Quote of the Day: The Garden Above
Gardens are rooted in the earth, but the sky beckons. To send plants climbing is to lift up the garden, to elevate it above the sprawl and damp. There the sun can coax forth the berry and beckon the rose to flower. In this process, we benefit: from an arbor’s shade, from a pergola’s shelter, from an increase in the garden’s bounty.
Linda Joan Smith (Smith & Hawken Garden Structures)
I am definitely thinking about the garden above here at Chiot’s Run. We could use a few arbors and pergolas to provide shade in the heat of the day. We’re thinking of placing a few on the house to provide some much needed cooling shade in the hot summer months.
I’ve been collecting images of trellises and arbors over on Pinterest, trying to figure out just what I want to do. I certainly know what kinds of vines I’ll be using, climbing hydrangea, sweet autumn clematis, and hops of course.
What’s your favorite garden climber?
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Quote of the Day: Neighbors
Gardens are living things that get pimples and have awkward growth spurts. They age and get wrinkles. The garden doesn’t care how it looks though. Only the gardener does (and maybe the neighbors).
Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, 2nd Revised Edition
My mom’s neighbor is an avid gardener and her gardens show it! We’ve watched her garden grow, as they built their house around the same time my parents build theirs. Here are some photos of her lovely garden.
Ginger’s gardens have changed a lot throughout the years. I always enjoy visiting my mom to see what Ginger is doing. She has one of the most beautiful crabapple trees I’ve ever seen, sadly it was planted when they first moved in and she doesn’t remember the variety.
Do you have any neighbors with beautiful gardens that you get to enjoy?
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Quote of the Day: Marcel Proust
The voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust (The Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect Beauty)
Here are a few shots of flowers from my Maine garden that I took this past week.
The amazing thing is that none of the flowers in my new garden are the same as the flowers in my old garden back in Ohio.
What new and exciting things are you seeing in your garden this week?
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Quote of the Day: Rainy Days
“God made rainy days so gardeners could get housework done.” – author unkown
So very true, yesterday morning I swept and cleaned and polished and mopped but that wasn’t enough.
I also baked eight sourdough boules and make a few pounds of butter. But then the sun came out again and back out into the garden I went and the dishes remained unwashed…
Do you ever put off inside chores until a rainy day so you can spend all the nice days in the garden?
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Quote of the Day: Joan Dye Gussow
Vegetable gardens are much more important that houses in the overall scheme of things. Agriculture is the foundation of civilization. Houses come and go, but soil must be cherished if food is to be grown for us to eat.
Joan Dye Gussow from This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader
This is certainly the case here, we are putting off any work on the house and investing our time heavily in the garden, particularly the edible spaces. We know that time invested now will pay of tenfold in the future, especially when it comes to investing in our soil.
I’m already harvesting bountiful salads, both for me and the neighbors. On Friday I traded a big bowl of lettuce for some of my neighbor’s rhubarb. A wonderful trade indeed. I do have rhubarb plants to put in the ground here, but it will be a few years before I’ll be making any pies from them.
How important is your vegetable garden to you?
