Saturday, March 10, 2007

Flashback: Spring/Summer 2006

It's almost spring; the snow is melting, the mercury is rising and the forecast looks good.

No, still far too soon to contemplate getting out in the the gardens, but it doesn't hurt to dream of what's just beyond the bend.

My backyard.


The back end of my backyard. This is my favorite tree.

Madeleine standing by my rose tree that I bought last year. Unlike my mom, I don't have a propensity for gardening and can never remember what anything is called, but I especially liked this rose tree because it was wonderfully fragrant. I have it wintering on the side of my garage now, protected from the wind. Hopefully there will be more pictures like this in a few months.


And, finally, my prize rose collection. I rescued these from my mom's rose garden before the Japanese Beetles could move in and destroy them. All five managed to survive the transplant and thrive in their new home, along my driveway, last summer. I'm anxious to see if they wintered over for me as well as they seemed to for my mom.

Ah, warm weather, you may not be here quite yet, but you're close, and I'm carefully watching for you. Come quickly!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Your gardening is splendid! Makes me itch to be back in the mist of it, too. I'm sad bcz I have to say goodbye to all of our hard work with ours. I want to try and transplant my Lilac bush to our new house, though. Any ideas on that??

Anonymous said...

Maybe you don't have the propensity for it, but you can't escape the genes! I have great faith in your genetic talent!

I've got a Spring Hill catalog on my countertop that is all circled and starred. I never order, though. Always plan on it, or on a trip to a nice local nursery, but end up, last minute, at Stein. Either way, I can't wait!

Thanks for the exciting visuals!

Cate said...

Thanks, guys!

Val, like I said, I don't know a ton about gardening, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe that lilacs are pretty hardy and if you transplant in the spring and an appropriate spot (i.e. sun/drainage) and give it LOTS of water often right after the transplant it should make it.

My only experience with transplanting a lilac was a more delicate variety and when we'd moved into our house the previous owners had this weird arrangement of lilacs that Superdad and I wanted to change. So we transplanted one of the three to a different spot in our yard and my mom took one back to her house-- over an hour away-- and IT survived easily as well. I remember my mom being slightly amazed that hers did as well as it did but it did and it's still going strong today. And that would have been in May since I remember the night that Superdad and my dad were out there digging was my birthday (late May).

Good luck!

You know what's weird, T, is that I've actually gotten to know a lot more about gardening since my mom died. Probably b/c when she was alive she'd just DO everything and I'd only sort of listen, for which I'm just KICKING myself over now (I can't tell you how many times I stood in my garden last summer holding a new, favorite plant and trying to remember, "Did Mom say full sun or shade? Which variety of petunia did she say was stupid?") but I've been forced to glean what I can from sources she trusted, remember what I can and, mostly, just copy what SHE had that I liked and through trial and error a lot more has worked than I thought.

Check out the Jungs link under my favorites. Lots of selection, fast delivery and pretty reliable selection.

Between this post and my pretty, pink garden clogs that I just bought at Target tonight, I'm ready to get out there!

Alexis Jacobs said...

What a beautiful flower garden! Want to come here and help me with mine? :)

Anonymous said...

I am happy to see that Supermom has retained at least SOME of your mom's gardening prowress.

And that is GREAT news that those transplanted roses are surviving!!