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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
I woke up Wednesday morning on my day off to discover that the fairies had
pulled an all nighter and had opened up all the boxes of spring. The last week we've had extremely nice weather and the rains have even held off most days with just some spits of tempting spring showers on odd days. During my drive to work I travel my favorite winding country road, and everywhere I've been seeing early sign of spring time bursting at the seams. There is a tulip tree in the corner of a lot where there is a double wide modular just under the overpass of the interstate just down the road that is groaning with deep blush pink/burgandy and peach "tulips" all over the small tree, and I almost careen off the road looking at it as I pass...... Everywhere the white trees in oddball places catch your eye along roads, up by the overpass by the interstate above the road I turn to go to work just off Wine has two saplings, and in the woods you see white thru the dark trunks of trees not quite ready. I racked my brain for a few days and then had to slap myself when I realized it wasn't wild pears, but BLACK CHERRY TREES!! oy vey.......... The willow's that I spoke of a bit earlier has replaced the dangling limbs of small green pearls with impressive fresh green leaves, and all the maples are getting that bulky deep red look. But what really told me that spring was threatening to burst out was everywhere I looked were old ladies and tender young maidens decked out in too much blush. The redbuds. The older, more established ones, and the young saplings that are trying to keep up with their matrons in bud. This is the time of year that I cajole myself for not digging up young saplings for my own woods.......they are numbered in the hundred, maybe even thousands......... Squire and I drove into Knoxville yesterday and it's been warmer there than here, because the DOGWOODS are bulking up and showing that green tender tipped look. And their redbuds are already fluffed out and showing their shocking pinks. I'm not jealous because in time our own redbuds will show their colors. Because of this, I was longing for a redbud of my own in our woods, and was looking around the pallets at work at the 5 gallon blooming trees and came across something incredible.......... a Forest Pansey redbud. The emerging teensy leaves that were along the slightly crooked stems were deep burgandy, but the description and picture of the tree on the information card was what floored me, and made up my mind. The heart shaped leaves are absolutely one reason anyway, and the pink blooms that will come out on bare branches first. But the heart shaped leaves are reddish purple and turn brownish red!! Buying a pink dogwood is one thing........but to buy a Forest Pansy Redbud that is patented and will someday attain a height of 30 feet is a commitment in more ways than one. I got one, and returned to work today and got Mary Emma one for her yard in west Knoxville which I will take to her tomorrow. As I'm driving up my dead end road, the wild turkeys are up on the flat top of the road near Miz Mary's house clustered around the large boulders she's using as bowls filled with cracked corn and they're eating and two Tom's are all puffed out and doing a mating dance. Not knowing they were there when I drove up, I startled them and they waddled off in lunatic fright, some hens more daring and unafraid than others, standing their ground while they gorged a last moment on the corn she'd laid out for them. The Tom kept his tail plumed out, and a few of the more skittish hens took flight, their wingspan so large, I sat quietly and watched as they glided to the wooded edges of the pasture just below Miz Mary's hilltop into the Hammer's woods. I sat there for a moment, my music turned down when I first came upon the turkeys in hopes to not do what I had just done, and the sounds of a multitude of birds greeted my ears. The melodious trill of the Eastern Bluebird cuts thru all the songs, and I hunkered down in my truck seat and listened for a moment......Jays, crows, robins, an odd mockingbird, Cardinals, a little bird I can't identify by his song that sounds like "purdy purdy purdy purdy", the far off sound of a hawk's warning sound.....it's almost audial overload, but I have learned to listen better since living here where my music is sometimes not necessary and insultive, as nature has more than enough music for me to listen to. I snapped out of my wandering thru the bird songs, and my eyes focased on Miz Mary's sugar maple tree. Good grief.................the hazy, young green leaves are emerging almost as I sit there gazing at them. The one in the pasture is downright fat with them, the leaves now defining what I would say is an absolute perfect maple, one that has been left alone by man's hands, and only sculpted by Mom's Nature hand with harsh lightening strikes and weather prunings. It is a young maple tree by tree standards, probably about 75 or so, it had risen up in the north pastures from a blown seed from Miz Mary's tree that sits atop the ridge that borders our driveway, and over her lifetime and possibly longer, it grew into perfection. The limbs are just low enough on it that any child with a mind to climb up into her boughs can do so with relative ease. If it were my tree, I'd hang bird feeders on her generous lower branches for her bird visitors to come perch and knosch. This tree gives me pleasure in just it's presence of being there. And I enjoy her all