We can’t - or at least don’t - always live in the moment. The past is good to revisit sometimes for what it can teach us (you know what they say about hindsight and all) and it’s exciting to cast ahead to the future. Right now I’m slightly single minded about the coming week — I’ll be on vacation!! My bag is packed and I’m waiting by the car.

When I’m not busy picturing myself being supremely lazy, dozing and drooling with a book in my lap, I’m thinking about all I’m going to miss here at Blithewold. Highest on the miss-list is Lilah’s last week here. She, alas, is abandoning us for new adventures in academia. I’ve tried to help her with Worst-Case-Scenario projections - she’s oddly confident that it will all be wonderful… - and she’s taken very many unflattering pictures of me (as payback for the W.C.S’s) and some pretty ones of Gail for her bulletin board. If anyone has any sage advice for Lilah as she starts her first semester at Bard College in New York, please share! We will miss her madly and have already asked her to sign a binding contract to intern again next summer. Perhaps by then she will have changed her mind re. ornamental vegetables. College can be a mind-blowing experience after all…

I imagine that I’ll miss a lot in the gardens as well and have taken the befores pictures to compare with the afters I’m back. If I had been away this week instead I would have been so surprised by Fred and Dan’s newest structural addition in the Display Garden. Not 10 minutes after the guys finished installation, visitors were already ogling and photographing it. I haven’t asked if Fred has a name for his creation but to me it’s like looking at a hive in cross section…

And when I get back I’ll have to be at least a little more mentally prepared to acknowledge and accept Julie Morris’ (our Director of Horticulture) impending retirement. She might be ready but I’m for sure not. More on that much later.

For now, this week we are looking forward all the way to spring. It’s time to order bulbs! We cut the pictures out of the Scheepers catalog and played them like a high stakes card game. We came up with several combination selections that we think would be winning in the North Garden and many must haves for the Rose and Cutting Gardens. It will be up to Gail and Lilah to make the final cut next week. I hope they choose my North Garden “hand”! How do you play your bulb choices?

And what are you looking forward to? I’ll be looking forward to finding out when I get back! Have a great week, everyone!

… with envy! Today dawned as an envious day - the kind of day that calls out for a sit in a shady sea breeze with a fistfull of watermelon and an icy lemonade. How serendipitous then that today was the day Nick (a.k.a. Nick the Willing) opened his house and gardens to us and the volunteers. As we strolled up and down and all around Nick’s hillside on the Sakonnet River in Portsmouth, every single one of us turned shades of chartreuse. It was obvious to us all that his garden is a beautiful consuming passion and he never takes a break on his dock, in his pool or kicked back on his sun porch gazing at the river. And when he’s not in his garden he works on making the most amazing images with a ginormous large format camera and collecting art. And we were all struck by how he is completely surrounded by things to at least rest his eyes on!

I think it’s very important to have restful things for our eyes to refocus on even in the garden - most of us have lawns for that very reason. Even if we don’t give ourselves a grass nap, we can use it as an eye break. — It’s funny to me that green is the color of the envy monster because it is so gently calming and easy. Green flowers are a fun way of bringing that restful break right into the garden beds. Here are my current faves:

How do you rest your eyes in the garden? (- don’t tell me you actually let yourself nap!) And I’ve heard some say that green flowers are “weird” - what do you think? Informal poll: green flowers, are they easy-eye-rests or just plain bizarro?

Sometimes the garden resembles a well thought out mix-tape that keeps you swaying and singing and other times it looks like we put the ipod on shuffle. Sometimes the needle hits a scratch or we just can’t find the right song to follow the daylilies. I think it’s one of the reasons we keep gardening - to get it right, we rewind, start over and press record again season after season. And every time we get a song or two closer to a perfect mix.

Here are some of our current clunkers:

A river of Swiss Chard running through the Plectranthus fruticosus seemed like a good idea when we planted them together but there’s not enough contrast between them to make it interesting - it’s like a Hank Williams and Patsy Cline mix - not to mention that the plectranthus (Patsy) has overwhelmed the chard (Hank).

