My Mother’s Day Gifts

We have a busy weekend here. Today’s the dance recital, which means lots of work and lots of fun! This is our ninth or tenth year of dancing, actually I should say this is “my daughter’s ninth or tenth year of dancing” but it doesn’t really work that way. As a dance mom, it’s my project too, and now my youngest child has joined in so we spend more time at dance then ever. I believe that dance is a wonderful way for my girls to develop skills in many areas. They love to dance and we love to cheer them on.

When I let Winnie out this morning I was greeted by this view. It was rainy and overcast but all I could see were the flowers.

Of course I was drawn right out there and I had to keep looking. Tomorrow will be garden day for me but I’ve been so busy with rehearsals and running people places that I haven’t been down to the garden in a couple of days. I’m always surprised by the changes when I’m absent for a little while.

The rhubarb is in flower already. Shallots are peeking out. My daughter decorated the fence for her birthday party. I think the lights are staying here, I love them! This perennial border is starting to come together this year. We need some more rain to fill up the pond so that the kids can use the canoe, and I need to make that fence with the dogwood twigs.

There’s always bleeding hearts and spirea for Mother’s Day, along with the flowering cherry in the background.

Dancing and flowers…what better gifts are there?

A perfect Mother’s Day weekend to me!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Michele

A Quick Derby Garden Update, With a Stop at West Beach

Here’s the Derby Garden when I blogged about it on March 26th.

Here it was on Sunday. It’s greened up beautifully. I’m sure that it’s at an even different stage now, a few days later.
I love these old chimneys. Maintaining them here on the waterfront is probably quite challenging. This was taken by my littlest girl. We girls were out for a ride. Aren’t these tulips great? Donna Seger at Streets of Salem posted a photo of them in bloom on May Day and I was sure that I was going to miss them. I was so happy to see that they were still going strong on Sunday. Beautiful peach columbine, coming into bloom.I’m not sure about this plant’s identity… does anyone know what it is? Let us know!
Before the garden we stopped at the beach for a few minutes. It was windy and cold but still a nice little break in the busy weekend. Sorry, no kid pictures… girls don’t always want to be photographed. That’s okay, neither do I.

I thought that the view might make you smile 🙂

Summer is coming~

Enjoy Everything!

Michele

A Spring Morning In The Derby Garden (thesalemgarden.com)

Dogwood Before Dinner

I took these while I grilled tonight.

Gosh, life is good!

What’s Happening In the Garden- May 1

Happy May Day!

I hope that you had as nice a day where you are as we did in Salem. It was gorgeous out there!

I had to spend some time poking around outside and checking things out. Here’s what I saw in between dropping off and picking up children…

Lady’s mantle and siberian iris, with the bleeding heart in the background.

I pruned the beejeebes out of this poor butterfly bush the other day. I’m planning to move it way over to the left in the next few days. I ran out of time and steam when I started this project so I have to get back to it (or get Michael to help me, soon)…
The sweet peas are all in a row, ready for their climb up the fence and trellis…
Asparagus is peeking through! And we have this beautiful pile of red twigged dogwood branches. I have to decide what to do with them. I think that they would make a great little fence!The rhubarb is ready. I wish I liked rhubarb more. My mother-in-law makes the best rhubarb custard pie in the world! I should work at that.
The flowering pear tree that we planted last spring is turning out to be beautiful! The soloman’s seal is poking through. I need to clean up and get rid of the dead stuff around it, however that requires me to steel up my courage because it’s snake country over here, not across the yard, just over on this side ;)! There’s a pot of potatoes underway. This year I’m planning to add a little bit of soil at a time, as the plants grow. The radishes pushed through. Radishes are great to grow with kids because they germinate in 4-6 days and you can be harvesting them in just a few weeks. Here’s the view looking down through the dogwood tree. Dogwoods take several years to flower after transplanting. I think this is going to be the breakthrough year for this tree. I have a feeling that it will have been worth the wait. And finally, looking out at the juneberry tree. This is another example of patience paying off. I was very tempted to cut it down a year or two ago because it just looked so sad and sickly. We treated it with Treetone organic fertilizer last spring and fall and the comeback is dramatic. It looks quite healthy and happy this year!

Try to hang in there with your plants and trees. If your having difficulty with something in your yard go ahead and google for a solution, or ask me to help you find one.

My husband will tell you that I live for this stuff 🙂

Enjoy everything!

Michele

Containers With Pizazz ! Not Your Ordinary Container!

I’m heading out to the garden to enjoy this absolutely beautiful day, but before I go I want to share this great post written by Claire Jones at “The Garden Diaries” about using containers. It has lots of ideas for your containers, with tips on how to choose and arrange plants that will really pop. I’m going to plant some canna tubers below the pansies on my front porch in preparation for summer. I’m sure that you’ll be inspired too! Enjoy! Love, Michele

The Garden Diaries

Finesse With Containers

Anyone with a flower pot can put together a container in an afternoon with a trip to the local big box store or nursery. But here are a few pointers which help with the final result that will turn your finshed product from the pedestrian geranium with vinca vine to a showplace masterpiece with Wow factor.