four seasons of the passing year. As I shift the truck back into drive to continue my arrival home, I look at the signs all around me of the early arrival of spring. Or maybe I should say the burgeoning arrival of spring. Like some sassy, older Auntie who insists on everyone noticing her entrance, the additional help me and my fairies have provided for the entrance is highly noticable. I see by my gate that I need to clip the Zebra grasses now or will suffer to injure the new emerging grasses if I tarry longer in this chore. It will require me to sit quietly and cut each stem and make quite a pile of the brown stems, which I usually just set a match to, but I think this year I will put them in the lower compost space and allow them to decompose as long as they need. My forsythia has almost finished it's blooming, and the sharpness of the green in the emerging leaves is more evident than two days ago. It's like fast forward. I was never able to decide on which one to remove, and instead, I brutally prune the backsides of both of them opening up space between them and the fig box. As I drive to the first doorway of my side yard, I see there are tiny signs of leaves along the tan stems of the trumpet vine which is directly across from the second forsythia bush. Just past them, your eye is captured by mine and the fairies efforts of planting spring ephemerals, the early bulbs. My love of all of them is boundless. You see from the driveway my love for the narcissus is great, but apparently not complete. I must have them all.................but already I am finding some more fragrant and on the top of my "smell" list. Now fast forward to Saturday for a moment. Out weather god like person who never fails, has warned us about a "Dogwood winter" and I've been talking to customers at work who are transplants from Florida (the ones from Iowa and Chicago and Michigan actually believe me..........) the days before when the temperatures are hovering in the low 70's, and I tell them Mom's Nature has a wicked sense of humor this time of year (why do you think we REALLY call it April Fools.............) and they shake their heads at me, because NOW the dogwoods are unfolding, the redbuds are plumped out looking like soft lavender cloaked trees everywhere you look, the wild dogwoods are more cautious in the woods, I don't see anything but slight green on the ends of their stems as I drive around, but yesterday when I went to deliver Mary Emma her Forest Pansy redbud, Knoxville was in even further fast forward than here up on the ridge........ I had a feeling yesterday during the cold rains I should have picked all the flowers............well it's Sunday morning. There is a winter wonderland outside, with everything covered in three inches of beautiful snow highlighting every twig, stem, branch, fence opening, and bending every flower, every branch with leaves (which is every bush around here) to the ground with the weight of it. I woke up to Squire saying "GOOD GRIEF, IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE...............HOLY CRAP, THERE"S OVER THREE INCHES OF SNOW ON EVERYTHING, AND IT'S STILL SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All yer beautiful flowers are covered. I woulda never believed it........there's over three inches of snow out there and it's still coming down!!" And I'm lying in the warm water bed listening to his incredulity in his voice, this child of Michigan who has suffered and lived in Tennessee now with me for over two decades of his life (five years in Denver were more erratic and strange with weather and their zone 5 during the early years together, and he was the one comforting me with the strange weather shifts out there) and as I lie there, I calmly tell him "yes dear, I know....................it's Dogwood Winter, I told you we were gonna have Dogwood winter, but you musta not taken me serious........" and he's in the livingroom grumbling out loud that there's SNOW on his satellite dish he can't turn on MSNBC to see updates, and he's gonna hafta go get the broom to sweep the snow offa the dish, and he obviously has turned and approached the bedroom because I hear his voice getting closer and he says "honey, (it's risen in a few notes so it's a sorta stressed voice) I don't THINK YOU UNDERSTAND, THERE'S THREE INCHES OF SNOW ON ALL THE FLOWERS AND EVERYTHING and it's still coming down!!!!!!! You oughta get yer camera and take some pictures of this!!!" So I drag my tired old abused body (Lowes is hard friends, on that concrete for 8 hours, so days off are a blessing now, but I love it......talk to me in high summer..................) up outa the warm waterbed, (this is the second day I have been gotten up on a day off when I desperately wanted to sleep in) and after putting on my glasses and finding my shoes, I go get the frelling camera, and walking outside, my little head and braid quickly get covered in snow, as I take pictures of the winter wonderland outside. I will finish my talk with you of the flowers later. I'm going back to bed now that I'm back inside and cold..........................the things one does for their spouces................... madgardener not surprised in the least that Mom's Nature has decided to mess with us on this perfect spring up on the ridge, back in a snow encased and covered fairy holler, overlooking a shouded in snow clouds English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b Sunset zone 36 |
#2
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
Hi Mad, This note from you was so beautiful that I sent it to all my family.