The record is skipping in this corner of the North Garden. For too long we have let plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) and various nepetas asters and chrysanthemums play on and on and to me, there’s just no tune there anymore.

Daylilies plague me like an earworm - we keep looking for the right plant that can shift the focus away when the foliage starts to drive us crazy. - What do you plant with your daylilies (and moldy Phlox!) to hide the leaves?? (Really, truly - I’d love to know!)

We often allow Nature to add to the mix and occasionally her choices are a little on the funky side. A wide bluestone path narrowed by sticky Nicotiana is perhaps a little like mixing Motown and Mozart…

And this dodder (Cuscuta spp.)- a parasitic weed that the Rockettes discovered yesterday in the Water Garden is just like fingernails on a chalkboard!

What do you have in your garden that doesn’t sound quite right?

Sometimes when I’m doing something tedious like watering I’ll get a random song on repeat in my head - usually a catchy ditty that I can’t stand and can’t tune out and I never know all the words so I can’t cut the loop. I am plagued by ear worms! But today I saw music while I was watering and wasn’t irritated by it at all.

It occurred to me that planting a garden is a bit like making a mix-tape. (– I mean cd - I’ve just dated myself, haven’t I? I am a good deal older than 26…) We gardeners take a bunch of different plants that we love to look at (or smell or pick or eat) and place them all together where we can thoroughly enjoy them. Sometimes we put together visual medleys within a genre - like a particular color scheme or food group and sometimes we go a little wild and mix country with punk. And just like with a mix-tape, in a garden there can be jarring clunkers that don’t quite fit along with seamless and surprisingly perfect segues. Here are some of my favorite mixes: (mouse over for names/captions and click on for magic picture enlarger.)

What are your favorite mixes? If you have pictures, please send a link! I promise to also show the clashes and clunkers (yes, we have some dissonance) in a later post… You too?

No rain in sight. The thunderstorms that have been in the forecast periodically haven’t materialized for us in Bristol since a month ago in June. It’s dry dry dry and even the pond has emptied already just as if it’s sprung a leak. The watering rotations have begun in earnest.

I feel sort of hyper conscious about water usage and whenever I suggest that the gardens are alright without a dousing, my co-workers* look at me like they might hiss “Blasphemer!” and start throwing stones. (*Lilah excepted - she doesn’t want to water either.) Admittedly my garden at home suffers somewhat. The blooms on my Clematis ‘Roguchi’ are half the size of the ones here and I almost lost a new Star magnolia last year due to an extended period of miserly neglect. I have a rain barrel at home that is still somehow miraculously half full although I draw exclusively from it to water my parched potted plants. I know the Blithewold gardens need to be on a rigid watering schedule to remain lovely and I know in my heart that mine at home would be happier for it too. The trick is to be careful while being generous. It’s best to water early in the morning - especially if you’re running a sprinkler so that you don’t lose too much to wind and evaporation - and to water really really well and deeply. Here we water whenever we can and most of the gardens are done by hand under the blazing sky which is hot and awful but affords plenty of time for daydreaming and wishing. I wish for a rainspell and a new hat with a fan attachment…

The trees on the property are watered by sprinklers and the web of hoses running around the property amazes me. I’m glad the guys take care of all that because I can’t be trusted to remember to turn off a sprinkler once I’ve turned it on… Blithewold recently received a grant to service and utilize the network of cisterns on the property and yesterday we heard the new pump working for the first time. Drawing water from a large cistern in the enclosed garden the guys were able to run 2 sprinklers on the Giant Sequoia and one on the Katsuras for a total of about 6-7 hours. Unfortunately it’s only a drop in the proverbial bucket since the ground under the Sequoia is still dry deeper than 2 inches or so from the surface. We need more rain to really drench that ground again - and to fill the cistern back up. I think it’s really astounding that the owners of Blithewold had the forethought to conserve water and install these giant underground tanks. Hopefully soon, they’ll all be in working order again and we’ll hear the thrum of pumps occasionally over the buzz of the cicadas.

