Toward Light

240/365

11:38 a.m.

Technically

215/365
4:02pm

Until I must concede the official beginning of autumn, I am savoring these last remaining golden morsels of summer.

"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language."- Henry James

In A Name

205/365
10:42am

Last summer we ripped out our dingy, crumbling prison-block retaining wall, stone by stone, and replaced it with a gorgeous, flowing limestone piece of freaking art. Ok, fine, that *may* be a stretch, but the labor surely was a back knee-breaking science. I then promptly devoured several gardening books, spoke with local experts, perused miles of neighborhood yards, and made furious scribbling notes and lists as if I just took on the role of the Queen of England's Secret Garden landscape architect.

This was one of the first plants I put in my garden, and not because the scientific name is Tradescantia x Spiderwort, but rather because its other name is Sweet Kate. Is it like predicting a race winner based horse's name? Probably.

Good thing I don't work for the Queen.

Canning Days

237/365
5:42pm

Our windows have been in permanently open mode during this recent and uncharacteristically temperate burst of late August. It would be reasonable to mourn the opportunity for the boys to plummet their golden skin of summer into bracingly cool water, only to surface with delirious joy, and repeat until exhaustion seizes.

But these hydrangeas are a gift of late summer, and they almost make saying farewell to pool days tolerable. It's exceedingly rare to find such an aromatic variety, and luck would have it that my three bushes have grown to window height. Their fragrance changes with the air; maybe how perfume smells different on different people. When the humidity is high, the floral note is so thick it clings to the screen, asking for a push from the wind like a child on a swing. When the air is lighter, the scent is clean, uplifting, breathable, crisp, and you want to capture it in a bell jar like a peeled August tomato, throw in the cellar pantry and savor it in January.

Audacious

214/365
11:18am

Its Bloom In the Clouds height and then mountainous arc bellows downward. Its color: bold, saturated, thick.

Gutsy. Undomesticated. Wild. Not For Manicured Beds.

Sunny Side Up

180/365
6:03pm

Charlie and his imaginary snake accompanied me on a one block garden tour. We would have gone farther, but the snake got lost among the daisies.

Old Wives' Tale

161/365
3:09pm

Don't believe it. There is no truth that ants help peonies go from bud to bloom. Notta. Apparently they just like the sweet nectar. Fair enough. We'll still keep playing How Many Ants Can You Count on the Peony game though because that's just good Garden Fun!

Bleeding Heart

150/365
5:02pm

Both kids love this plant. Know why? Because it has the word bleeding in it.