THUD

I was up at 5:30. I went to sit on the porch. In the quiet dark half hour before I needed to get ready for work, I was able to breath just slightly unencumbered by thoughts of how I must use the day. These can sometimes be the sweetest minutes of my day. Before I’m caffeinated, before light, a soft drowse like a comforter still around me.
Then there was a thud in the darkness, and another. The apples were dropping in the neighbors orchard. Then the crowing began like every morning. Unseen things began to stir. I knew it was time to get up and go.
The day before I had avoided saying the word “Fall”, even though I watched the wind whip some yellow leaves off the alders out back. But this morning it was not only on my lips but in my body like a thud. Something has changed. Something has tipped. Something went thud. It was Fall’s first footstep into the garden. The ripening is beginning, though we’ve hardly had the heat needed for tomatoes, beans or corn. There will be figs and apples and pears. There are blackberries now and summer squash.
But today rains put off harvesting. Just desk work.
I welcome some hours indoors.

MOONFIRE

I don’t often think of the moon as fiery, shiny but not fiery. This weekend it pierced even our curtains with it’s full moon brightness. I hardly ever garden for moonlight, though I love it so. There are moonflowers and night scented stock and nicotiana, all white and fragrant, poised to lure moths. So why this dahlia got called ‘ Moonfire’ I don’t know. It’s as bright as a solar flare, easy , no-flopping and ever blooming from early June to November here.

THE RE[A]D GARDEN

I love to read.
You do to if you’re visiting blogs.
I’ve been hoping to to do what I love this summer, but have barely cracked teh first book in the stack: Oliver sacks “ Oaxacan Journal”. If you’ve read any of Oliver sacks books ( “Awakenings”, which later became a movie, or my favorite, “ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”) you would be surprised to learn this articulate and noteworthy neurologist is a lso a fern lover. His trip to Oaxaca takes him on a fern foray with pteridologist and fern lovers into the jungles of southern Mexico. I don’t want to give away the plot but the telling is sweet and insight full , and coming from such an unlikely place a pleasant surprise on my summer reading list.
Here’s the list:
“The Tree” , John Fowles
“ Tree: A Life Story”, David Suzuki
“ The Tree” , Colin Tudge
“ Arboretum America”, Diana Beresford-Kroeger
[ are you noticing a dendrological bent developing?]
“ Dear Friend and Gardener”, Beth Chatto & Christopher Lloyd
“ The Art of Seeing Things”, collected essays, John Burroughs
“ Farms as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Eco-Systems” Dana L. and Laura L. Jackson.
An ambitious list I know
What sort of ambition might it take to sit down to read, when there are blackberries and purple cabbage to pick?

FEAR OF FLOWERS

Flowers are one of the first things children draw. The simplistic symmetry of a daisy appeals to their happy budding minds. I shocked my sister, while she was visiting the farm last week when she saw our long row of “ Becky” shasta daisies.
“ You’re growing daisies? “ she asked with quizzical doubt.
“ I love daisies,” was my simple response.
I guess her memories of our parents hayfields full of weedy ox-eye daisies ( Leucanthemum vulgare) are different than mine. I know they’re noxious weeds, and degrade hay. But e when the fields are blistered from head to toe with sunny-side-up flowers, who could not be childishly happy. The unsophisticated beauty cheers the dullest heart.
I have one client who requested daisies for her cutting garden. After years i notice they were never cut. When i asked he she said she didn’t like the way they smelled. They have a bitter funk in Michael’s estimation. This same client has me make centerpieces every year for her summer party. It is always a challenge because I am not a florist. I did work as an assistant florist to one of the best floral designers in Germany, Heiko Kalitowitsch [ link in sidebar]. I learned a lot form him over those 2 years when I was living in Cologne. But mostly what I learned was I didn’t want to be a florist. I fear flowers too much.
Not the cutting edge “ fear of flowers’ that drove the foliage /texture revolution in gardening in the 90’s. But the fear of the unholdable, the wilting, the unpropable nature of flowers when they are removed from the plant.
I once was a man of nary an empty vase. Every possible thing was plucked, positioned and posed. That fascination is fading, though I admire the art. Now I rescue what is broken or fallen. I appreciate the single flowers more than the melange. Like Katsuo Okakura in his classic “ The Book of Tea” who laments man’s, especially european and american man’s brutish cutting and disposal of flowers. I hope to develop not just an aesthetic but a disposition that requires less of the flowers by which I’ll get more joy from them in situ.
A few months ago I ran into an on acquaintance from my artsy-fartsy days in Milwaukee. Michael Gafney had gone on to start a floral design school in Chicago [see link to left]. When I told him I was a gardener/ garden designer, he said with pride, almost like a trade mark, “I can’t even grow a tulip” . I guess seamstresses don’t weave,or bakers grow wheat, but when I decided to be a gardener I studied botany, I wanted to know how plants work, what made them grow. Maybe a florist is one step beyond the life processes of plants, maybe that’s why I won’t be a florist. I guess of all the materials an artist can use flowers are probably the most renewable. And I do know florists who garden. Maybe I’m not “evolving”, but just becoming a curmudgeon.
I still pick flowers and arrange them. It’s a simple act that brings joy to me and the people who w see my arrangements. I find I'm also simplifying that act. A single flower in a bottle seems enough.