My daughter and I were just talking about the tulip trees in our neighborhood and wondering when they would bloom and I resolved to take a close look when I'm out today. The other Marilyn (in Ohio where the predicted snow didn't shop up yet.) |
#3
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
Hey Mad!
We thought about coming camping up your way this weekend but chickened out. Prediction down here was rain all weekend and nice on Sunday. Well it was cloudy on Fri. and Sat. up in the 70s. Yesterday we got bags of weed and feed for the lawn and 10 bales of pine needles. Yesterday afternoon I weeded all 3 flower beds in the front and 2 flower beds in the back before I pooped out. After a little rest, DH took me to Lowe's to buy some weed and feed and pine needles. He actually helped me spread 4 bales of pine needles before it got dark. Expected to spread the rest today (Sun.) but it was pouring down rain and cold. What a bummer! It is supposed to get sunny and nice all week and of course, rain again next weekend! My azaleas are budding and so are my bearded irises. My Lenten rose is blooming to beat the band. My peony is going to bloom soon too. Every year it blooms, we have been gone away on spring vacation. My whole neighborhood lets me know how beautiful it is when it blooms. I hope to see it bloom this year. DH says that it is playing mind games with me and is waiting for me to leave so it can bloom! Hope to see you soon! loony "madgarder" wrote in message m... I woke up Wednesday morning on my day off to discover that the fairies had pulled an all nighter and had opened up all the boxes of spring. The last week we've had extremely nice weather and the rains have even held off most days with just some spits of tempting spring showers on odd days. During my drive to work I travel my favorite winding country road, and everywhere I've been seeing early sign of spring time bursting at the seams. There is a tulip tree in the corner of a lot where there is a double wide modular just under the overpass of the interstate just down the road that is groaning with deep blush pink/burgandy and peach "tulips" all over the small tree, and I almost careen off the road looking at it as I pass...... Everywhere the white trees in oddball places catch your eye along roads, up by the overpass by the interstate above the road I turn to go to work just off Wine has two saplings, and in the woods you see white thru the dark trunks of trees not quite ready. I racked my brain for a few days and then had to slap myself when I realized it wasn't wild pears, but BLACK CHERRY TREES!! oy vey.......... The willow's that I spoke of a bit earlier has replaced the dangling limbs of small green pearls with impressive fresh green leaves, and all the maples are getting that bulky deep red look. But what really told me that spring was threatening to burst out was everywhere I looked were old ladies and tender young maidens decked out in too much blush. The redbuds. The older, more established ones, and the young saplings that are trying to keep up with their matrons in bud. This is the time of year that I cajole myself for not digging up young saplings for my own woods.......they are numbered in the hundred, maybe even thousands......... Squire and I drove into Knoxville yesterday and it's been warmer there than here, because the DOGWOODS are bulking up and showing that green tender tipped look. And their redbuds are already fluffed out and showing their shocking pinks. I'm not jealous because in time our own redbuds will show their colors. Because of this, I was longing for a redbud of my own in our woods, and was looking around the pallets at work at the 5 gallon blooming trees and came across something incredible.......... a Forest Pansey redbud. The emerging teensy leaves that were along the slightly crooked stems were deep burgandy, but the description and picture of the tree on the information card was what floored me, and made up my mind. The heart shaped leaves are absolutely one reason anyway, and the pink blooms that will come out on bare branches first. But the heart shaped leaves are reddish purple and turn brownish red!! Buying a pink dogwood is one thing........but to buy a Forest Pansy Redbud that is patented and will someday attain a height of 30 feet is a commitment in more ways than one. I got one, and returned to work today and got Mary Emma one for her yard in west Knoxville which