A Mother’s Journal

My flower garden is surely small, but one of the things I love about it is that I can walk outside almost any time of any day and find some creature that amazes me. 

I usually have one of these writing spiders (Argiope) every year, but the excitement over spotting one for the first time each year never diminishes!

I placed the camera underneath the spider for this shot, and with the light behind it the actual spider looks a bit too dark, but I think it shows how iridescent the colors can look at times and it really shows the spider’s palps — those two fang-looking things right at the front, but they are not fangs.  

I was kneeling by the goldfish pond, dipping out dead leaves and watching the fish, when suddenly — with a loud rustling of leaves, this praying mantis jumped from a small nandina right at my shoulder and landed, facing me, at the edge of the goldfish pond.  Did I scream?  Almost.  I’m just thankful I did not throw my camera into the water. 

Lynn

I started out this morning doing a bit of cleaning around the house and then I headed outside to clean up the front porch and do some early morning garden (little garden ) chores.  

All the house plants have been brought outside to spend the spring and summer.  The peace lily got a good watering.   It’ll stay on the porch, out of the hot sun.

I scooped debris out of the goldfish pond, threw a few goldfish pellets and flakes in and sat down to watch the fish and sip on my green tea.   You might be able to see a few fish just under the water.  They are very slow to make themselves easy prey with all the cats in the neighborhood.  The do eventually come up to eat.  You may also note the two dark leave-looking things on the right side at the top of the water.  Lily pads coming to the top, finally.

I ended up at my garden table for a short time of thinking and reading.  So many garden happenings called to me.  I had to make myself stay put and read.  A pair of cardinals were in a tree behind me.  I turned around with my camera and thought to zoom in on the pretty female.  The male was on the ground “talking to her” while she was perched in a tree.  Between the time I focused the camera and the time that I hit the button, she decided to fly and I got it!  I didn’t know it until I loaded the pictures on the computer.  It’s pretty neat.  She’s diving down to her mate.  I suppose I took the same sort of nosedive when I met hubby. 

I spent some time just looking at everything that’s opening up.  What were just buds a couple of days ago are now full flowers.  Here’s the wild rose, that I called “red.”  It does look red from a distance, but in this picture it looks really hot pink!

You can certainly see some black spot setting in, common in this NC humidity! 

The Queen Elizabeth is still unaffected and looks so beautiful surrounding my porch.

Queen Elizabeth

The little Morden Blush rose is a very sweet light pink and also unaffected by the black spot.  In defense of the wild rose, these other two roses do get way more fresh air and space around them.

Morden Blush

Walking down the little path, I had to take another picture of the cottage pinks.  They have really jumped out in the last couple of days.  They make the entire garden smell good.

Fluffy and I watched in interest this morning as hundreds of termites emerged from the ground and danced in a cloud over the garden.

You can see them here all over the mulch before flying off.  (Please don’t eat my house.)

I have so many other pictures, but I don’t want to overwhelm you!  My sister sent me some pictures today for which I am very thankful!  What fun to sit with the children and watch the slideshow!

There was one of my mom and me on a walk on Christmas Day 2007.  Doesn’t seem that long ago…

There’s also one of a very important call I took the day we were at Hill Ridge Farms.

Some calls you just gotta take.

Lynn

I love taking a morning stroll through my little gardens with my green tea.

The Queen Elizabeth rose is covered in buds.  They will open into lovely pink roses.

There’s one last clump of narcissus blooming in the garden.  These are delicate and I like them a lot.

A very expectant Fluffy will hardly let me walk through the garden for her weaving around in front of me and wanting attention.

I love the way the plants grow up and bloom around the stepping stones, but I have to give in and cut back sometimes when the plants become too friendly with the stepping stones.

I also love the way little plants poke through the stonework that outlines the beds.  They bloom in hard places.  Can I bloom where ever I’m planted?

I have a somewhat “wild”rose the is covered in buds too.  Perhaps you can see some of the  many buds mixed in with the moneyplant.  I call it wild because it started out as a tea rose that did horribly.  So I dug it out, or so I thought.  The tea rose must have been grafted onto another, stronger rose root, because what grew back was nothing like the tea rose.  It has flatter, red blooms and has flourished every year, save a little black spot that I want to learn to deal with organically.

The planting of oregano beyond the pictured planter is doing great.  I plan to use a lot of fresh herbs this year.

Can you see the deep reddish-colored blooms of Jupiter’s beard just beyond our statue.  (She was named Sarah Elizabeth Gramble by Joseph when he was very young.  He’s quite good with names, don’t you think?)

The Knock-Out roses are covered with blooms.  This bed desperately needs weeding, but this is a bed from which I get a lot of “weeds” for my infusions.   

The very large spirea shrub is blooming and hanging over the stones that contain the bed its in.  I love spirea.  So old fashioned!

One of the first things I do is net the leaves that are floating on the water in the goldfish pond and then I feed the goldfish.

The potted diascia is doing great.  I’m in such a spray-painting mood lately, I’m tempted to spray paint this basket a pretty antique white. 

Well, that’s all for now, except a little quote that can certainly be applied to our lives.

The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower and flower to fruit.

Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909)
English Poet

Have a lovely Saturday!

Lynn