Fleeting Beauty
Every year in June, I wonder if my hardy hibiscus survived the winter. Then, just as I start mourning that it’s gone, up come the little green shoots from the soil. In August it starts blooming and only lasts a little while before the weather turns too cold for it. This hibiscus came as a seedling from my mom’s garden. She has dinnerplate hibiscus in white and red, the pink color is a cross-pollination between those two.
Even though it only blooms for a very short season, I’m always happy to see these lovely blooms. They remind me of my childhood in South America, we had hibiscus growing in our back patio. This season I purchased another hardy hibscus with dark leaves and red flowers to grace our front stoop. Hopefully it survives as well as this lovely specimen.
Do you have any plants that surprise you with their hardiness each year?
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And…..I’m Back, Sort Of…
You may wonder where I’ve been the past week, I haven’t been posting because life got a little crazy and I simply haven’t had time or been home enough to do it. If you follow my facebook page or my Instagram account you’ve seen that I’ve been jetting back and forth to Ohio. The main reason I’ve been busy is because my mom has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she’s been told she has a few months to a year of life left. In the coming months I’ll be spending lots of time traveling back and forth to Ohio to help my parents settle things and get things in order. I still have loads of photos of lovely gardens from Sweden I’m going to work on posting, as well as all the crazy that happens here at the farm.
I only had a few days in Maine before I headed off to Cincinnati the following weekend for my annual reunion with my college girlfriends. My trip home was very eventful and because of a big mess with United airlines. It took me 24 hours to get back home from Ohio (crazy since I can drive in half the time). It’s a rather crazy string of events, because they forgot to schedule a crew for our flight, it was cancelled at 10 pm on Sunday night. After spending an hour in the line waiting for a customer service rep, I was told “We can’t get you to Portland tomorrow. Where do you want to go?”. I must admit that heading off to Mexico seemed like a good option at the time, but my responsibilities won and I decided it would be easiest for me to find a way back to Maine if I caught a flight to Boston the following morning. From Boston I took a bus to Portland, then a taxi to the Portland airport to get my car, then finally I drove home. It was quite a crazy couple of days, and needless to say, every time I fly United I say “never again”, this time it’s really NEVER AGAIN. I must say, I’m lucky that I can fly Southwest when I head to Cleveland to visit my family, I’ve always had great experiences with them, even with the occasional delay.
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Homegrown Figs
Many years ago I purchased a ‘Hardy Chicago’ fig, since then I’ve been enjoying homegrown figs every fall. These figs live in pots in the basement during the winter and spend their summers outside. This year I planted a few in the ground to see if they’d survive the winter in our zone. I plan on mulching them heavily. Just in case they don’t survive, I have one that I will be overwintering in the basement. Last year, I added a new fig plant to my collection, a Fig ‘Petite Negra’ (Ficus carica). I was amazed when it produced around 10 figs this year, it stands only 20 inches tall or so.
This plant lives in my basement during the winter and on the back porch in the summer. The back porch gets the afternoon sun and gets pretty hot, the average temperature out there on a summer day is 95. This seems to be the perfect place for this little fig. The fruit is sweet and delicious, just like a fig should be. Now that I have found the perfect place for figs, I think I’ll be getting some ‘Black Mission’ figs to add to my collection. There’s nothing better than homegrown figs.
Do you like fresh figs?
