This Time of Year: Rain and Terror and Grief and Small Joys

Me to feed store guy this morning: "Got a bit chilly last night, right?"
Feed story guy to me: "Sure did! Almost had to turn off the air conditioning!"

We grinned at each other and had one of those moments where you share nice feelings with someone you hardly know. In this case the feelings were because 1) we've just about made it through another sizzling summer and 2) we're heading into months and months of pleasant weather.

Unlike the guy who runs his a/c all night, I just sleep close to an open window and around 3AM had to get up and rummage around for the light cotton blanket I'd put away last spring. Nice chilly sleeping weather.

We're still making our way through the monsoon season, which means (at least this year) that we have lots of rainfall and everything here in the Mesilla Valley is nice and green. The weeds are outrageous, of course, but I just try to think of them as fresh salad greens for the chickens.

The garden is out of control; all planting plans have been lost in the mists of last spring. It was way too hot all summer to venture out to do any weeding, since there was never a morning early enough to beat the sun. The plants that couldn't stand the heat frizzled up and the plants that made it through to this rainy time of year are romping all over the place.

Take a look at these morning glories--they love everything about this time of year. However, they have embraced and dragged down my poor sunflowers; and I'll bet no one can see the tomato plant that has been completely overtaken. It's somewhere under there on the left, but I lost sight of it last month. No matter--it was my first time to plant a Sweet 100 cherry tomato and it was a whole lot less than successful. Tiny nasty-tasting tomatoes that even the chickens didn't want.

The four o'clocks are still happy, although their brief daily blooming time is more like six o'clock (AM), so for most of the day they are closed up.  All through the garden are the volunteers--giant clumps of marigolds and columbine that just appeared, and a small field of self-seeded zinnias out in front of the house. 

Forgive me. All the babbling about this and that is really my way of whistling in the darkness of a very scary world, full of cruel tragedies--Barcelona terror attack today, Charlottesville Nazi marchers and the death of a young woman a few days ago. The specter of white nationalism in my own country is a nightmare. 

So, I've chosen to talk about flowers and weather and the small joys to be found in my own backyard, where hidden seeds spring up into something beautiful. I really don't know what else to do at this moment. 

Making the Backyard Our Own While Conserving Water

Our backyard was just a plain expanse of green grass when we first moved in. 

Since then, we've added the chicken coop and run, some new raised beds, a fence to divide off a section from the dogs, and a border for flowers. 

Because a single seeding of hollyhocks has flourished and self-propagated in our front yard (shown above), I've moved some of the resulting little seedlings out back...

... where they've shot upwards of eight or nine feet, almost overpowering the flamboyant desert bird of paradise trees that are planted nearby--look closely for the yellow and red flowers to the left in the photo above. 

In this planting along the side fence, the bird of paradise looks to be winning the competition. 

Elsewhere in the garden (not shown) there is a blue vitex (Texas lilac) that is co-existing with some other pink hollyhocks. Together, they will make a lovely color combination once the vitex gets taller than the hollyhocks. 

We are so lucky to be surrounded by a pecan orchard that gives us a continual cool green backdrop in the summer.

For the second year now, this sweet apricot-colored native globe mallow has volunteered its blossoms in among the other plants. With very little water and a bit of pruning it will rebloom later in the season. 

And for the very first time, this Beverly Sills iris has bloomed after I moved it to a better spot. For some reason, I've had little success with irises, but this beauty has made me want a field trip to the Hondo Iris Farm near Ruidoso, New Mexico. I hope to bring back a few irises in pots and a catalog to order some more. Ruby colors! Blues! Yellows!

Everything that has been planted so far requires just a minimum of water, a good thing in this desert climate. While the long-range plan is to leave a bit of grass for dog romps, we are slowly reducing the size of the lawn in favor of xeriscape-type (drought-tolerant) plants. 

May Morning in the Garden

"Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun."
- Kahlil Gibran

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. 

Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.” 

- Betty Smith, Joy in the Morning

"The world's favorite season is the spring. 
All things seem possible in May."
-  Edwin Way Teale

In the Garden This Morning

Just a couple of weeks ago, this was the garden scene from the front porch: I was happy for the flowers, but things were pretty sparse and the trees were still bare. 

With the arrival of Spring, our annual jungle-look flower garden starts taking shape out front. I wish you could have heard the morning birdsong as I took these photos. 

I love the early morning light. Even the spent pansy blossoms are glorious.

