Not Quite Paradise

A wiser, older gardening friend/neighbor once told me, when she observed the tropical garden I had planted, "We get a hard freeze about once every ten years...but don't you worry.  When that happens, you can just dig up those tropical plants and start over." 

GBBD: November 15, 2010

It's time for the worldwide Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted the 15th of each month at May Dreams Garden.  A bloom meme is quite overwhelming for me in November, which is one of the peak bloom months in my garden.  But I don't have room for dozens of photos, so I must pick and choose the best.  Oh, it's so hard!

Nightmares on Oak Street

My walk through the garden today fell a bit short of idyllic and peaceful.  In fact, I witnessed a few outright nightmares!  If you are squeamish or prone to fainting, beware as you enter this post today......

Enjoying My Eden

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Who can explain the secret pathos of Nature's loveliness?
It is a touch of melancholy inherited from our Mother Eve.
It is an unconscious memory of the lost Paradise.
It is the sense that even if we should find another Eden,
 we would not be fit to enjoy it perfectly nor stay in it forever. 

~Henry van Dyke

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Sweet Swirlin' Crinum Blooms! (and other surprises)

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Have you ever noticed that you can never step into the same garden twice? 

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Every day, I walk into my garden and never know quite what to expect.  There might be a cloudy, misty aura in the garden, or it might be blindingly bright.  On any given day, I will find plants that are growing larger...and a few plants that are shrinking away...plants bursting into bloom...and a few blooms that are fading.  Some days, I find a garden filled with birds and butterflies and a gentle breeze.  Other days, the garden is still and quiet...almost unearthly.  The one truth is that the garden is never quite the same place as it was the day before. 

Flaunting my Flowers (and Foliage) on Fertilizer Friday

I'm joining up with Tootsie for Fertilizer Friday in this post.  From what I understand, this is just a way to flaunt your flowers, and that is what I'm doing.  (I know...I do that all the time anyway.)  I certainly don't use any kind of store-bought fertilizer, except for on the orchids, so this is not about Fertilizer at all.  Well, I did get some old newspapers yesterday, so I can go cover the top of my compost hill.  They'll smother the weeds that have been trying to grow here and there.  I can throw some leaves we recently cleaned out of the gutters on top.  They are already nicely composted, which means we waited way too long to clean them.  Oh, and I can mix in some eggshells, banana peels, and apple cores that have been sitting in the kitchen.  There, that's my "fertilizer" piece.  Anyway, here are some of the things I want to flaunt in my garden today: