hmmm. it feels wonderful, this place.
hey. Where've you been. says Samantha, intrepid outdoor cat.
It is cello season, and there’s a gig or a rehearsal every 1.5 days. Youth Orch, Larry Jensen, Summit place, Cobble Beach, Faure Requiem, Meaford wedding…. not to mention the parties and the family (Hi Brenda happy 60th!)….
So when home happens, it’s very very good. Whiney cat outside, 6am starling down the chimney into the woodstove (third this year), an acre of phlox [Bill left a comment below that corrects this – actually it’s “Dame’s Rocket”, native to Eurasia, and VERY invasive – which explains alot – 4 petals = invasive, 5 petals = native phlox, non-invasive], columbine, alium & iris, peonies & purple geranium soon.
phlox everywhere, phlox-scent everywhere
purple columbine - this stuff seeds itself every year. incredible colour & delicacy
Also self-seeding, and here before we came in 2006. There's much more of it now, since we cultivated in the quarry.
All the five years of building and working and still working on building amount to this: a place we return to that welcomes us with utter generosity and joy. I truly do feel blessed.
This is a photo for the Green Man, who has now utterly taken over the landscape.
always the signs of ongoing work - tile saw, mortar mixer, sheep compost, ladders. But we are learning how to just BE here, and soak in the warmth, the creativity and the wonder of this place we are now wardens of.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
July 11, 2011 at 7:48 pm
I believe that your “phlox” is actually Hesperis matronalis (dame’s rocket) and is considered to be an invasive. http://torontogardening.blogspot.com/2009/06/hesperis-matronalis.html
July 11, 2011 at 9:38 pm
Bill – thanks for this. I hadn’t known – and you’re right – four petals, not five. There’s a deeper purple one still blooming – I’ll check the petals. I love new information like this!
And I agree – highly invasive. I fight it every year, as well as the abundant false bamboo (Polygonum cuspidatum), brought here from China, Japan, Korea by the British to hide their outdoor loos. Beautiful, but entirely uncooperative, voracious and almost impossible to kill.
We have quite a mixed bag of plants – from yellow ladies’ slippers (native) to these imports – the garden is the site of an old quarry, which at one time was also a garbage pit (before there were landfill sites). Quite an inheritance!