We are just at the end of pansy season; I planted these last November
and they have lasted all winter. The heat of April is getting to them now.

It's hard to get a shot of these brilliant cactus blooms: They are so much better in real life!

First blossoms on the Bertie Memorial Tree; a gift from Helen, this desert
bird of paradise was planted as a memorial to our dear Bertie Pierre

We are at the very beginning of hollyhock season; hundreds of buds
are waiting to open 

What's in the Garden, Mid-April

These smell so good

I love this petunia, called Antique Shades

Double Delight rose.
Those tattered hollyhock leaves got that way because of certain cats hunting lizards underneath. There's a whole lot of leaping going on.

Verbena

I'm very excited about these hollyhocks, which are my first. Last year, as biennials do, they put out lots of leaves. This year they are shooting up, growing inches in a day and are loaded with flower buds that will bloom in shades of pink, rose, and burgundy. These plants come up to my chin now.
Thank you, Diane, for the seeds! 

Here is beautiful Gracie, part of the lizard patrol. 

November Colors

Coming from New England, where the frost can hit any time starting in mid-September and my Massachusetts friends are reporting snow on the ground as we speak, it still surprises me that November colors can come in:

Tomato reds...

... and tomato yellows...

Squash greens...

and chile reds!

All of the above photos were taken at the Las Cruces Farmers Market last weekend...

... but these luscious reds and greens are from my very own garden, picked just in case we have a mid-November frost.

Memorial Garden at Cochiti Lake

There are actually three places called Cochiti: The Cochiti Pueblo, Cochiti Lake, and the Town of Cochiti Lake. All are located about 50 miles north of Albuquerque and about 30 miles south of Santa Fe.

These photos are of the Memorial Garden made by volunteers from the town. It smelled of pine and roses and clean air on the day when we visited.

May Flowers We'll See in June, I Hope

Forgive me for reposting this slide show that I made last year, called My Clovis: Flowers in May. I mainly wanted to remind myself of the flowers we haven't seen yet--we lost a lot of plants, branches, and buds to a late blizzard this spring. The roses are just now starting to bloom, and I'm not sure when my irises will recover.

Some of these flowers were in our yard in the spring of 2008; some were in other parts of town. 

An Island Garden

When we first moved to Candia, New Hampshire, I got a job at the tiny town library. It was housed in a lovely old two story building with a vaulted wooden ceiling, window seats, and a wonderful fireplace. Unfortunately, for safety reasons the old fireplace was never used in the years that I knew the building, but when a new library was built just down the hill a warm and welcoming fireplace surrounded by big leather wing-back chairs was included in the big reading room, in honor of the old place. 

The book collection had really outgrown the old facility when I first saw it. The shelving was crowded and poorly lit, but I have always had a fondness for libraries like that, so naturally I loved it. Each row of shelves was lit with old banker's lamps--the kind with green glass--and as you moved down the rows you pulled the little lamp chains to light your way. 

It was in this library that I found one book treasure after another. One of my favorites was Celia Thaxter's An Island Garden. It was all about the summer gardens she made out on Appledore Island, one of the Isles of Shoals, a little chain of nine islands that is ten miles off the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine. 

Celia grew up on the islands, where her father was first a lighthouse keeper and later a hotel owner. Although marriage took her away from the islands for a while, she later spent her summers on the islands in the late 1800s. She wrote of taking the ferry trip out for the first time each season, guarding the scores of little seedlings she had started back on the mainland, some planted in eggshell halves. 

Although her original gardens are gone, reproduction gardens have been built and lovingly tended by volunteers, and may be visited today. From her book, we know the kinds of old-fashioned flowers--a jumble of colors--that she raised. The list of poppies alone will make you want to go right out and start planting. There was a variety called "The Bride," and there were carnation, corn, and California poppies; and heirloom, Iceland, oriental, shirley, and peony poppies.

Her friend, the artist Childe Hassam, painted several pictures of Celia in her garden, and they are included in the book. Although I am far away from Candia and that library, and even though I haven't held that book for years, I will always remember the lovely colors of those gardens backed by the blue of the sea. 

***

To learn more about Celia's gardens, visit About Celia Thaxter's Island Garden.

For more about Celia's life and her book, see the lovely blog, Plant Whatever Brings You Joy.

My Clovis: Flowers in May

The springtime flowers here are amazing. From our many years in New Hampshire, I'm used to a slow-starting spring, but here in Clovis we are right in the middle of the blooming season for roses.