I offer these vibrant helianthemum from my front yard as an antidote to the soullessness and unabashed greed of Agent Orange and the GOP.
Remember, people: ORANGE CAN BE BEAUTIFUL AND LIFE-AFFIRMING!
garden
We would be robots
Poppy downed by May hailstorm before it had a chance to bloom.
If we were to lose the ability to be emotional,
if we were to lose the ability to be angry,
to be outraged,
we would be robots.
And I refuse that.
~ Arundhati Roy
All flowers keep the light
Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.
~ Theodore Roethke
Thankful Thursday: the Fighting Iris edition
This beauty is blooming in my front yard, despite the 12+ inches of wet, heavy snow that fell on the bud a week ago.
Just goes to show, you can’t keep a good flower down.
Friday Haiku
They unfurled their blooms
then snow fell like wet cement.
The iris prevailed.
Springtime in the Rocky Mountain foothills
Yesterday, the forecast said it would start snowing this evening. Instead, I woke to smothered flowers and shrubs in my front and back yards. I spent more than an hour outside with a broom, clearing snow from collapsed lilac bushes and apache plume shrubs. I’m probably going to lose my iris display this year. Again. And forget about the poppies.
Sigh.
The finches are handling it pretty well. We’d already called it a season and brought in the long extension cord that heats the bird bath, so that’s a bummer. I filled the dish with hot water this morning and the water has already turned slushy.
The snow’s supposed to continue through Friday and then on Saturday? This:
Tulips interruptus
Despite already feeling overwhelmed by my gardening responsibilities, I brought 10 tulip bulbs back from Amsterdam. I wanted to have a yearly floral reminder of our trip. Today, I went outside and figured out where I could wedge them in. I prepared the soil and used my handy-dandy tulip-bulb-digger-thingy to make a hole. I set one bulb in the hole and then thought, “It’s been a while since you planted a tulip bulb, maybe you should check for any special instructions.”
Good thing I checked with the interwebs. Tulip bulbs are only supposed to be planted in the fall. Doh!
Amsterdam tulips nearing the end of their bloom.
My bulbs are now tucked away in a paper bag in a basement cabinet. They’ll stay there until September when my phone calendar alert reminds me that it’s really and truly tulip planting time.
Happiness shared is the flower
Happiness held is the seed;
happiness shared is the flower.
~ John Harrigan
I just photographed this iris, the first to bloom in any of my gardens this year. This was also the first iris to bloom last year. I’m very happy to witness its delicate beauty again. And I’m also happy to share it here.
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I changed my mind
Just now, I sat down at my computer and went to pexels.com in search of a Lamb’s Ear photo. My plan for this blog post was to publicly declare my new-found hostility toward that invasive plant, and to describe how I’d ripped out AT LEAST SEVENTY GAZILLION of them from my garden today.
But when I got to pexels.com, my search results from several weeks ago were still there; I’d been looking for images for the characters in my work-in-progress.
And this guy was the very first photo:
I’ve decided to drop my rant and, instead, dedicate today’s post to this delightful child.
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Twofer Tuesday: Tulip edition
Today’s post is brought to you by people who no longer live here. The first tulip was planted by former neighbors, but not when we were gardening side-by-side. Rather, they did one of their infamous “drive-by plantings” when we weren’t looking, and gifted us some miniature tulips.
The next tulip is a senior citizen and was planted by the former owners of our house. Next month, we’ll have lived here 20 years.
That red flower is a lesson in being beautifully tenacious.
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