I will take to her tomorrow. As I'm driving up my dead end road, the wild turkeys are up on the flat top of the road near Miz Mary's house clustered around the large boulders she's using as bowls filled with cracked corn and they're eating and two Tom's are all puffed out and doing a mating dance. Not knowing they were there when I drove up, I startled them and they waddled off in lunatic fright, some hens more daring and unafraid than others, standing their ground while they gorged a last moment on the corn she'd laid out for them. The Tom kept his tail plumed out, and a few of the more skittish hens took flight, their wingspan so large, I sat quietly and watched as they glided to the wooded edges of the pasture just below Miz Mary's hilltop into the Hammer's woods. I sat there for a moment, my music turned down when I first came upon the turkeys in hopes to not do what I had just done, and the sounds of a multitude of birds greeted my ears. The melodious trill of the Eastern Bluebird cuts thru all the songs, and I hunkered down in my truck seat and listened for a moment......Jays, crows, robins, an odd mockingbird, Cardinals, a little bird I can't identify by his song that sounds like "purdy purdy purdy purdy", the far off sound of a hawk's warning sound.....it's almost audial overload, but I have learned to listen better since living here where my music is sometimes not necessary and insultive, as nature has more than enough music for me to listen to. I snapped out of my wandering thru the bird songs, and my eyes focased on Miz Mary's sugar maple tree. Good grief.................the hazy, young green leaves are emerging almost as I sit there gazing at them. The one in the pasture is downright fat with them, the leaves now defining what I would say is an absolute perfect maple, one that has been left alone by man's hands, and only sculpted by Mom's Nature hand with harsh lightening strikes and weather prunings. It is a young maple tree by tree standards, probably about 75 or so, it had risen up in the north pastures from a blown seed from Miz Mary's tree that sits atop the ridge that borders our driveway, and over her lifetime and possibly longer, it grew into perfection. The limbs are just low enough on it that any child with a mind to climb up into her boughs can do so with relative ease. If it were my tree, I'd hang bird feeders on her generous lower branches for her bird visitors to come perch and knosch. This tree gives me pleasure in just it's presence of being there. And I enjoy her all four seasons of the passing year. As I shift the truck back into drive to continue my arrival home, I look at the signs all around me of the early arrival of spring. Or maybe I should say the burgeoning arrival of spring. Like some sassy, older Auntie who insists on everyone noticing her entrance, the additional help me and my fairies have provided for the entrance is highly noticable. I see by my gate that I need to clip the Zebra grasses now or will suffer to injure the new emerging grasses if I tarry longer in this chore. It will require me to sit quietly and cut each stem and make quite a pile of the brown stems, which I usually just set a match to, but I think this year I will put them in the lower compost space and allow them to decompose as long as they need. My forsythia has almost finished it's blooming, and the sharpness of the green in the emerging leaves is more evident than two days ago. It's like fast forward. I was never able to decide on which one to remove, and instead, I brutally prune the backsides of both of them opening up space between them and the fig box. As I drive to the first doorway of my side yard, I see there are tiny signs of leaves along the tan stems of the trumpet vine which is directly across from the second forsythia bush. Just past them, your eye is captured by mine and the fairies efforts of planting spring ephemerals, the early bulbs. My love of all of them is boundless. You see from the driveway my love for the narcissus is great, but apparently not complete. I must have them all.................but already I am finding some more fragrant and on the top of my "smell" list. Now fast forward to Saturday for a moment. Out weather god like person who never fails, has warned us about a "Dogwood winter" and I've been talking to customers at work who are transplants from Florida (the ones from Iowa and Chicago and Michigan actually believe me..........) the days before when the temperatures are hovering in the low 70's, and I tell them Mom's Nature has a wicked sense of humor this time of year (why do you think we REALLY call it April Fools.............) and they shake their heads at me, because NOW the dogwoods are unfolding, the redbuds are plumped out looking like soft lavender cloaked trees everywhere you look, the wild dogwoods are more cautious in the woods, I don't see anything but slight green on the ends of their stems as I drive around, but yesterday when I went to deliver Mary Emma her Forest Pansy redbud, Knoxville was in even further fast forward than here up on the ridge........ I had a feeling yesterday during the cold rains I should have picked all the flowers............well it's Sunday morning. There is a winter wonderland outside, with everything covered in three inches of beautiful snow highlighting every twig, stem, branch, fence opening, and bending every flower, every branch with leaves (which is every bush around here) to the ground with the weight of it. I woke up to Squire saying "GOOD GRIEF, IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE...............HOLY CRAP, THERE"S OVER THREE INCHES OF SNOW ON EVERYTHING, AND IT'S STILL SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All yer beautiful flowers are covered. I woulda never believed it........there's over three inches of snow out there and it's still coming down!!" And I'm lying in the warm water bed listening to his incredulity in his voice, this child of Michigan who has suffered and lived in Tennessee now with me for over two decades of his life (five years in Denver were more erratic and strange with weather and their zone 5 during the early years together, and he was the one comforting me with the strange weather shifts out there) and as I lie there, I calmly tell him "yes dear, I know....................it's Dogwood Winter, I told you we were gonna have Dogwood winter, but you musta not taken me serious........" and he's in the livingroom grumbling out loud that there's SNOW on his satellite dish he can't turn on MSNBC to see updates, and he's gonna hafta go get the broom to sweep the snow offa the dish, and he obviously has turned and approached the bedroom because I hear his voice getting closer and he says "honey, (it's risen in a few notes so it's a sorta stressed voice) I don't THINK YOU UNDERSTAND, THERE'S THREE INCHES OF SNOW ON ALL THE FLOWERS AND EVERYTHING and it's still coming down!!!!!!! You oughta get yer camera and take some pictures of this!!!" So I drag my tired old abused body (Lowes is hard friends, on that concrete for 8 hours, so days off are a blessing now, but I love it......talk to me in high summer..................) up outa the warm waterbed, (this is the second day I have been gotten up on a day off when I desperately wanted to sleep in) and after putting on my glasses and finding my shoes, I go get the frelling camera, and walking outside, my little head and braid quickly get covered in snow, as I take pictures of the winter wonderland outside. I will finish my talk with you of the flowers later. I'm going back to bed now that I'm back inside and cold..........................the things one does for their spouces................... madgardener not surprised in the least that Mom's Nature has decided to mess with us on this perfect spring up on the ridge, back in a snow encased and covered fairy holler, overlooking a shouded in snow clouds English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b Sunset zone 36 |
#4
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
In article , "madgarder"
writes: a little bird I can't identify by his song that sounds like "purdy purdy purdy purdy", Maddie Your "purdy bird" is probably a titmouse. Yours would be the Tufted Titmouse. Ours is the Oak Titmouse. (The oak and the juniper titmouse used to be one: the plain titmouse, then the powers decided they were different enough to be separate species.) The oak has a number of songs/calls in addition to the "Purdy purdy" one: one is similar to a chickadee-only more like "sicka a dee",also kind of a "tweety-bird" and a "tseet, tseet" raspy call. They are one of my favorite yard birds. I have a pair who are thinking about nesting here. They love safflower seed. Enjoyed your spring post mucho. Emilie |
#5
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
Wonderful I enjoyed your writing so much. Tom C.
