Todd and I spent the weekend in Maine at my mum's house, helping out with her gardens and eating too much homemade mac & cheese. We miss having our own garden these days, so we live vicariously by digging and mucking about in our parents' gardens.
After we finished up yesterday, the very last bit of light in the evening was so lovely that I had to take a few photos. 
Below is part of the shade garden we planted for Mum two summers ago when my grandmother passed away. We wanted to make sure we could save some of Grammy's gardens, so we transplanted several of her perennials, including many hostas, in a shady corner of my mother's yard beside the glossy wild ginger that she already had growing there. We tucked in some variegated lamium and a few ferns that we stole from forgotten corners of Mum's yard. This year, the garden is starting to fill in nicely.
Mum has clouds of blue columbine in one of her gardens. We hung this greenish, creamy white surfinia petunia next to them to keep them company.
Whenever I garden at my mother's house, all my childhood summers spent there come rushing back. Her peonies are about to open, and I recall braving the ants just to crush my face into their lush scent. On the roadsides near her house the daisies, lupine, and buttercups are in full flower now. My sister and I used to pick armfuls of wildflowers in the field behind our yard to fill every vase, milk bottle, and jam jar we could find. This weekend I was content with just digging and weeding and mulching, but I think I will need to raid the vacant lot next to my own building tomorrow to bring back a handful or two of wild early-summer beauties.
Thank you, thank you, my Gardener Angels! It was heavenly to be in the gardens with you.
ReplyDeleteOh, I love the image of you braving the ants to push your nose into the peonies, young gigi! I didn't grow up with these amazing flowers -- southern california was just to warm, I think -- so I have been snuffling ants every year I've lived here, just to make up for lost time with peonies.
ReplyDeleteLove the fern image, especially.
kisses to you both
I don't see with your keen eloquence---braving the ants: beautiful! But I do enjoy dipping my hands into the dirt and imagining whole fantastic gardens, their structure, their shapes, the opportunity to make something beautiful that will grow maybe how I imagine, maybe in strange wild ways that will, then, show me new shapes and structures to follow. You make beautiful gardens. You take beautiful pictures of them. Let's brave more ants to plant herbs and flowers and trees and, of course, begonias, everywhere! Secret gardens and public gardens and rogue gardens!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marlowe, Mum, and Todd, three of my favorite gardeners!
ReplyDeleteI have long been a friend of your Mom's and an admirer of your grandmother. Your mom taught some of my four daughters and we now enjoy her as a customer/friend in the business world! She just stopped in our print shop and sat herself right down to help us collate MHS graduation programs! Meanwhile, she spotted my newest project of mapping my gardens to try to combat "tag-loss", and mentionned that I should discover your blog. I told her I also have a blog oakhilllodge.blogspot.com which includes some of my trials in gardening as well as the building of the timberframe gathering place for our four daughters, their hubbies, their babies, their dogs, etc.... Anyways, I love the current articles on your blog, and can't wait to explore the archives! Fantastic!
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