Exploring the world of gardening. Observations, gardens to visit, thoughts on ecology, gardener interviews, and commentary.
The first pieces of flair I added to the garden early last year was a collection of bird and bee houses that I affixed to the left front side of our ramshackle shed. Recently, high winds have been knocking them off and when putting them back up I happened to notice a few stray baby yellow garden spiders (Argiope aurantia) and a big egg case affixed to the back of one of the houses.
Since then I’ve been watching eagerly to see if there was any movement. And look what I discovered today…
“Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.” – The Carpenters
I’m not going to mince words — the weather is shit right now. It’s grey and cold and the coffee I drank two hours ago has been unable to penetrate its dreary, low energy malaise. I feel like a zombie and I look like one, too. I often joke that I’ve spent so much time in the company of plants that I’ve become one. But the plants are bright, colourful, and standing up straight today — we are not in sync at all.
If you can stand to be outdoors, the overcast haze makes the perfect conditions for photographing the garden. I dragged my sorry ass out there this afternoon to capture some recent changes to the garden and photograph these books. The lemon balm is reaching a nice size now and I was reminded on sighting it that a fistful lazily torn and brewed in a cup of hot water is a good rainy day remedy. I added slices of fresh ginger and ginger honey purchased at the market to mine.
The cup is empty now and while I can’t say that I am feeling any more chipper than before, I am at least cheered by the prospect of more drinks made with fresh (rather than dried) herbs from the garden in the coming months.
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The other day I posted the above image, a photo of the garden as it was at that very moment. I’ve been swinging back and forth lately between satisfaction with the garden’s progress, and frustration with the weather and the feeling of being behind. Or if it’s not that it’s a nagging dissatisfaction that it hasn’t come far enough and is not enough… yet. And then I find joy in a new flowering bulb that emerges, that fresh look that the soil has after it rains, and the relief in finally having laid down a new layer of mulch and I come back full circle to satisfied again.
It was that seesaw of ambivalence that held me back from pressing the post button for a minute before I got over it and let the image go live. Despite my own uncertainty and/or insecurities I am not Better Homes & Gardens and I have never aspired to be. We’ll leave that to those who are better suited to it. I have intentionally rejected that path as a gardener, and thwarted that role as a garden writer for all sorts of reasons, the most basic being that it’s not me. As a result, I feel a commitment to showing my gardens as they are, as never-ending projects that are always in progress. I don’t stage them for photos or wait for that final moment of “doneness” because in truth that moment will never come.
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At this time last year I was just home from Thailand and dying (at least it felt like I was dying) from jetlag so severe, it still pains me to think about it. Back in Feb I posted a slideshow of dragon fruit images taken at a fruit farm in Rayong, with the promise of more photos from that particular trip. It took me a while to circle back, but here they are.
The first few images in this slideshow are of the tram waiting area where several types of fruit were on display. Once the tram arrived our tour of the farm began with the requisite giant novelty fruit, and a series of appropriately bad, lost in translation jokes made by our tour guide, Mafia Bangkok. That’s him in the bright blue golf shirt (9th photo below), cradling a durian freshly picked off of the tree.
I can’t believe that it’s been almost a year since I went to Thailand. One of the things that struck me while there was the inspired use of floral motifs in all design, whether architectural or fabric. I even saw fruits and vegetables intricately carved to look like flowers. The following pictures were all taken on the first official day of our tour, which began at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Grand doesn’t begin to describe it.
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