You could garden dawn to dusk this time of year, and not be done with the weeding, watering, planting, clipping...well, you know the drill......A garden friend of mine recently sent me a despairing email, saying that cleaning up and maintaining his garden felt like climbing Everest without oxygen!
Our gardens are the feast of which we forget to partake, especially in early June when the days are long and the garden is changing so quickly. In pursuit of the tidy garden,we forget to slow down and enjoy what we've created. The work will still be there, believe me, whenever we get back to it.
So in the spirit of looking closely (but not so closely you see all the weeds), here's what's happening in my garden this week that gives me particular pleasure. None of it is impressive, unusual or hard-won...just the little pleasures of the garden noted and recorded here to share with you....
The strawberries are flowering profusely, happy in the damp, mild weather. The colorful glass is a broken shard of a John de Wit vessel re-purposed into the garden...
Allium are the first big wave of bloom in my garden, and they're all opening up at the same time this year - this is Allium 'Purple Sensation' flowering in front of peony foliage and a variegated daphne (top), and with Spirea 'Magic Carpet' in the second photo.
I finally got some pots planted up with these fabulously performing tuberous begonias - this one is 'Fire' and last summer it kept flowering through first frost in shades of yellow, gold, and burnished orange.
The Japanese maples are finally fully leafed out - this one is the golden full moon maple (Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum') growing happily in a pot on the patio.
The slugs and snails have already gotten to the ligularia, but still, this dark 'Britt Marie Crawford' is such a beauty with its deep purple/brown/black foliage...And the raspberries coming up behind the wallflowers seem to grow about a foot a day on these long days leading up to the solstice...
