The Birds of the Air

Always looking for more color in my life--including in my garden, the last several years I’ve prayed for goldfinches to come to my home. Their bright yellow bodies make them some of the most colorful birds in our area but less common than red cardinals, and blue jays. Once, I told an elderly lady who loved birds of my prayer. She retorted, “Well, if you’re going to pray for them to come you’d better have something for them to eat!” They did come. Every year. And they had plenty to eat among the seeded grasses in the back of our apartments.

I recently prayed for goldfinches to come to our new home though they usually come in autumn. But then I remembered the admonition to provide food. Oops, no tall, seeded grasses here.  “Oh well, Lord I’ll leave that to you.” This week, they came! They perched atop my bamboo stakes but I couldn’t grab my camera fast enough without startling them. Today however, I prayed, “Please let me get some pictures before they dart away.” Prayer answered. I did. Not only did I get pictures but I found who’s been eating my zinnia petals. I had unknowingly helped the Lord provide food for the goldfinches when I planted several varieties of zinnias.  I’d been leaving the older flowers in place for their color though deadheading them might have made a few more flowers. Now I know. Go for it goldfinches I have plenty—be my guests.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26

Background Work

At the end of October I dug and dug my vegetable garden plot with the only tools I had—an old army shovel, a plastic trowel and a hand cultivator and my oh so sore back.  We had long since given up our lawn tools as we moved from house to apartment and I was reluctant to replace them since we will move again.  Besides, the owners of the house had had a vegetable garden on that very spot so there weren’t a lot of weeds.  How hard could it be?  Yellow clay hard.

I finally gave in and bought a full-sized shovel.  It was still hard work but not as back-breaking.  I happily sowed my cool-weather crop seeds: kale, spinach and Swiss chard.  I was excited as sprouts broke the surface of the soil.  But wait, what do such seedlings look like?  Hmm…the ones in my online image search kind of looked like what was emerging from my garden…Alas, after a few weeks, I realized that my seedlings would have been much taller than these sprawling specimens and weed seeds must have come in the bags of “good top soil” and blanketed my hard won garden.

Later, I read that I could plant a little earlier if I warmed my soil by covering it with black plastic—my soil and the weeds, which would perhaps be weakened and easier to remove.  Apparently, late October was too late for my seeds to germinate this extra cold winter.

Wonderfully warm and inspiring weather last week provided opportunity to dig again, to start fresh.  The good news was that my labor last autumn was not in vain, because of my hard work, the soil now turns easily.  I added some black and brown “gold” (compost and sphagnum) to amend the soil, turned it under and added a brick path to keep from compressing the soil. 

                                      

It’s ready to plant at last.  But now it’s too late to plant cool weather crops again.  No problem, I have an heirloom tomato plant and some lettuce plants that can go in when the rain, rain goes away.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

What a wonderful surprise in this “new” place to find these bulb flowers popping up under a small nandina bush!  The large yellow King Alfred daffodils that seem to be everywhere are welcome but what a treat to discover that the previous residents cared enough to plant something extra special—these daffodils* have pale yellow outer petals and short trumpets in two orange hues.  After the first of them bloomed, the temperature plummeted into the teens so I brought them in.  They’re “like sunshine on a cloudy day.”

*What’s the difference between daffodils, jonquils and narcissus?  Hint—they’re all narcissus.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/difference-between-daffodil-jonquil-61404.html 

Dreaming of the New

It’s been a strange winter as we’ve moved a few miles from the Central Piedmont to the Southern Piedmont where we get more snow than our neighbors and a lot more wind.  We’ve broken long-standing low temperature records and even had snow three days in a row.

My sister gave me these pot stands when her cat kept knocking them over. They stand up pretty well here, making strange snowmen.

But shortly after the snow, the air warmed to over 70 degrees and cabin fever pushed me out to garden.  Cutting away the frozen sticks and browned leaves was therapeutic and resulted in a much better view.

I now have a slightly different climate to garden in and I’m no longer gardening solely in containers—I now have a whole yard I can garden if I want.  I’m already dreaming…  

A Whiff of Spring

With an ice storm last Friday and another coming soon, I couldn’t resist the dazzling yellow daffodils at the grocery; a bunch was only $1.69!  They store them, the sign said, “dry” so that they don’t pop open until the customer is ready.  This made it a lot more convenient to carry them throughout our many errands.  I bought them on Saturday but didn’t put them in water until Sunday afternoon; they were beginning to open but most buds were tight.  By bedtime they were all fully open!  Water, just water brought them to life.

