Respite

April 1, 2007 April Fool's Day...

'Misti' this first picture is for you. Its from the 'vegetable garden room' at Hollis Gardens. This is the kale we grew in Maine.. Curly Kale. No matter how beautiful, no one in my family grew to love its taste. In the background was red chard.. along a bit further was a strip with reds, oranges and yellow stemmed chard.


A whippoorwill was singing first thing this morning. Its been a long time since we've heard them. Down here their song is only two notes.. Poor Will.. and so that's what they are called. Up north, its three notes.. Whip poor will.. The song was always comforting when, as children, we had to go to bed. We were told to listen and we'd find our friend there with us as we went to sleep.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful lately - nice breeze, cool air and sometimes too warm sun. Hollis Gardens is always a refreshing oasis... Today was no exception. There was one family there with 4 little girls, all dressed in swishy, swingy long pink dresses. They looked like junior bridesmaids posing for a proud, but a bit frustrated Dad. There was no label, but I believe the 4' plant with lavender flowers was a verbena bonariensis. Amazing flower! These little girls looked like a patch of brightly colored flowers themselves.

There were 7 or 8 huge staghorn ferns hanging on one of the old live oak trees. These trees live for a few hundred years and grow very slowly,, their branches almost gracefully reaching out.

I'm still feeling very frustrated with my Mavica camera. I've loved it for quite a few years, but am now quite disappointed in the quality of pictures since its less than l mega pixel. There are so many beautiful images to be captured, just waiting for me to make a decision and order a new camera. Sometimes the events of life so fill the days that things like choosing a new camera take the back burner. Perhaps it takes a few days like today with weather just begging to be enjoyed with camera in hand that will push me to order a new one. I took nearly 60 pictures today - just enjoying the variety of flowers offered.

Hollis Gardens always has unusual varieties of plants among the common, easy to grow plants. This one was particularly unusual. Its called Gomphocarpus Physocarpus.. Its common name was "hairy balls"... It was quite a large open and airy shrub covered with pale green translucent 'balls' approximately3" across, along with clusters of white and lavender flowers.



Last year there was a peach tree filled with hundreds of lucious looking peaches. This year the peach tree looks a bit haggard, but I recognized another fruit tree nearly ready for picking - the loquot. I'd never tasted them before eating at a nearly Chinese Restaurant. Absolutely delicious and nearly maintenance free.




One section of this garden is for butterfly plants. There was one huge patch of a very frangrant dark red flower head made up of many tiny florets. Upon smelling I would say it was a form of the old fashion Sweet William found up north. Amazing fragrance! Along the winding path was a section of the common nasturtium. I'd say there was nothing common about them.. One patch was a particularly brilliant carmine with the flowers held well above the leaves. There was also an anise hyssop.. about 3-4 feet tall and delicious licorice smelling foliage. One of those 'gotta haves'. This pink flower is a passiflora.. passies, I guess they call them on the Garden Web.

When I came to 'my' blogger, they had switched me to the 'new' version. I'm not sure what to expect, but did find that they only had a posting from last summer in 'archives'. I guess I'll be investigating to see how to use it. Kerri, thanks for the offer of help - I may well need it after seeing what a struggle it gave 'Alice'.

I hope each one in the colder areas are daydreaming about their summer gardens and those in the warmer areas are watching those tomatoes form and plants bursting into bloom.