"Personally, I follow this simple rule of green thumb: Unless you're living off the land or the land is your living, the best time to do gardening chores is whenever you're in the mood. You'll win some, you'll lose some, and some will get rained out, but at least you'll enjoy your garden."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

The last of my tulips have faded. A dozen of these beauties came up in the back of the house near the vegetable garden. We are hoping to rework the area they are planted in, so I have dug them all up and moved them. Tulips are not known to have particularly long lives but I hope to see them flower again next spring. More waiting. As I dug them up, digging way deep to find the bulbs, I began to realize how my obstetrician must have felt when he checked on my boys in utero -- I learned to feel my way, in the earth, until my hand landed on a large bulb.

My first poppy has also bloomed. I really really hope these spread like crazy. Poppies are one of those plants that are supposedly so easy that they are ideal for a childrens' garden. Yet I have little luck with this group: poppies, carrots, hollyhocks, sunflowers. But I keep trying. Poppies are better off if you plant them in the fall and let them sit in the earth for a few months. But you can't find poppy seeds in the fall. I always think I will buy extra ones in the spring and save them until fall, but never remember to do so. Once I found some seeds that were embedded in clay balls and you could just put the balls in the ground, and these worked very well. I had lots and lots of beautiful orangey red poppies for several springs, their petals like tissue paper. But alas, we moved, and now I'm back to square one.

"I feel awed by the sense-tingling beauty of such life-forms so different from us. Simply beholding them treats our senses, and I am grateful. I don't expect understanding or response from the plants. I offer them my goodwill anyway, and the simple intransitive gratitude of "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

My Bleeding Heart has finished blooming. Whenever I mention this plant I feel like I should say it with a Cockney accent. To watch this flower grow and bloom is crazy, it is such a beautiful and delicate little treat. Not too showy, usually in the shade, you have to search a little, but what treasure is to be found! I planted a white one, a bulb I think, but I see no evidence of it. Maybe it has to rest for a year and will then show its stuff next spring. The one here I had transferred from another sunnier location last spring, I'm so pleased it took root!

Tear Down This Wall!

"When other people see that our hands are busy, they often give us a few moments' peace before making their next request. What they don't know (and we shall never reveal) is that when our hands are busy our minds can rest."

--Sarah Ban Breathnach

So much of our yard was covered in weeds, brambles twenty feet or so high clinging to trees, that we have been slowly, slowly clearing them away. We were careful to get the roots and the time we have taken is starting to pay off. No Roundup as we have lots of rabbits and birds we'd like to keep as friends. We now have some large spaces that are cleared and I'm planning whole new garden areas! I have cleared the land and fence between our house and our neighbors next door and now we can actually see one another through the fence. I feel a little like Ronald Reagan when he stood by the Berlin Wall, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Here are a few of the cleared areas, lots of potential here!

"At last the truth dawns on us: autumn is stealing into town....Soon the leaves will start cringing and roll up in clenched fists before they actually fall off....But first there will be weeks of hypnotic colors so sensuous, shrieking, and confetti-like that people will travel for many miles just to stare at them -- a whole season of jeweled leaves."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

What's The Story, Morning Glory?

"My garden...was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day."

--Nathaniel Hawthorne

The weather has been so glorious that I have been spending at least 2 hours in the yard per day (what was I doing with that time before??); it's so nice going to bed being really physically tired, muscles aching -- and sleeping like a champ. The last week or so most of my time has been spent doing a few chores, exercises in tedium, but great thinking time.

First, I tended the strawberry patch. I had read that you should clip all the little stems that connect one clump to another, that each clump should only have about five stems growing from it. This strawberry patch was already here when we moved in, and I assure you that this exercise has never been done. So I painstakingly clipped all the extra tiny stems and made sure each clump was independent of its neighbor. We usually get about 6 - 8 pints of berries from this patch; I'm curious to see how different the crop is this year.

Secondly, the large area that we have spent 2 years clearing of blackberries (with thorns by the way), and honeysuckle is now quickly growing weeds. I figure we got rid of Layer 1: I have only had to pull up 1 or 2 blackberry vines this year. Layer 2 has appeared: Morning Glory vine, possibly some wildflowers, and a large weed that looks like something we used to call "skunk cabbage" when I was growing up, but it doesn't smell bad. It is growing out of a tuber and the stem is pretty fragile so I didn't get to the root of much of these. However, the good news is that Layer 3 is beginning to appear: grass.

In the meantime, the tulips and daffodils are done and I have finished tying up all the daffodils. There was a big variety this year, more flowers keep popping up in areas that I've cleaned up. Some of these guys are pictured up top. The tulips are such a lesson in symmetry. These blooms would slowly open up during the day, close at night like little origami boxes.

Solomon's Seal

"One way I cultivate delight is to abandon myself to individual sensations, savoring them until they vanish. A garden pleases all the senses, including the kinesthetic sense of moving through space. For example, smelling a peony's blossoms until the nose quits from the sheer abundance of scent. In that moment, the universe -- from the dirt below one's feet clear out to the farthest stars, and beyond that in time back to the Big Bang -- all of it vanishes. Nothing exists but the citrusy smell of one peony. How long can I hold the sensation in my mind before it evaporates? I don't care. I cultivate delight."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

The Solomon's Seal is up. I had never seen this versatile plant until I moved here, now I see it at nurseries occasionally, surprisingly more expensive than I'd imagine. But worth it I suppose. Fortunately for me, it was already here, in 3 places and 2 varieties. I've been moving it to other places too. It transfers so easily, comes early and stays green for months, and looks great cut in vases. Interesting how it starts out as a little red bud peeking through the earth, like a peony. Each year, I think, What is that? Then I see it everywhere and remember. I have it in shady areas and sunny areas, it seems generally agreeable with anything. One version I have is tall, about 1 1/2" - 2', so it's a nice plant to put in the back or against a fence. Delicate little white pods appear, not quite little flowers, and also last a few weeks.

I am always amazed that you can take one little plant, and how quickly it multiplies itself over and over again. I have given away so much Solomon's Seal, but you'd never know it, it's so prolific. One of the lilies I planted last year has become 6 this year, what gifts nature gives us!

Here is the Solomon's Seal as it began to emerge, and after it's up.