Found Time



Things are finally slowing down for me.  I have been playing softball two nights a week and sometimes on the weekend since late April.  But our softball season finally ended with a pizza party last night.  Not having something scheduled on Monday and Tuesday nights now seems like a luxury.  Somehow, that extra time on the calendar makes it feel as if other pockets of time have opened up.

I know this Moonflower bloomed a couple days ago for the first time but this is the first open bloom I have seen.

This morning, for example, I found a few extra minutes to wander in my garden before my work day began. 

A Zephyr Lily about to open.  Maybe tomorrow morning I will have a chance to check on its progress.

Most of the design-oriented blogs and books I have read suggest planting colors that will look good during the time of day that you are most likely to actually be in your garden.  I always thought that time was going to be late evening so I have planted a lot of whites and pale blues. 

I know containers "should" have a thriller, a filler, and a spiller but I gravitate toward the spillers.
This container includes both sweet potato vine and bacopa.

But more and more I am finding time to enjoy the garden in the morning.  The light is soft and gentle.  It is quiet in my neighborhood.  There are fewer things competing for my attention.  There is still water on the plants.  It feels tranquil and contemplative. 

Water glistens on the late summer growth of an Acer palmatum var. dissectum 'Orangeola'.

I have noticed, too, that when I take a stroll in the morning, I am less likely to feel compelled to do something.  In the morning, I don’t need to prune the roses, pick the weeds, sweep the patio, or move a clump of grass because there will be time and enough daylight for those things later. 

This is a phlox hybrid called 'Intensia Blueberry' by Proven Winners.  It's a new plant for me.
It could use some deadheading, but there will be time for that later on.

As autumn approaches, as the summer sun sets earlier, as the heat begins to relinquish its sway, I am thankful for extra time because I know that a gardener’s fall is filled with new chores, new things blooming, and new ideas.  I want to taste and to savor these beautiful mornings and stolen moments.  I want to have my fill and get fat on them because I know that soon enough the memories of these moments will need to sustain me until spring when everything, including softball, begins again.    

Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' - A common Japanese maple with uncommonly beautiful coloring in spring and fall.

This is my back corner bed.  It is filled with plants and it is filled with chores.
But this morning I just enjoyed it and didn't try to edit anything.

Monomaniacal

Last month I mentioned that I was reading “Moby Dick” and I tried to draw a comparison between Captain Ahab’s desire to seek out and kill the white whale that had maliciously devoured his leg and my personal issues with the grey squirrels that maliciously devour my seeds.    

Common flowers? Yes.  But colorful? Aye!

Well, I have now finished Moby Dick (finally) and in so doing, my head has been filled with a couple things: a nearly-encyclopedic and worthless knowledge of the anatomy of a sperm whale and a new lexicon of nautical and American romantic terms like “avast”,“hast”, and “doubloon.”  But the word that really got stuck in the riggings of my mind is “monomaniacal”.  It was the one adjective that Melville used to describe Ahab.      

My new Acer palmatum 'Murasaki Kiyohime' under
planted with dwarf mondo grass and a fern. 
The fern might have to be removed if it gets much bigger.

Now, monomaniacal is not a word you hear every day but it’s pretty easy to figure out what it means.  We don’t hear it every day because it is “no longer in technical use” as a way to describe a “psychosis characterized by thoughts confined to one idea or group of ideas.”

Close up of the Murasaki Kiyohime's spring leaves.  It's a dainty dwarf that does not take afternoon sun at all.

These days we probably just hear the word “obsessed.”  Obsessed is fine, but monomaniacal is more fun to say out loud.  Go ahead and say it. 

I’ll wait.  See?

Mexican Feather Grass, or Stipa tenuissima if you speak botanical.

Anyhow, given that it has been raining here in Sacramento all week and the gutters are filling up like it was the fourth day of Noah’s flood, a little fun is what I needed since I have not been able to do anything related to my monomaniacal desire to putter around the garden.    

The peach blossoms are getting ready to paddle off into memory.

I don't have a lot of pinks or reds in the yard.  These blossoms always make me second guess that decision.

Until today.  There was a brief reprieve in the typhoon this afternoon, okay, it's really just a light rain, so I went out and took these pictures in my back yard.  It might just have been enough to tide me over (nautical pun intended) until the next time the sun breaks through.  And when it does, I might have to fight back the urge to hail the sun with a hearty “Thar she glows!”  

I'm leaving the bird feeder empty for now.  It attracts too many of those damn squirrels.

Same picture but with a different focal point.

If you hate bad puns, I’m very very sorry for this post.  Please don’t make me walk the plank.    



I purchased these columbines this weekend.  I've never grown them before.