I don't try to find fault with the farmette gardens, but today, I did think that in creating the flower beds, I neglected a very important aspect of gardening: room for enjoyment.
It's not my fault, really. I'm not talented at doing this stuff. Garden design isn't easy and I did not intend the fields to be anything but places of abundant blooms. I even resist calling the fields and beds here gardens because I don't think of them as such. I find space and I plant stuff in it. There is no master plan, there is no thought to how the space may change over time (by virtue of trees encroaching, for example). I want to take out weeds -- thistle, nettle, burdock, bramble, goose grass, vines, choking stuff that grows so abundantly everywhere, if you let it -- and put in something beautiful, a little at a time. That's all. End of plan.
But this evening, as I walked the farmette lands, noting that we have now entered the very peak of the blooming season, I felt like there ought to be beautifully designed spaces where you could sit back and enjoy this sumptuous season of flowering plants. Benches, carefully positioned, chairs perhaps -- anything that would encourage spending time in the middle of all this loveliness.
(We do have the porch and of course, normally there are many mosquitoes in July, so sitting outside isn't that attractive, but still, there's something not altogether right when the best view of the flower beds is to be had when sitting on the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. The window is right to your side. The beds extend deliciously every which way. It's grand, but perhaps not as comfortable as a deck chair would be.)
The day began as always in July -- with me snipping spent lily heads. 365 today, so quite a lot, but not nearly the max. In a couple of weeks, I expect that there'll be at least twice this amount to remove each morning. Let's see what a more or less cleaned up lily bed looks like:
(with a tree frog...)
And I should add that although I talk a lot about lilies, they are only a fraction of what I grow. A big fraction, but they surely do not stand alone.
One detail to note about this day is that it's cold. I mean, relatively speaking of course. A high of maybe 65f (18c). This is most unusual for us in July and I am happy that we only have this one chilly day in our forecast. In the morning, it's cold enough for us to eat breakfast inside!
The kids come over immediately after. Before we dash inside (and huddle under a blanket!), I ask them to look around and tell me which is their favorite flower. Snowdrop surely is true to her name as she runs over to the large white lily.
I like white flowers -- she tells me.
Sparrow points to some potted dahlias growing right where he is standing. I don't think he really loves these best. He just doesn't want the weight of deciding. There are too many. He is too small.
(sniffing flowers...)
In the afternoon I did something unexpected: I opened the file with my Great Writing Project. I'd been asked about it recently and I have this itch to finally address the ending. And so now you know that the rest of the day is lost to me. I sit in my text and I consider changes. And I make progress! I stop only when we realize that today is market day.
As we come back from our market run, I take a moment to look at the flower beds again. I think they're gorgeous, probably because they grew with me. I learned over the decades and I keep on learning from all the mistakes I make. But in July, the mistakes aren't obvious. All I see is the magnificence. I hope you see a tiny bit of it too.
