A New Look - A New Focus!

Some time ago, I struggled over deciding whether to continue this blog or to post exclusively on my gardening blog - It's My Garden.

For a few months I did not post here, but I found I missed the give and take of talking about different things even when I still found myself drawn more often to post about the garden. So for the past six months I have schizophrenically tried to maintain both blogs. It has been frustrating.

The truth is that except for Mitchell and a couple of my Wise Women, the garden is the most important thing in my life. It's where I think. It's where I go for strength when I'm feeling down. It's my escape from work - and we all need one of those! It's where I am creative. It's even my favorite place to have that Friday champagne when the weather cooperates. It's part and parcel of who I am and trying to divide myself was a typically Gemini thing to do.

Last night I had an ah-ha moment. I can reconnect my Gemini halves. So now I have only one blog - this one. I will continue to write about whatever strikes my fancy, when my fancy is struck, but you will find more about the garden now. This morning I made it official and posted a final time at It's My Garden and invited my friends there to move here - and I do hope they will!

Knowing my garden friends will like my eclectic friends and vice versa, I have pulled you all together. I hope you will still come visit me and we can continue our journey together. Let the fun begin!

ps: Perhaps by mistake, I've imported all the old posts from there to here, so now if you are interested you can go back and see what I've been doing for the past year - or not.

Spring is All About Change -Right?

Everywhere you look, everyday things are changing in the garden right now. Yesterday the the lilac bloomed - Syringa patula 'Miss Kim'. It is truly a love in the garden. It blooms later than other lilacs, extending their season. It's compact - 6-8 feet at maturity and easily trimmed to stay shorter, so you can use it as a foundation plant. We put it at the foot of the steps from our deck to the yard. The moment you step onto the deck - from the house or from the yard - you get the wonderful fragrance.


And, it's a beautiful color. The buds are pinker, but the flowers are more ice blue-violet. Oh, and it doesn't mind our climate. A winner all around! This is one of my "memory plants". I planted it in memory of a dear friend's mother.


Another beauty that came into full bloom this week is a weigela - Weigela florida 'Java Red'. It's a smaller variety - not really small enough to be considered a dwarf - but better for smaller spaces. This one is going to get a major pruning after it finishes blooming in the hope of improving its shape. The side that you cannot see is nearly flat because there was a huge clump of sea grass behind it until last fall. I finally decided that the sea grass was way too invasive and dug it up, but it had really hurt the shape of this shrub. I hope that by cutting it way back, it will grow out all the way around and even out in the next couple of years.

And, then if you truly want to see what an early spring we have had, here's my best proof.

A water lily bloomed this week! This is one that Mother gave me a couple of years ago. We didn't have room for it in the fish pond, so we got a small pond liner and created a lily (only) pond. I don't give it an annual cleaning (since fish are not dependent on it), so I don't cut back the plant in the fall, and the result is this! Turns out the frogs have the prettiest spot in the garden right now!

More Change in the Air.

In the spirit of spring, I have decided to make a change in my blogging, too. For about 18 months I have maintained two sites - this one which has been wholly about the garden and my first site - From the Garden Bench - which was planned to be insightful comments on my life and the world. I find that I have much more to say about the garden, and this topic is the one that draws me most of the time, but I still want to write about other things from time to time - without needing to maintain a presence at both locations. So, starting May 1st I shall combine the two blogs - but over at the other site. This one will remain up in case anyone is just dying to look up something in an old post - and so I can link back to it - but all the new stuff will be other "there". And, gardening will still be the main focus of what I write.

I will leave a link here, but hope you will come find me next month "on the bench" as well as "in the garden".