One day
It depends on how you say it and where you put emphasis on the words. There are multiple meanings. Jane responded she liked the triplets. ?? dunno? Meanwhile, how much fun can you pack into one day?
We took the slow road up US 9 to get. Sometimes, it is about the journey and the scenery. One mansion and gardens, one farmer’s market, one museum, and dinner! Wonderful! Behind every great man is a woman – a great one! That’s what the tour guide said. Antics? Triplets?? Whatever! It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be fun! And, so it was! Priceless!
Scheduled? No. Unplanned? We had a loose framework – tickets to Nemours and a dinner reservation at either end. In between we made up our own adventures. I love it when a plan works! I changed into khakis for dinner. You cannot see I am without shorts at dinner. Neat trick! Still, no socks.
Antics? Triplets? Photoshop for better or not gets us to an old trick which is amusing or not. Sometimes good and others not so. I just go with it. It fools some and not others. There was never any pretension of skill, only fun.
Six boards
I ordered 13 boxes of flooring – 20 sq ft x 13. One box was damaged and another delivered without a question. 14 boxes and I was short about six boards to finish the space completely. We bought another – whole box!! Ha ha. It comes in 2 ½ inch, 3 ½ inch, and 5 inch width. I had just installed 3 ½ inch. Our new box was 2 ½ inch. My bad! Oy!! I buried the narrow boards in the closet. No one will notice – maybe the new homeowners, eventually.
Can you see? The newest boards added are now narrower? The trim board at the bathroom floor transition is slightly narrower, (by an inch). Nope! Looks good! I’m sitckin’ with that! It was amazing that mostly the rows fit together like a puzzle with hardly (just a few) any cuts with the saw.
Flowers?! My reward for a day’s hard floor work, a photographic walk thru my garden. Yup, all planted for summer, good to go. In a weird way it is like diving in the Red Sea. Same flowers (same fish), they change every day. Flowers bloom, others fade, I am challenged to capture beauty and essence. Technique, focus, and composition are critical.
And so on and on… it makes Colleen smile … the floor or the flowers?
Dog days
90/90 – temp/humidity. Enough said. We got corn! I guess some of the bird seed germinated. Yup! A single corn stalk grows in the midst of one of the containers. Ha ha! Veggies? This is the garden harvest. It’s going to sauce. We are unable to keep up with the cherry tomato crop. The peppers? Four months of diligent watering and all I got were a handful. I have to rethink what I am planting. The flowers are fading. Bugs are all around. I like detail. It’s time to prepare for fall.
Instant garden
Here’s where the bang for your buck is worth it and lasts for a very long time, just not forever. I wish. It’s a trade. I have been container gardening for decades. It seems I have had a deck for a very long time. Living in a house now, I should be landscaping and planting in the yard. But containers give you a concentration of color without having to traipse all over and around the house. I/we went to the nursery and did a one (two) stop shop and brought home a palette of color. The garden will last about six months before fall takes them. It’s work. I will fully appreciate that effort on a summer day right about the time this post publishes.
Secret Garden
Way off down and away from the castle was a garden situated along a walk that took a while to reach. Not many people sought its serenity. The benches beckoned us to sit for quite a spell. Bliss. Peace. Tranquility. I don’t sit. I’m not a sitter. Colleen related to me the story of the Secret Garden. We sat. I was at peace. We held hands. The images don’t do justice to the moment. But, it triggers the remembrance of a cherished interlude. Thank you, honey.
Garden fresh
I already have a tomato picture. My complaint is that by the time they are ripe it’s anticlimactic. The farmer’s markets are full of ripe tomatoes. And, mine come ripe too many at a time. It’s a nice problem to have. I should not complain. This is my first time with sweet banana peppers. They are good too. They are a bit less fragile. There are some jalapenos out there. I will save them for the kids. They like it hot.
Tomato
Ripe red juicy! Imagine that! I watered the plant that bore these beauties. Proud! I can hardly believe my green thumb. Yes, they taste as good as they look!
