Gardening-anticipation...almost as nice as the actual act of gardening...
...and the additional joys of "being in" the garden as well...however...
...our kitchen garden out here on the island is still in-winter-mode...(The above paintings were gleaned from the Wikimedia Commons site)
Ahh... today out here on this island the temperature was 84 degrees and it was so bright blue skies n' sunny, gosh! Um, hmm, IS this actually the month of March still? Wow...
Every March that comes around, I so very much want to get out there and get gardening!
Every March or early April I'm so thankful that I didn't. Why? Because inevitably there's some last-minute frost or late deep drop in the temperatures or battering burst of wind that would have wrecked havoc with my tender plantings, barely-up seedlings and whatever else I planted out there in the raised beds of our kitchen garden which features a bed for herbs, a bed for vegetables, a bed for cutting flowers and a variety of tomatoes in large pots scattered around.
While the kitchen garden tends to need a fair amount of tending, conversly, the small rose garden my late mother planted always does best when I actually do very little to it; I just trim back the winter's deadening and let it come back to life as it will. Bushes of red and pink roses are grounded by lantana that gives a riotious burst of yellow and adds its bevvy of butterfly groupies to the more staid and formalized roses framing a concrete bird bath backed by the front double stairway's morning glory vines. I have left my mother's simple but effective rose bed design intact for obviously sentimental reasons.
Each stage of Spring comes around diligently on our island showcasing beautifully nature's internal clockwork: the marsh turns from its wintery rust hues into vibrant greens, the trumpet and confederate vines begin to give pops of color among the trees and roadsides, muscadine grapes leaves have a deeper green tinge to them and the flowers, oh the flowers... commence...
Soon, soon I'll be picking up the trowel and gently pushing the old wheelbarrow around but until then, I can look at inspiring paintings of gardens and dream that one day maybe I'll have a garden just a tiny bit like these perhaps...or more likely I'll just have these small sections to keep tending amidst this lawn, woods and marsh fringe. Small yes, but pleasant and quite full and quite fulfilling in their own ways.
Every March that comes around, I so very much want to get out there and get gardening!
Every March or early April I'm so thankful that I didn't. Why? Because inevitably there's some last-minute frost or late deep drop in the temperatures or battering burst of wind that would have wrecked havoc with my tender plantings, barely-up seedlings and whatever else I planted out there in the raised beds of our kitchen garden which features a bed for herbs, a bed for vegetables, a bed for cutting flowers and a variety of tomatoes in large pots scattered around.
While the kitchen garden tends to need a fair amount of tending, conversly, the small rose garden my late mother planted always does best when I actually do very little to it; I just trim back the winter's deadening and let it come back to life as it will. Bushes of red and pink roses are grounded by lantana that gives a riotious burst of yellow and adds its bevvy of butterfly groupies to the more staid and formalized roses framing a concrete bird bath backed by the front double stairway's morning glory vines. I have left my mother's simple but effective rose bed design intact for obviously sentimental reasons.
Each stage of Spring comes around diligently on our island showcasing beautifully nature's internal clockwork: the marsh turns from its wintery rust hues into vibrant greens, the trumpet and confederate vines begin to give pops of color among the trees and roadsides, muscadine grapes leaves have a deeper green tinge to them and the flowers, oh the flowers... commence...
Soon, soon I'll be picking up the trowel and gently pushing the old wheelbarrow around but until then, I can look at inspiring paintings of gardens and dream that one day maybe I'll have a garden just a tiny bit like these perhaps...or more likely I'll just have these small sections to keep tending amidst this lawn, woods and marsh fringe. Small yes, but pleasant and quite full and quite fulfilling in their own ways.