Centerpieces for a Carnival themed party.

DAILY LILY

Consider the lilies of the field...
I did.
The roadsides of my home state, Wisconsin are infested with the “ exotic “ day lily (Hemerocallis sp.) It’s orange flowers among the tall grass, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s Lace bring a reliable cheerfulness to these “ wasted” waysides. That they hunkered into this melange of natives and weeds along the side of the road was magical. Impressed me.
In one particularly unemployed summer, while I was studying botany, I picked huge bundles of orange day lilies from an abandoned cemetery. I sat with them on a street corner in a posh neighborhood and sold them until a store owner chased me away. But I had already made enough money from my wild booty to take a friend out to dinner and drink myself silly. College days are far behind but day lilies stayed.
As reliable long term perennials, day lilies are indispensable. But not without problems.
Daily deadheading to keep them looking clean, to show off each flower as it opens is a must in the estate gardens I maintain. The spent blossoms never drop or if they do they get tangled in the flower-scape, rarely making it to the ground.
The gardener Jon Dove loathes day lilies for this reason and even more so for their rank and floppy foliage ( right when they begin to bloom!)
I am enamored with the lily family. I can’t stop planting tulips, lilies, alliums, and day lilies in my borders. I curse them each year for their problems, mostly fungal here in the Northwest. They deliciously tempt deer and rabbits, and rats dung and gnawed my tulips bulbs. But I keep planting members of this family because I am so in love with their beauty I’ll put up with all the problems.
The same is true for day lilies. As the summer parties approach and the foliage browns and drops I realize I should have listened to Christopher Lloyd who warned of planting too many.
I planted too many.
This year I have pledged to edit. But I’m still glad I planted the 12+ cultivars I did. I had a chance to look at which ones works and which ones don’t.
Here’s my list.




‘Guardian Angel’, has lovely cream colored flowers, I grow it in half shade. Unfortunately the foliage lies flat on the ground by the time the flowers bloom.




‘ Big Bird’, these giant yellow flowers stop everyone walking through the garden. It’s tall enough to plant in the back to cover any foliage mishaps.





‘College Try’, a strong red that blooms and holds well even in the dry part-shade where I planted it.





‘Fairy Tale Pink’, Beautiful! The flower is a taffy pink, lovely in morning light, makes it worth growing despite the lanky foliage. Maybe I’m growing it too moist.





‘Lime Frost’, This superb day lily had strong upright foliage to the end. The large amaryllis-like flowers are a sophisticated pale yellow, almost white, with a green throat. It elegantly blends with anything you put it near. By far my favorite.

My plans for the day lilies in the borders includes deletions and moves. But Michael and I also plan to try more cultivars at the farm. Our own little trial garden, where daily dead-heading won’t be a must and I can finally surrender fully to my day lily obsession.

MAGICAL MOMENT

I hope it lasts!
The day was a rush: vacuuming, wiping, picking greens, digging potatoes, getting ready for guests in the garden. August's greatest pleasure is guests in the garden. And this quiet moment of satisfaction.
And rest.
As they drive up.

A QUICK NOTE

Summer finds me cyber-challenged. I have not been able to connect to the internet, so... no blogging. I don't have time to deal with it, because the farm is absorbing all of my energy right now. Just this morning I was picking blackberries. And black currants, that dangling ropes of black pearls under the leaves.
More photos and words forthcoming. I think I've solved the problem.