"madgarder" wrote in message m... I woke up Wednesday morning on my day off to discover that the fairies had pulled an all nighter and had opened up all the boxes of spring. The last week we've had extremely nice weather and the rains have even held off most days with just some spits of tempting spring showers on odd days. During my drive to work I travel my favorite winding country road, and everywhere I've been seeing early sign of spring time bursting at the seams. There is a tulip tree in the corner of a lot where there is a double wide modular just under the overpass of the interstate just down the road that is groaning with deep blush pink/burgandy and peach "tulips" all over the small tree, and I almost careen off the road looking at it as I pass...... Everywhere the white trees in oddball places catch your eye along roads, up by the overpass by the interstate above the road I turn to go to work just off Wine has two saplings, and in the woods you see white thru the dark trunks of trees not quite ready. I racked my brain for a few days and then had to slap myself when I realized it wasn't wild pears, but BLACK CHERRY TREES!! oy vey.......... The willow's that I spoke of a bit earlier has replaced the dangling limbs of small green pearls with impressive fresh green leaves, and all the maples are getting that bulky deep red look. But what really told me that spring was threatening to burst out was everywhere I looked were old ladies and tender young maidens decked out in too much blush. The redbuds. The older, more established ones, and the young saplings that are trying to keep up with their matrons in bud. This is the time of year that I cajole myself for not digging up young saplings for my own woods.......they are numbered in the hundred, maybe even thousands......... Squire and I drove into Knoxville yesterday and it's been warmer there than here, because the DOGWOODS are bulking up and showing that green tender tipped look. And their redbuds are already fluffed out and showing their shocking pinks. I'm not jealous because in time our own redbuds will show their colors. Because of this, I was longing for a redbud of my own in our woods, and was looking around the pallets at work at the 5 gallon blooming trees and came across something incredible.......... a Forest Pansey redbud. The emerging teensy leaves that were along the slightly crooked stems were deep burgandy, but the description and picture of the tree on the information card was what floored me, and made up my mind. The heart shaped leaves are absolutely one reason anyway, and the pink blooms that will come out on bare branches first. But the heart shaped leaves are reddish purple and turn brownish red!! Buying a pink dogwood is one thing........but to buy a Forest Pansy Redbud that is patented and will someday attain a height of 30 feet is a commitment in more ways than one. I got one, and returned to work today and got Mary Emma one for her yard in west Knoxville which I will take to her tomorrow. As I'm driving up my dead end road, the wild turkeys are up on the flat top of the road near Miz Mary's house clustered around the large boulders she's using as bowls filled with cracked corn and they're eating and two Tom's are all puffed out and doing a mating dance. Not knowing they were there when I drove up, I startled them and they waddled off in lunatic fright, some hens more daring and unafraid than others, standing their ground while they gorged a last moment on the corn she'd laid out for them. The Tom kept his tail plumed out, and a few of the more skittish hens took flight, their wingspan so large, I sat quietly and watched as they glided to the wooded edges of the pasture just below Miz Mary's hilltop into the Hammer's woods. I sat there for a moment, my music turned down when I first came upon the turkeys in hopes to not do what I had just done, and the sounds of a multitude of birds greeted my ears. The melodious trill of the Eastern Bluebird cuts thru all the songs, and I hunkered down in my truck seat and listened for a moment......Jays, crows, robins, an odd mockingbird, Cardinals, a little bird I can't identify by his song that sounds like "purdy purdy purdy purdy", the far off sound of a hawk's warning sound.....it's almost audial overload, but I have learned to listen better since living here where my music is sometimes not necessary and insultive, as nature has more than enough music for me to listen to. I snapped out of my wandering thru the bird songs, and my eyes focased on Miz Mary's sugar maple tree. Good grief.................the hazy, young green leaves are emerging almost as I sit there gazing at them. The one in the pasture is downright fat with them, the leaves now defining what I would say is an absolute perfect maple, one that has been left alone by man's hands, and only sculpted by Mom's Nature hand with harsh lightening strikes and weather prunings. It is a young maple tree by tree standards, probably about 75 or so, it had risen up in the north pastures from a blown seed from Miz Mary's tree that sits atop the ridge that borders our driveway, and over her lifetime and possibly longer, it grew into perfection. The limbs are just low enough on it that any child with a mind to climb up into her boughs can do so with relative ease. If it were my tree, I'd hang bird feeders on her generous lower branches for her bird visitors to come perch and knosch. This