The fragrance is heady as I type a few feet from the glowing trumpeters of spring.   Despite the grey skies and cold temperatures, in here it is spring.

Garden Reel

Right at this moment, I have a desire of my heart as I sit in the garden, cool morning breezes wafting, geese signaling, while I type and post. The air and view out here exceeds that of the indoor wall. Of course, other sounds punctuate the air—a car alarm, the muted flow of traffic and a jet soaring overhead; where is it bound? But these have their place just as the unseen noisy crow to my right has his. Changes are in the air too—a bit of upheaval though thankfully temporary. The apartment management has decided that since they are raising the rates exorbitantly they can say, “But look, we’re cleaning and painting the buildings.” Outside that is, and brown. Thankfully, it looks better when it’s dry since when it’s wet it’s dark brown with a hint of green…er…very organic looking. So, I have to bring indoors every last plant, pot, bag of potting soil and the garden furniture. That will be tight but thankfully temporary. According to a famous rabbi story one of my Jewish friends tells—we will be amazed at how much space we have indoors when we move everything back out to the garden again!

I’ve potted a couple plants into “real” pots that were still in their greenhouse plastic pots. They’ll grow better, stand taller and be less likely to tip over—and there will be fewer empty pots to corral. One long Italian-made pot that I’ve carried with me for over twenty-five years has split horizontally. It worked fairly well as long as it stayed in place but I didn’t want to risk trailing soil across the carpet so I pulled a not so decorative Italian pot (ribs rather than leaves) from the wings and replaced it. I guess some autumnal fixing up is good though I wish they cared as much about the inside. But then, that would be major upheaval and I have enough of that for now.

Painting Flowers

I’ve finally begun the process of painting my flower pots. I’ve kept my terra cottas in the natural for these many years, enjoying the slightly orange color but it’s time for a change to More Color!

The paint is an inexpensive craft paint that I got at “the world’s largest”. For those who are interested—its seals say “Made in the U.S.A.” The paint slides on, and on slick surfaces such as plastic, glass or ceramics, it can just as easily slide off or any which way. As with most paints, two coats make a fuller color. This one is formulated for outdoors as well as in. Occasionally when I’ve told people that I paint flowers, the troubled question emerges, “But won’t it hurt them?” Normally I’m talking about painting a picture of a flower though I did work for awhile for a company that preserved bridal bouquets, which did call for painting on the flowers. (If you feel your lip curling at the thought; be assured that we did it very tastefully). But oops! Somehow I did actually get purple paint on this red hibiscus. And no, it didn’t hurt it.

Making the Best of What’s Left

I was recently away for over three weeks to be by my dad’s hospital bedside and then say goodbye. It was a very difficult time but there were good things as well, like being with family I hadn’t seen in a long time. While I was away, my husband did as well as a non-gardener could—probably saturating the plants. However, when he joined me at my family home for a week, the garden had to fend for itself. That was sad but I really needed him to be with me; he was grieving as well. The culmination of a week without water in outlandishly hot days caused a lot of death in my garden. More death was hard to come home to but I cut away the dead stuff—three bags-full and found that a lot of life remained. My garden would normally be burgeoning this time of year but though it’s diminished there are still signs of hope. I had to strip all the leaves from one plant but I could tell it was still alive; now tiny new leaves are poking out up and down the stems.

The Persian Shield and one of the Parrot Leaf plants didn’t fare well at all but I was pleased to find replacement plants at a greatly reduced price at the local garden center. A big box garden center had fuchsia and white-trimmed petunias and a large pot of trailing purple verbena. Though the petunias and verbenas each looked like one large plant in their large pots, I found that they were instead, several smaller plants intertwined, which worked better for planting them in the decimated hanging baskets. I spent most of yesterday moving pots around and sweeping dead plant leaves; it looked like autumn there were so many. The physical exertion distracted me from my grieving and might even help keep me healthy. But I was sore. Now I have more space and comfort to sit in the garden and write to you.

I had been planning to paint my pots in bright hues of red violet, blue violet, yellow orange and yellow green. I think I’ll do that soon—more color is a good thing; it soothes my soul. Stay tuned.