Asian lily
Short lived. Just a couple weeks in June. Darn! Then I have a green plant for the rest of the summer. Spectacular when it blooms, the green plant is hardly much to see when all the company arrives in July. I can’t bring myself to retire the plant. Rabbits would love it. They ate them in a few seconds in the yard. But no, this spectacular bloom is mine. So I enjoyed it to the fullest extent possible.
Weed
It’s clover. Clover’s good. It adds nitrogen. I don’t pay much attention and consider it a weed. Then it flowered in my pot unbidden. It was pretty until the bloom faded. When I went to pull it the root system was extensive and everything else in the container faded soon after. I had to do a new planting and fertilize like crazy. Go figure. I’m still an amateur with plants.
Outside
Reduced to eating outside. We adapted to eating our meals to the last remaining open space. We have a spectacular deck space after all the plantings. I even have lights! It’s really idyllic. The setting is as good as any outdoor restaurant. Until, you add a picker. Don’t ask. It’s a device to comb out wool fiber. And it’s dangerous. And it takes up my last available space. … and so, we gotta eat out. Colleen loves eating out.
Garden proud
I am very pleased at how the spring planting turned out. And with my good images piling up, you would have a good flower photo every day for a good long time. Instead, I summarize. I may sneak some more shots but… In the front the wisteria is coming along nicely. They are beginning to grow across and obscure the balcony rail. Roses, the bane of my garden, occasionally reward me with some color. I have mostly sickly looking roses. Nope, I am not a rose person. Otherwise the back deck is predicated on summer long color. It has no organization. There is a mix of perennial and annual flowers. Sometimes the perennials show up again and sometimes not. Herbs grow. And for the first time I am cooking with fresh herbs. The cats eat fresh catnip. But mostly, they enjoy grass. Imagine? My cats eat grass like cows.
Gardening in Manhattan
I have been successful in the past. I remember it being lusher. The flowers were more robust. Is it my imagination or my memory? What hasn’t worked in Delaware is begonias, alyssum, and geraniums. Maybe it’s poor stock at Home Depot. Looking back, I am puzzled. The same principles do not apply and did not follow me. Same sun, same technique, different result. It remains a work in progress. Once upon a time I had quite a garden in the heart of Manhattan.
Follies
A garden folly is something that is placed/constructed in a garden to cause the viewer to pause. It’s an architectural feature of a garden. I think “gazebo.” Then, think far more creatively. We saw a whole bunch. Why folly? It ain’t a “show.” Who knows? That’s what they call ‘em. If I had more time, I’d consider lounging about for a spell.
Yes, this castle-like structure was built as a garden folly. Go figure. You can climb it. It was designed with a wide stair to allow people to climb and descend easily.
Perennial
We got these flowers at Winterthur. The gardens have a great variety of plants. Name? This year I vainly saved the little plastic identifying tags and can’t find this one. It starts as a puff box and blooms into an attractive flower. Yeah! I like the details and surprise you get with some of them. Hopefully they will survive the winter and show up again next year. Details! I’m getting more detail and less distraction.
Garden
Here’s my rose garden now. The best garden is the one I can admire but don’t have to tend. No weeding. No deadheading. No watering. Just admire and smile. I did container gardening for more than twenty years. I’ll pull out some slides and show you someday. Plant, wait for the flowers to grow, deadhead, water, and fuss. It was a pretty damn good garden. It was like therapy. I’d water for an hour and be pretty mellow. Then it became a chore. And no one appreciated the effort. Oh well. Everything changes. These days, this is my garden. It is a landscape of coral that look like gray stalks underwater. Shine a daylight color balanced strobe on them and they are spectacular. You don’t have to agree. Fine by me. But I get to admire them and they always make me smile. They are down below 70 feet. Not too many divers venture here. No one seems intent on destroying beauty. There was a gorgeous fan coral someone destroyed not too far from here. Fortunately, the beauty of this coral is hidden until you make them shine. I get to see a lot of neat things. I get to see them over and over. This sort of makes all the downside better. Like roses with thorns, coral has the nasty habit of giving you skin irritation. So remember. Don’t touch nothin,’ nothin’ ever! I can assure you my advice is sound. (I’m itching the back of my hand as we speak.)
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