We are also watering with town water and from the wells on the property. The Pump House where we store our tools actually does house the pump for the main well. Dan and Fred used the new portable pump to finally tap the old well on the front lawn today (I don’t know how many years it has been out of commission).

Are you experiencing a dry spell too? What do you do to conserve water?

In other news: The house today has been a veritable hive of activity in preparation for the RI Federation of Garden Clubs’ Flower Show. There are gorgeous arrangements and horticultural specimens displayed all around the first floor of the house. They all look like winners to me - despite some cutting criticism from the judges. Come see!

Gail and I are both a year or so older this week and in honor of our birthdays and Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (graciously hostessed by Carol at May Dreams Gardens) I went a little crazy with the camera. Here are at least as many Blithewold blooms as candles would fit on our cakes. (According to Lilah, I am turning 26 and Gail is 31. This, to be perfectly frank, is why we’re keeping her on the payroll. - Nevermind that she’s an awesome gardener.)

Hover over for names/captions and as always, please click on for a larger - and slightly magical view + caption.

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. -Franz Kafka

The Japanese beetles arrived last week and as Lilah and I were on patrol yesterday armed with cans of soapy water, she started reciting The Metamorphosis. (Cheeky girl.) We proceeded to have a showdown to see who could capture the most beetles. - I think it was a draw…

As gardeners we live and work amongst all walks (and flies and crawls) of life and as conscientious gardeners I think we do our best to do no harm. As Gail tells her kids, “we don’t hurt nature”. But then there’s things like aphids and Japanese beetles and white flies and scale and I seem to have no compunction at all about squarshing them. But we ought to practice at least basic integrated pest management. The more diverse the wildlife population is in the garden, the healthier and more balanced the garden is. It’s worth encouraging (just by not discouraging) natural predators - like ladybugs who eat aphids and praying mantises who eat everything (including fellow mantises). And as for the Japanese beetles whose only real predator is Lilah, we have tried dosing the grubs with Milky Spore Disease which is harmful to nothing else. — I think it might be working too. Dan treated the lawns two falls ago and so far this year (knock wood) the beetle population seems ever so slightly diminished. I’ve heard other theories that last year’s drought did them in. Are any of you seeing fewer this year than last?

Over the last few years I have learned to love and be less skeeved out by the creepy crawlies in the garden - even the giant spider web I walked into headfirst this morning didn’t set me shrieking. The more I’m around these guys, the more fascinated I become. It helps that I work with Gail who I think is an entomologist in a parallel universe. I can’t be too neurotically phobic when she’s saying “Wow! Look at this one!” She has an amazing box full of bugs and it is extra special for being a no-kill collection. It takes dedication and an extra keen eye to find the bugs that are already dead!

I’m content to watch the live ones. How do you feel about the wildlife in your garden?

TUESDAY TUESDAY TUESDAY!! - MONSTER PLAAAAAAANTS! Get your tickets today!

It’s very possible that the heat and humidity of the last few days have caused my brain to crash but I’ve been overwhelmed and downright noisy about the supersize-me ginormousness of some of our plants :

Especially the lotus (Nelumbo ‘Mrs. Perry D. Slocum)

The lettuces (which we took out today and replaced with ornamental peppers)

The Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum)

Ligularia ‘The Rocket’ - I am more impressed by these than all of the bottle rockets over Bristol on the 4th - plus it’s quieter…

A potted Burkheya purpurea (a what?) that we were sure was dead about 2 months ago

And our “baby beast” orchid cactus (Nopalxochia ackermanii) was so overcome by its own hugeness that it fell right over.

Not only are a lot of the plants the size of Buicks but in the last couple of days, Lilah and I found nearly a dozen skyscraper weeds masquerading as desirable specimens! Does this ever happen to you? (Look at how proud Lilah is - I almost wonder if she let it grow on purpose…)

The Monster Plant Rally will be ongoing - get your tickets at participating Blithewold Visitor Centers everywhere!

