Sunday, June 13, 2010

Con't garden June 13th



Blogger timed out on me before i was finished. Just a couple more to show
Heres 2 different Spireas. I chased a busy bee around the flowers for a while but he was so fast he ended up out of the pics.

Speaking of bees.....
My daughter told us she was driving on a busy street yesterday when the traffic all came to a sudden halt. There were 3 swarms of bees; so many she said they darkened the sky. I've never heard of this happening before; have you?
I think if the breeze from a butterflys wings can change something on the other side of the earth i guess that oil spill could have easily caused this.

And finally a heather thats blooming for the very first time in about 20 years!
That makes at least 4 really weird goings on in my garden right now. I wonder what it all means.
I love this heather but darn it; can't remember its name right now; do you know it?
Its green is unlike any other colour in the garden, sort of mossy or metallical and just an unusual and nice change of green. My eye falls upon its oddness first when i gaze out pretty much all year round. Didn't get a pic from further away; i guess because its sort of lop-sided and splitting in the center, poor thing.
I hope you enjoyed your visit as much as i did!

8 comments:

Snowbrush said...

Your photos are beautiful. Do you think it makes gardening more or less fun to live in Canada where the growing season is so short?

Lorraina said...

Thanks Snow. i don't do any gardening anymore. The pics show the remains of my efforts of 30-40 years ago before i was stopped in my tracks with the auto-immune liver disease P.B.C. and osteoarthritis (12 yrs ago)

But back in the day every year i started thousands of seeds in the house starting in Feb. then they went to the greenhouse in Apr and out in late May. In Sept/Oct. everything got put away for the season; i had a huge potted pelargonium collection and 60+ big fuchsia baskets that were carried back into our big sunroom to overwinter there.

My memories of the season seem like it was somehow both long and short.

I guess people sometimes have to adapt their hobbies or whatever to their climate and how far they want to push their limits. I was "on" all yr round.

I spent alot of time doing all the things that go with such as attending garden clubs, nursery hopping, out of town conventions, lectures and growing and maintaining a display at the local P.N.E. each summer. Socializing with like minded people and seeing other gardens was alot of fun for sure. The fun times were short and the work never ending.

My garden was always in need of repair; weeding or pruning or something big needed to be moved, removed or replanted. Truckloads of soil or manure had to be brought in (wheelbarrowed uphill too i might add) and so on. It was hard work because we built on a gravel pit with terribly poor soil.

And i never had enough time or the strength to get it all done to my satisfaction. But then, don't know if any gardener ever does.

I remember feeling stressed, terribly frustrated and overwhelmed with trying to do it all and never feeling the satisfaction that it was a done garden; like as in always striving for perfection and maybe one day ~*snap*~ there it would be all done and beautiful and i'd be finished.
I also remember hubby wanting all things opposite of what i wanted and trying to compromise when really, a garden should have just one planner.

Time always ran out before the million things got done. I know now that gardens are always in some state of progress and a longer growing season wouldn't have made any difference. I would have just done more and expected more i guess.

But at the time i wanted it finished like it was like a process i had to complete. I never really saw the beauty or the over all picture of the hobby until much later, through pictures and video. Thats not to say i have contentment now. Its awful for me at times when i look out and see the neglect; plants not maintained, gone, dead or not worth their presence. And of course lots of why did i plant that there. Why wasn't that planted over there, why was that planted period! sort of stuff.

But it was also a busy time with kids leaving and marrying and grandbabies arriving and other distractions.

So in retrospect i see that those were some of the best days of my life and i guess i was having fun; i just didn't know it at the time.

Sorry for my lengthy "over answering"

A Plain Observer said...

you know...all kidding aside, I do believe in those signs, unusual things happening. I think that if we are aware and willing, we can hear and see those signs. What am I talking about???

You have such a beautiful garden!!!
and those bees darkening the sky, wow!!! only in movies I've seen that.

Lorraina said...

I should have asked her if she saw Alfred Hitchcock filming nearby, lol!
Actually i believe her as she's not one to exaggerate.

Another unusual thing about yesterday is that it was my recently deceased brothers birthday. We're planning a circle road trip to take his ashes home and to sprinkle some at places he loved in the mountains along the way there and back.
The first stop was to be at Mt. Baldy near Oliver, B.C.
I was thinking about him when the news came on about a major land/mud slide there yesterday exactly 1 month prior to our being there. The slide wiped out the road but will probably be repaired by the time we go.

But now i'm thinking....could it be a message to not go there? Or to at least not go that way.

I guess it sounds crazy but sometimes you just don't know if you should look at signs like that.

Nikki (Sarah) said...

these are stunning. I'm new at gardening and one day...hopefully our garden will look like this

Lorraina said...

Thanks for the visit and comment Sarah. If i can offer one piece of garden building advice it would be to believe the labels desc. of height and width of each and every plant you add to your garden. Also its sun or shade requirements. This will pay off big time in the enjoyment of it all.

Snowbrush said...

I would guess that the three swarms came from the same nearby hive. They were on their separate ways to look for new homes.

I was sorry to read about your ailments. I too have arthritis, among other problems, but no autoimmune diseases yet, knock on wood. My blue heeler came down with one out of the blue over Christmas and had to be rushed to the emergency vet hospital on Christmas Day. In her case, the problem was autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and she was so close to death that I had to decide whether to make her a no-code should she arrest. With steroids and transfusions, she did pull through.

Lorraina said...

Sorry its taken me so long to respond Snow; it just got away on me. Sorry to hear your dog was so ill but happy to hear she's ok.
You didn't say what kind of Arthitis you have but if its osteo welcome to my world, lol.
I think rheumatoid is considered to be autoimmune but not osteo arthritis.
Strangely my mom and all 4 of my siblings have or had the rheumatoid kind and their fingers all bore evidence. I was really shocked to see how fast it had progressed in my brother and sisters fingers on our visit earlier this month.