tree gives me pleasure in just it's presence of being there. And I enjoy her all four seasons of the passing year. As I shift the truck back into drive to continue my arrival home, I look at the signs all around me of the early arrival of spring. Or maybe I should say the burgeoning arrival of spring. Like some sassy, older Auntie who insists on everyone noticing her entrance, the additional help me and my fairies have provided for the entrance is highly noticable. I see by my gate that I need to clip the Zebra grasses now or will suffer to injure the new emerging grasses if I tarry longer in this chore. It will require me to sit quietly and cut each stem and make quite a pile of the brown stems, which I usually just set a match to, but I think this year I will put them in the lower compost space and allow them to decompose as long as they need. My forsythia has almost finished it's blooming, and the sharpness of the green in the emerging leaves is more evident than two days ago. It's like fast forward. I was never able to decide on which one to remove, and instead, I brutally prune the backsides of both of them opening up space between them and the fig box. As I drive to the first doorway of my side yard, I see there are tiny signs of leaves along the tan stems of the trumpet vine which is directly across from the second forsythia bush. Just past them, your eye is captured by mine and the fairies efforts of planting spring ephemerals, the early bulbs. My love of all of them is boundless. You see from the driveway my love for the narcissus is great, but apparently not complete. I must have them all.................but already I am finding some more fragrant and on the top of my "smell" list. Now fast forward to Saturday for a moment. Out weather god like person who never fails, has warned us about a "Dogwood winter" and I've been talking to customers at work who are transplants from Florida (the ones from Iowa and Chicago and Michigan actually believe me..........) the days before when the temperatures are hovering in the low 70's, and I tell them Mom's Nature has a wicked sense of humor this time of year (why do you think we REALLY call it April Fools.............) and they shake their heads at me, because NOW the dogwoods are unfolding, the redbuds are plumped out looking like soft lavender cloaked trees everywhere you look, the wild dogwoods are more cautious in the woods, I don't see anything but slight green on the ends of their stems as I drive around, but yesterday when I went to deliver Mary Emma her Forest Pansy redbud, Knoxville was in even further fast forward than here up on the ridge........ I had a feeling yesterday during the cold rains I should have picked all the flowers............well it's Sunday morning. There is a winter wonderland outside, with everything covered in three inches of beautiful snow highlighting every twig, stem, branch, fence opening, and bending every flower, every branch with leaves (which is every bush around here) to the ground with the weight of it. I woke up to Squire saying "GOOD GRIEF, IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE...............HOLY CRAP, THERE"S OVER THREE INCHES OF SNOW ON EVERYTHING, AND IT'S STILL SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All yer beautiful flowers are covered. I woulda never believed it........there's over three inches of snow out there and it's still coming down!!" And I'm lying in the warm water bed listening to his incredulity in his voice, this child of Michigan who has suffered and lived in Tennessee now with me for over two decades of his life (five years in Denver were more erratic and strange with weather and their zone 5 during the early years together, and he was the one comforting me with the strange weather shifts out there) and as I lie there, I calmly tell him "yes dear, I know....................it's Dogwood Winter, I told you we were gonna have Dogwood winter, but you musta not taken me serious........" and he's in the livingroom grumbling out loud that there's SNOW on his satellite dish he can't turn on MSNBC to see updates, and he's gonna hafta go get the broom to sweep the snow offa the dish, and he obviously has turned and approached the bedroom because I hear his voice getting closer and he says "honey, (it's risen in a few notes so it's a sorta stressed voice) I don't THINK YOU UNDERSTAND, THERE'S THREE INCHES OF SNOW ON ALL THE FLOWERS AND EVERYTHING and it's still coming down!!!!!!! You oughta get yer camera and take some pictures of this!!!" So I drag my tired old abused body (Lowes is hard friends, on that concrete for 8 hours, so days off are a blessing now, but I love it......talk to me in high summer..................) up outa the warm waterbed, (this is the second day I have been gotten up on a day off when I desperately wanted to sleep in) and after putting on my glasses and finding my shoes, I go get the frelling camera, and walking outside, my little head and braid quickly get covered in snow, as I take pictures of the winter wonderland outside. I will finish my talk with you of the flowers later. I'm going back to bed now that I'm back inside and cold..........................the things one does for their spouces................... madgardener not surprised in the least that Mom's Nature has decided to mess with us on this perfect spring up on the ridge, back in a snow encased and covered fairy holler, overlooking a shouded in snow clouds English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b Sunset zone 36 |
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
Thanks Mad. What's the latin name for your tulip trees? Janet |
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
Oh, I love it, I love it all, Marilyn! You make me feel like I am right
there too. Thank you - and I think I will get outside right now and do SOMETHING! Bobbie "madgarder" wrote in message m... I woke up Wednesday morning on my day off to discover that the fairies had pulled an all nighter and had opened up all the boxes |
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
"madgarder" expounded:
but to buy a Forest Pansy Redbud If I buy one more tree it'll be this one! That snow that visited you is supposed to visit me tonight, we're expecting 2" or so from what I hear.....I spent Saturday out in the yard/garden, last fall I didn't clean up like I should, so I've got a real mess out there to deal with. Got the front lawn and borders cleared out and raked, and started along the side of the house (where the dog does her business, it's been a long, cold, snowy winter and nothing much got picked up out there....YUCK) before it started to heavy mist/rain, that cut my day short, unfortunately. The crocus are just starting, they've been shivering under all that snow and are finally free to bloom. It's strange to see the snowdrops blooming with them, but they're all making up for lost time. No daffs yet, but soon; I did see some early primrose blossoms out in the wildflower garden, and a quick check under the leaf litter in the woodland garden shows the dark form Jeffersonia dubia is getting ready to shine. Hopefully my anemone "Schraffts Double Pink" made it through, last year she looked like she might be petering out, so I fussed about her a bit, some bone meal and a good layer of compost to feed her. Even the johnny jump-ups are late, not a single bloom out there, but they'll be shining their little people-faces at me soon enough! I'll be ducking out of work early this week to get in a few moments in the garden in the evening before the sun goes down, weather permitting. Daylight savings starts next weekend......more evening gardening to come! -- Ann, Gardening in zone 6a Just south of Boston, MA ******************************** |
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
one of the shrubby magnolia's.....................possibly a Magnolia x
soulangeana......not sure of the genus "Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... Thanks Mad. What's the latin name for your tulip trees? Janet |
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
The message
from "madgarder" contains these words: "Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... Thanks Mad. What's the latin name for your tulip trees? one of the shrubby magnolia's.....................possibly a Magnolia x soulangeana......not sure of the genus Thanks, thought it might be from the colours you described. From our house, we look across the bay to Brodick Castle which has a superb woodland garden. At the moment, we can see all the magnolia campbelli in their full glory, up to 50 ft high and smothered with huge blossom the size of a plate; mostly pink but they have one white form which looks like a beacon of light atm. The gardens are open till dusk, and on Sunday we changed to British Summertime so dusk is now an hour later. We were exhausted and filthy from a day digging new drains, too tired to change out of the dire rags we wear for dirty work, so I put a chcken in the oven to cook while we snuck in muddy ripped clothes to visit the magnolias as evening fell. Nobody else was around; the magnolias towered in shining glory against a darkening blue sky and underfoot the ground was littered with the burst furry covers of their flower buds, like a carpet of soft rabbits ears; all the blackbirds were piping their evening song. What magic :-) Janet. Isle of Arran, Scotland. |
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Blushing old ladies and young maidens, with boxes of spring scattered about
THAT was awesome, Janet. I enjoyed your words of spring magic
tremendously........(((hug)))) madgardener one of the shrubby magnolia's.....................possibly a Magnolia x soulangeana......not sure of the genus Thanks, thought it might be from the colours you described. From our house, we look across the bay to Brodick Castle which has a superb woodland garden. At the moment, we can see all the magnolia campbelli in their full glory, up to 50 ft high and smothered with huge blossom the size of a plate; mostly pink but they have one white form which looks like a beacon of light atm. The gardens are open till dusk, and on Sunday we changed to British Summertime so dusk is now an hour later. We were exhausted and filthy from a day digging new drains, too tired to change out of the dire rags we wear for dirty work, so I put a chcken in the oven to cook while we snuck in muddy ripped clothes to visit the magnolias as evening fell. Nobody else was around; the magnolias towered in shining glory against a darkening blue sky and underfoot the ground was littered with the burst furry covers of their flower buds, like a carpet of soft rabbits ears; all the blackbirds were piping their evening song. What magic :-) Janet. Isle of Arran, Scotland. |
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