year.  I was really looking forward to showing it off to MM.

Every year I swear I will not buy another plant.  Every year I break that promise and buy more than I can chew  For me, plants are the new shoes.

I could not resist the hydrangeas  Mathilda Gutges when I saw them at the garden center. This compact shrub bears attractive deep green leaves and large, rounded flower heads of deep pink in neutral soil, and intense violet-blue in acidic soil.  Our soil is acidic so in order to keep the beautiful lavender color, we decided to plant the pink in the whiskey barrel out back and the deep blues under the trees. 

The clematis put on quite a show and I am proud to say I now have a stress free garden around the mailbox. It's called KISS.(Keep it Simple Stupid) No more hauling a bucket of water up the hill in the middle of the summer sounds like a good idea to me.  It only took me three years to figure that one out.

We have many azaleas out back and they also put on quite a show in April.  This one, though, is my pride and joy although the photo doesn't do it justice.  It was a pitiful shrub when we bought the house but with some pruning and fertilizing  over the last three years it finally decided to join the parade.

The first of the David Austin roses, Winchester Cathedral.

The first of the David Austin Heritage rose.

I can't remember the name of this peony.  I planted it last Fall and it only gave us one bloom...but what a bloom!

The rest of the peonies are ready to burst out, right in Madame Mere's little garden.  Her apartment is to the right with a spectacular view of the garden.

And here they are the next day!

The tried and true, Sarah Bernhard.  She never fails me.

Bowl Of Beauty.

This little fellow was in the rose garden of my home in Connecticut.  When I moved to New York City.  I gave it to MM and it sat for years in the courtyard of her townhouse in Florida.  Who would have thought the three of us would reunite in a small town in Georgia!

Angelonia in front of MM's big window.

The dahlia garden (work in process!)

Geraniums for the deck.

Pots of fresh herbs on the deck.

The obligatory ferns by the front door of a true Southern home!

Winchester Cathedral bushes in the front garden

My feeble attempt at container gardening

Another new addition, the fox tail fern

But none of this would have been possible without the help of my garden crew, always by my side.

 Some of us work a little harder than others....

Keeping up a big garden like this is a lot of work, but I will have to say I rather enjoy it.  It beats getting up on a treadmill and lifting weights. It's funny,  people nowadays pay to exercise and pay again to have some one else do their yard work. Go figure.  Never mind the expense of buying the right shoes and the proper attire to get smelly and sweaty. I remember when I was young and only the very wealthy in this country could afford a full time gardener.  My father cut the grass, albeit in a small tractor, and he and my mother did all the weeding, planting and maintenance of our garden in Connecticut.  There was no Roundup in those days and a weed free lawn or flower bed meant you had to get on your hands and knees and pull.  If you had kids living at home between the ages of eight and sixteen, you had extra help for cheap.  It was called an allowance.  It paid for ice cream and movies. Extra work paid for dates.  Come Fall, you would hire a couple of kids from the neighborhood to help with the leaves.  People were thinner in those days and life was good.   We did not have a drug or a fat problem in this country like the one we have today. 

  Now that the garden is back in shape and I am a few pounds lighter, I will have more time to concentrate on cooking.  That is, unless something else falls apart...AGAIN.

The Last Of The Roses

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It was as if they knew it was their last hurrah.  Every single rose bud I clipped before the frigid temperatures arrived opened up perfectly. And the scent...oh my, the scent! It is pure rose and intoxicating.  No wonder Heritage is one of the most popular of the David Austin old English roses.

I am forwarding these photos to my granddaughter, Taylor Rose, after whom this rose bush is named. Whenever she comes to visit it is one of the first things she checks out.  Gardening together is one of our favorite pastimes no matter how brief her attention span may be.  Hopefully it will continue for years to come.

There is no need for words.  Just enjoy!

Tonight the temperatures are expected to dip into the low 20's.  I fear for everything I've planted this Fall but I've covered as much as I can with burlap and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Just four more months to go!

All photos Lindaraxa

A Rose By Any Other Name

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"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" is a commonly quoted part of a dialogue in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, in which Juliet argues that the names of things do not matter, only what things "are".

In Act II, Scene 2 of the play, the line is said by Juliet in reference to Romeo's house, Montague which would imply that his name means nothing and they should be together.

Juliet:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo:

[Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet:

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

The roses in this post are from one of my David Austin roses, "Heritage."  Rose is also the middle name of my daughter, Christina Rose, and my granddaughter, Taylor Rose.  Both are named after my mother in law, Rose, a great baker and gardener and a wonderful grandmother.  It is also the middle name of Princess Margaret Rose, Queen Elizabeth's sister.  I love the name and I think it makes for a beautiful middle name, when appropriate,  don't you?  Tell me, is there a favorite middle name in your family?

And although you can't see it because she wouldn't stay still, that is Coco Rose in her new rose collar. 

All photos Lindaraxa