The bounty of our garden never includes vegetables because we have too much shade — but oh! Everything else!
Rhodies bursting into color. Comfrey stretching up in regal glory. Ferns gone wild.
Tidying the front bed a little. Planted two creeping junipers.
Everything (almost) dies under the front black walnut, so this year I’m going to plant some tall grasses in containers for a little screening.
In between ruining my hands weeding and planting, work is getting finished.
Cupcake pin cushion construction learned years ago from artist whose name I’m sorry I can’t recall but does it matter when there are thousands of tutorials on it now and Pinterest pix in the millions?
I like this new one because the open frets of the vintage button offer an easily identifiable spot for needles.
Phlox and ostrich ferns. Front bed with Mother’s Day petunias adding color. One of many Jack in the Pulpits in our yard… this one grows near the stone gravemarker of our two cats, Tyler and Calypso.
All of a sudden, the profusion of growth in New England makes the mind reel. It is happening so fast! Everywhere I turn, something flowers or blades upward, about to unfurl. Even the sweet woodruff, so humble and unassuming, offers a splendid display.
I think I have another fiber artist to thank for the multitude of blooms on our wisteria. Normally, our vine confounds us by producing one or two blossoms — maybe five in a lush year. I have tried ‘savagely pruning’, as recommended on Victory Garden or some similar show, but with never with any real results.
This year, however, fiber artist and papermaker Velma Bolyard put out the call for wisteria vine in order to try weaving with its bast (her work as an artist and teacher is inspiring — find her here: Wake Robin). So, I cut the vine a couple of times in April — something I never have done before — and voila! It is going like gangbusters out there with pale clusters of flowers all over. I will have to make a note to repeat the pruning in April next spring!
Day 15
The ferns grow at an amazing clip.
The fiber house is soon to be enclosed by greenery.
But the best unfolding of the day was the happy, happy news that my sister has been deemed eligible for both SSI and SSDI. I screamed outloud and peed myself a little, it was such good news. (Eighty percent of applicants are turned down at the first go ’round). I was prepared for the appeal process and ANOTHER five or six months of uncertainty. Suddenly, a future for her seems possible. Suddenly, four months of effort have a positive resolution. I might even go so far as to assert that the $50,ooo I paid for a legal education paid off a little today.
The bounty of our garden never includes vegetables because we have too much shade — but oh! Everything else!
Rhodies bursting into color. Comfrey stretching up in regal glory. Ferns gone wild.
Tidying the front bed a little. Planted two creeping junipers.
In between ruining my hands weeding and planting, work is getting finished.
Cupcake pin cushion construction learned years ago from artist whose name I’m sorry I can’t recall but does it matter when there are thousands of tutorials on it now and Pinterest pix in the millions?