If you ever get to visit Bristol during the pre-Independence Day season you’ll notice that Bristolians take this holiday very seriously. On my walks around town lately I’ve been absolutely amazed all over again at how many houses and gardens are dressed in flags and stars and lights and red, white and blue everything. I can actually count on one hand and some toes the number of houses NOT dressed for the party (mine, alas, is one — we’re considering shopping the bunting blowout sales and draping our house in time for Bastille Day).

The writers over at Gardening Gone Wild host a monthly Garden Design Workshop and this month’s theme, proposed by Nan Ondra, is perfectly timely for us in Bristol - it’s all about garden whimsy. Many of the gardens I walk by in town have regimental impatiens marching among the foundation sentries but some Bristol gardeners are exhibiting their quirky personalities and their senses of humor along with their patriotism - they’re showing all kinds of “flair”.

Even though I think it’s possible to go overboard in the flair and whimsy department (a little goes a long way) I really enjoy seeing something unexpected and even giggle inducing in the garden. I know a gardener who has a demonic looking blue plastic bear/dog poking out of his delphinium and another with a bronze cast of her own hand emerging from a pond - sometimes the hand grasps a bottle of beer; other times a trowel. And I like to think that the mail carrier gets a kick out of Floyd, the plastic flamingo who guards our mail box. Here at Blithewold we keep the whimsy understated and even our Independence Day rah!-rah! is on the quiet side (Thanks to Sue McC. there is always a flag flying over the front door).

Do you enjoy glimpses of personality and humor in other people’s gardens? At Gardening Gone Wild they’ve asked: Do you have anything whimsical or personal in yours? A pair of wooden geese, perhaps? A train set? A statue of St. Francis? And I also wonder, do you decorate for the holidays?

*title phrase borrowed from the cult classic film Office Space by Mike Judge.

Maybe it’s the influence of living through the hoopla surrounding the 4th of July in Bristol, RI (home of the longest running - and longest marching - 4th of July parade in the country) but it seems like life is eventful at the moment.

Last Friday Gail and I celebrated the last hurdle hurdled before our July 4th week got-to-get-the-gardens-in deadline by a marathon planting of the newest Display Garden bed. Even though we were still tucking things in today, it feels like a major event to be officially finished planting!

After finishing that on Friday (and after scraping the most of the dirt from my fingernails and elbow wrinkles) I tagged along to the last garden in Blithewold’s Intimate Garden Tour Series. Our hosts welcomed the group with open arms and showed us what it means to actually live within the landscape - this was no mere garden! (Not that I’m dissing mere gardens - I, myself have one of those.) I have to say honestly that I didn’t expect to covet the house or even the property - 40 acres along a branch of the Westport River (erm, why wouldn’t I want that?). The house is ultra moderne but so site specific - it was designed and built for exactly that spot, no other - and really blurred the boundaries between inside and out which is what they were going for. It works in the dreamiest way possible. One of the couple is a landscape architect and rather than build things like a lot LAs do, he talked about “editing” the landscape. Sure there were elements they added but most of their touch was felt in care-full revealing of views. Sublime and sweet and magnificent all at once and although I can’t bring much of what they did “home” with me, I feel richer for seeing how elegantly it can be done. I’m only sorry that this was the last tour of the season and can’t encourage you to join the group for the next one.

I can encourage you to join us for Blithewold’s evening soirées - the next one is in the North Garden on July 16th - click here for details. That same week the Rhode Island Federation of Garden Clubs is presenting a flower show at Blithewold. Their gala is on July 17th and the show is open on the 18th and 19th. I haven’t found any information on line about how to or whether you can enter your own arrangements and horticultural specimens (and win as many blue ribbons as possible) so if you’re interested in finding out more, ask your favorite garden club member. Meanwhile, I’ll do the same and hopefully have more to tell you about it next time…

Seeing this fellow (and many others) in the last of the shredded leaf pile was eventful for the volunteers and me this morning. Anyone know what it’s going to grow up to be?

Finally the most major event in my recent days is a visit from none other than the famous and favorite Layanee of Ledge and Gardens! Thank you for the strawberries and I hope the sweet peas made the long ride home without wilting!