Baby Steps

If you know me or have read an earlier post from this year, then you know I broke several vertebrae and ribs in a riding accident this past spring.  As you can imagine, for months now my gardening has been limited to dead-heading my roses and little else.

Pilates classes three times a week have been my saving grace.  After just two months  of perserverence, my flexibility has improved and so has my strength.  I still refrain from lifting heavy weights, but this weekend  I did dome digging and planting for the first time in nearly seven months, and I feel great!

After a good rain, the clay soil was soft.  I started out simple by planting some honeysuckle clippings in shallow holes made with a hoe.  It was just a baby step, but so rewarding!

The next day, I had no pain, so I tried digging deeper holes with a shovel to plant ivy, cerastium and salvia along the south-east side of our property, which is really an eyesore.  The following photo was taken from our kitchen porch, where you can see the neighboring property - a bank foreclosure (lots of those around here).

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You can see how poor the soil is here, and how tough the growing conditions are.  I mean, even the weeds have a hard time growing in this soil!  In the next photo, you can see what I had planted last spring: cypreses, teucrium and iris.

A picture worth a thousand words!  Here you can see the mechanics involved in gardening in La Mancha: clay that is so hard that it cannot be dug - instead it is chipped away at with a pick-axe (when dry) or "sliced" with a shovel (when wet); chicken wire along the perimeter fence to keep the rabbits out, plus chicken wire cylinders around all susceptible plants (see bottoms of cypreses); soil ammendments; drip irrigation so everything survives.

Below, things are starting to look better already with new ivy, more teucrium and compost.  The salvia in the center looks huge because it was still stuck in its pot.

This is how it is starting to look from the living room balcony.  I am exhausted (didn't even clean up after myself), but so excited to see some green in this barren part of the yard!

Just a few baby steps, but I’m in no hurry…  

Monday's Vase (ahem, coffee pot)

Here's another flower arrangement post.  I hope that's not too boring.

Even after our first frosts this week, the roses in my garden are still producing the last odds and ends for the year.  The most productive right now is Madame Alfred Carrière, but unfortunately most of her blooms face outwards onto my neighbor's property (lucky him).  In its third year, I really need to get it onto an arch to train it away from the boundary fence.

So, once again, I am participating with Rambling in the Garden's "In a Vase on Monday" post.  This week, my humble arrangement includes roses from Madame Alfred Carrière, La Sevillana and Pat Austin, along with spent abelia blooms.

The "vase" is actually a Japanese coffee pot that my grandmother brought back from Yokohama, where my grandparents, mother and aunt lived after WWII.  My grandfather was stationed in occupied Japan for five years with the Army Corps of Engineers during the reconstruction.

Yes, that is La Sevillana's actual color.  No color enhancing used here.

 

I am a bit nervous about using the coffee pot.  The hand-painted porcelain hasn't got a single crack or coffee stain and it honestly looks like it has never been used.  As a child, I remember seeing it in a china cabinet, although never on the table.

But, I think it is important to use precious, inherited belongings instead of leaving them locked up in a glass case.  They bring back fond memories, which are much more priceless than cold china.  I'm sure my grandmother would feel the same.

Flower arrangements

I know nothing about flower arrangements - a pure and simple fact.  It is hard, however, to make beautiful flowers look ugly!

On the weekends when I have a bit more time to breathe, I usually wake up early to cut flowers, herbs or even twigs to bring indoors.  Just a few are enough to make me happy.  A dear friend of mine, Gema, took this photo at my house on Saturday and pinned it (no great feat - she has 20,693 pins!).  Somehow, things often look better from someone else's perspective...

Abraham Darby, Pierre de Ronsard, salvia

¡Un besito Gemita!

Update: just found a site where gardeners post their flower arrangements each Monday (http://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/in-a-vase-on-monday-wanted-dead-or-alive/).

Hot Stuff!

The report today was that we have just had the warmest October on record since 1965.  I can't complain, though, because we did get some rain at the beginning of the month.  Today, Halloween, we hit the upper 80's, and the boys went trick-or-treating in t-shirts.  Much different from my childhood in New England when we sometimes had to wear ski pants under our costumes!

With such good weather, my garden is still full of roses and wildlife, but all that is supposed to change in just a couple of days.  So, here are some photos to wish the warm weather farewell.

Pat Austin

Benjamin Britten

 Honeysuckle

La Sevillana

Mantis

Versigny

Wasps doing whatever it is that wasps do

Gecko in the kitchen

Abelia and my little porch napper

The warm weather has been nice while it's lasted, but I can't wait for the rains to come to soften up the earth for some digging and planting.  There's so much that needs to be done!

Birthday Surprise

My birthday was not long ago (happy birthday to me!), and I had a very unique birthday surprise.  As I was walking through the town square, there were 5 local "townies" looking up into the large, 300-year-old elm tree that grows there next to the town church.  

Now, the old ulmus minor is a tourist attraction itself, partly because it is so large, and partly because the base is hollow and children love hiding inside.  Many a family photo is taken there, especially when it is First Communion season (we've had several taken there ourselves).  But, when the locals start taking a second glance, you know something is up...

And, up they were!  Waaaaaay up, some 40 feet in the air, were a pair of tawny owls (Strix aluco), fast asleep.

It's amazing how much their feathers look like tree bark.

Doesn't he just look perfectly blissful?

Later on, just before dusk, I went by again to see if they had awaken.  Sure enough, they had.

By the way, what looks to be a tree trunk to the bottom left of this photo is actually the abdomen of the other owl!

If you would like to check out our town's ancient field elm tree, I found a video about it on YouTube made by a British tourist.  Funny.  The video shows it in the winter with no leaves and after a recent pruning, but you can see how hollow it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNr0BK4IgbI

You might also like my post from earlier this year about Little Owls, Whoooo Me?

Any owls or ancient trees in your neck of the woods?

Bloom Day, October 2014

I haven't participated in Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for ages, but since we had some sunny weather last week, I was able to take some photos.

Abraham Darby, one of my all-time favorites

Winchester Cathedral always gets a bit of powdery mildew this time of year

Golden Celebration, my favorite yellow rose

Jude the Obscure is doing surprisingly well in the shade.

Jayne Austin

Crown Princess Margareta

 Madame Alfred Carrière is also doing very well in the shade.

Pierre de Ronsard - I wish it smelled as lovely as it looks..

??? One of the first roses I ever bought at a garden center, unlabelled.

Ah, but the scent...

 The Pilgrim is the most vigorous rose in my garden.

Benjamin Britten

Lady Emma Hamilton

Buddleia davidii

 What's blooming in your garden today?

Walk This Way

(What can I say?  I grew up in Boston, and I couldn't think of a more appropriate title for a blog post about a walkway than an Aerosmith song...)

If there is one good thing that came out of breaking my back this spring, it was having enough time on my hands to finally plan out our front walkway.

Tah-dah!

Itn't it purty?  The stones are irregular and look almost like the slate from my native New England, but they are actually granite from this area.  Yes, those are real railroad ties bordering the walkway.  Many of them were found on our property when we bought it, so I figured that, since the toxins have been leaching out anyway, we might as well make it look pretty. 

By the front gate, there is now lots of cleaning and planting to do...

... but I think the bed to the right of the walkway is starting to look pretty spiffy 

(sage, thyme, abelia, ivy and Abraham Darby rose).

As you can see from the black tube in the photo above these lines, we still need to find some outdoor lighting that we actually like (which is no small task).

Along the sides of this part of the walkway that leads to the side of the house and kitchen porch, The Pilgrim rose (left) and Benjamin Britten (right) are just begging for an arbor, don't you think?

This is a photo of the same walkway, taken in the opposite direction, 

with Benjamin Britten reaching out over the path, and Lady Emma Hamilton below.

Luna still thinks this is her own private jungle.  Lavender seems to be her favorite plant.

So, come on in and walk this way... or run, if you please!