Artful Containers

The best piece of advice that I picked up over the years was the secret to coordinating your colors in a container. Choose a piece of fabric or piece of art that you really like and take it with you when you plant shop. Of course, you can’t take a painting with you so grab refrigerator magnets with famous paintings on them from museums, or cut out paintings from magazines. My most successful container was inspired from a Van Gogh magnet obtained from my many museum visits. Van Gogh’s iris painting has that intense…

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Evening Walk

Boys need trees!

Good night from Salem~

Michele and the little guy 🙂

A Pleasant April Evening (danardoyle.wordpress.com)
Just a Typical Wednesday Evening in the Yard (mainedays.typepad.com)

The “new normal”

I read an article in the Boston Globe Magazine today by former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky about his experience during the marathon bombings and the idea that many, if not all of us, will live at a “new normal.” He refers to a poem written by a Brazilian poet, the late Carlos Drummond de Andrade, that describes the security of normal as being “ancient.” The poem talks about the different things that one might take for granted until their gone or until one’s world is changed by something that threatens their security. It ends with the lines “They had gardens! They had mornings in those days!”

I don’t have permission to use it so I won’t publish the poem myself but you can read the Globe article here. It met me right where I am today.

I think that we’re getting there. As I promised on Wednesday we got outside and planted away that afternoon. We turned beds over, planted spinach, peas, more lettuce, carrots, shallots and of course, radishes.

Our new normal still has gardens. Our new normal still has mornings.

I hope more than anything that we can reclaim the feeling of security that we took for granted for so long.

I think we will.

Thank you so much for all of your support and kind comments over the past week.

We’re going to be just fine.

Love, Michele

‘Boston Strong’: A proud city shines through its pain – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day- April 2013

And now for something new and different–I thought that I’d participate in “Garden Bloggers Bloom Day” this month. This is a group of garden bloggers from all over the world who share a post about what’s blooming in their gardens on the fifteenth of the month. You can see all of the participants and link to their blogs here at maydreamgardens.com. It’s really fun to check out all of the beautiful gardens and see the huge variation by climate!

My one reservation about doing this is that it’s still early here in Salem, Massachusetts. I didn’t plant daffodils last year and everything is a few weeks behind due to the cold weather we’ve had. In spite of that I’ll show you quite a bit of green, and a little color. Don’t worry, in May and June we’ll be overflowing with blooms!

Since it hasn’t snowed or sleeted for the past three days the primrose popped out!This morning there was dew on the lady’s mantle. And I had my first glimpse of the bride and groom plant that my mother gave me years ago.The chives are ready to enjoy.
And the tomato cages are waiting. Our neighbors gave us the lupine plants last year. I’m hoping that these will be blooming as beautifully as theirs do soon. This is largely a children’s chicken garden, as evidenced by the “sculpture” that Michael brought home recently and the three gnomes waiting for their summer assignment out in the garden.The chickens may not be blooming but they add lots of color and personality.

Lamb’s ear is poking out… Siberian iris And finally a little bit of bloom from the scillaand from the pansies that I planted a few days ago.

Happy Spring from the Salem Garden! Thanks for visiting!

Enjoy everything!

Michele

The Edible Bus Stop

When I posted the link to Pam Warhurst’s talk yesterday the Mass in Motion Coordinator for the city of Salem left me a message about his familiarity with (and I dare say enthusiasm for) the concept of her work. He also mentioned a program called the Edible Bus Stop so of course I immediately had to google it. Check out the great video that I found on their web site. You’ll love it!!

Good things are happening here!

Thanks John!!

Militia, Daffodils, Ants and Sunsets

Here’s a little bit of my weekend, the part spent with camera in hand.

Our first stop was at the muster down on the common. We got there at the very end but still saw soldiers marching in formation. As the daughter of a career army master sergeant I get a thrill whenever I see this, which isn’t too often these days.
There were horses…The colonial militia men..And tanks that fired. What is it about boys and tanks? He loves this stuff, it’s just in him. Maybe it’s a piece of his grandfather.Of course we had to visit the playground for a minute. It was very cold and windy. My older kids played here every day when we lived a few doors down.We checked into the Derby garden and found that I was correct last week, this is indeed a daffodil! I thought so!Here’s the next mystery plant… I think this might be a tulip, believe it or not. I’ll check back soon.I spent a good twenty minutes on Saturday night photographing this ant. Perhaps I need to get a life, lol.They are fascinating creatures if you stop and look at them. I started this project in my quest to figure out where their coming into my kitchen from. I continuously look down to see an ant looking up at me. They are really driving us all a little bit crazy.Of course, by the end of the twenty minutes the ant was named Wilbur and had a framed portrait in sepia finish. I think I need help here 🙂Out on the deck last night my little guy took this photo of one of thousands of planes heading into Logan over our house. Their so close that we can see the landing gear come down.But to our left we were really enjoying this.I’m hoping that this helps anyone who’s still recovering from the ant photos.