Here are some photos taken in the past week in my garden. There's been far too much rain, to the point that Chloé's soccer games have been cancelled because local fields are too squishy. The
Western chorus frogs that live in the swampy parts of the forest across the street are thrilled with the water and have been chanting happily. The mosquitoes are also, unfortunately, having a bit of a party.
The incentive for me to go outside and work in the garden has been low (thank you Meeko for getting me outside despite the weather) but the garden is starting to look very lovely. Rain is good even though I would appreciate a little bit of sunshine every now and then! I am excluding photos of the weeds which are overtaking some parts of the garden. I'm working on them!
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| Tradescantia (very top photo) and Rosa glauca (just above) |
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| Shrub rose 'Rosa rugosa Thérèse Bugnet' |
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| Coral bells. When they bloom, I know I will see my first hummingbird (and I did!) |
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| Climbing roses 'Rosa John Davis (Explorer Rose)' |
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| 'Rosa rugosa Thérèse Bugnet' - buds |
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| Clematis 'Miss Bateman' |
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| Centaurea montana |
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| Viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga' |
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| Siberian iris (stem broken by the rain) |
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| Lady's Mantle (with petals from rosa glauca) |
The past week has been 'good' busy yet very stressful. There have been important events like our wedding anniversary and Emma's birthday. There was housework attached to getting the house ready for Emma's birthday party with her friends. I worked in the garden when the weather allowed. I worked on the computer to get a new print into my shop. Despite computer freeze and the resulting brain freeze, the
Lilacs print looks quite lovely. But there were also seven days of barely breathing as I waited for the results of a difficult medical test (which involved dealing with a phobia of mine). I was so proud of myself to get through the test. I got the results today and they were good. I felt like running up to everyone I saw on the street afterwards and giving them a hug! Rest assured that I also gave Emma and Chloé a hug when they came through the door after school. If you had been here, I would have given you a hug too!
Hope to get back to painting soon. The garden has needed me lately but I need to paint. I have missed it so much!
Kathleen,
ReplyDeleteMost importantly, I am very glad your test results were positive. If I were closer, I would definitely have given you a hug! :)
Your garden is beautiful and I am in awe that you know the Real, Latin names for the plants! If I can remember what the layman's terms are, I feel like a gardening pro.
Poppy, Iris, Clematis, Lily, Lupine and my fave, which I constantly forget the name of...it's blue, usually - - ah, it'll come to me. LOL. You get the drift though, right? LOL.
Delphinium!!
Man, that's bad.
I LOVE your Vibernum Sargentii !!
I have something in my garden that is purple (I bought it from a Church bazaar down the street) It looks similar to the very top photo, but I think the elderly lady who sold it to me said it was "something" Wort ?! It looks like it should be beside a pond or something. Any ideas? LOL
A hug for sure. :)
DeleteSometimes it is less complicated to know the Latin names here because of the differences in plant names between French and English, but there are many days especially at the beginning of each season when I can't remember their names in any language!
Tradescantia is 'spiderwort' so we probably have the same thing. I just looked up plants with 'wort' in the name. Not so helpful...there must be about 200 of them! www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wort_plants
I love your list of flowers too. I'm very fond of anything with blue or purple tones. I just was looking at past garden photos and saw that I used to have a flower bed full of lupins and I am down to one plant. Amazing how a garden changes with time.
Oh Kathleen, first let me tell how that I'm very happy & relieved for you about the test results. I don't know what they were but I understand they were (or could have been) life threatening.
ReplyDeleteThe weather has been a bit weird for June in France too. The half northern part is having October weather/temps, and we're getting lower temps, which I'm not complaining about. It is a change, for once, not to sulk in June's heat.
One upside, though is that your garden is wonderful ! Look at all these flowers !! Superb !
xoxo
Thanks Sonia. I think I was the definition of 'relief' yesterday.
DeleteWe haven't had a lot of sunshine lately, although yesterday we had a blue sky almost all of the day. The clouds rolled in at about 5:00 p.m. just when we might have seen Venus cross in front of the sun. Maybe the clouds were trying to protect our eyes. :)
Tellement heureuse que tes résultats soient bons!!! C'est vrai que ton jardin est magnifique, moi aussi j'adore ton Viburnum Sargentii!! Ton jardin te ressemble beaucoup, je trouve qu'il a une beauté sereine!! Je t'aime beaucoup my sister-and-law!! A bientôt xxxxxxx
ReplyDeleteTu m'as fait pleurer! :) Merci de tes commentaires sur mon jardin et moi! Je t'aime aussi et j'ai hâte de se voir cet été.
DeleteSo very glad your test results were good!!! Whatever they were. We women have lots of tests, and often have to wait patiently, without anyone else batting an eyelid, then to get good results, I agree it's so brilliant, you DO feel like jumping for joy with relief. The garden flowers look so lovely, mine is so neglected, it's been such weird weather, mainly too wet, then too hot, now it's wet again? I may make it there this weekend, especially as I've ordered some plants! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Julie. Yes, the waiting is very hard and my brain was going through all sorts of scenarios! I would have done cartwheels yesterday, if I knew how. That would have been a sight in downtown Montreal! I am taking out weeds and cleaning up the edges of the beds on one side of the house today. It's starting to look less like a jungle there. I hope you get some gardening time in the days ahead.
Deletewell, I must "ditto" everyone on the test results and certainly Julie for her eloquence. It is hard to wait especially when it's serious.
ReplyDeleteyour garden is lovely. I'm only getting back to mine after 2 years of earnestly fighting an invasive weed (that still seems to be winning the war). The Rosa rugosa is especially beautiful. Is it similar to Hansa roses?
Thanks, Barbara, very much.
DeleteI wonder is it goutweed you're fighting with? We had a problem with that one at a previous house. I'm dealing with a very pretty yet highly annoying plant/weed here. I'm going to post about it this week. Ah weeds, especially the ones with fibrous roots that wrap themselves around everything...
I just looked up Hansa roses versus Thérèse Bugnet. They are both rugosa roses. Thérèse's blooms are a lighter pink and the bush tends to be a bit shorter. They are absolutely glorious at the moment. The fragrance is beautiful. A very popular stop with the bees right now. :)
Ill Health or even just the threat of it can stop you in your tracks. Thankfully you're in the clear!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could wander your garden paths and stop to smell every bloom! I consider you are "painting with plants".
A hug.
DeletePainting with plants. That's exactly the way I think of it too. :)
Oh Kathleen, your garden is beautiful!!! It is a magic place full of little multicolored treasures. It shows all the love and work you put in it. Paradise for Meeko's adventures!
ReplyDeleteThanks Maria so much!
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