A Parade of Pink

A pair of big thunderstorms rumbled across Eastham (and elsewhere) early this morning. Loud booming woke me, with a roar of rain behind it, and I recognized the feeling of a particularly heavy cat weighing down my feet...not with fear or anything, you understand. He's a cat after all. But there was some awareness of the storm in that weight...it was a momentary chore getting out from under him to shut the wide-open windows.

Once the second storm passed on, the sun quickly began to glimmer, as the day brightened, allowing for a quick look around the garden. I found no damage (I did later hear that some saw hail this morning...but I didn't notice any of that), just a garden full of plants heavy with rain...and already perking up as the day turned sunny and June-like.

This peony was as heavy with rain as the humid air was with its perfume.

Posted by Picasa
I couldn't be more excited that these "spiny" roses have begun blossoming. These long neglected plants put out only a short-lived bloom or two last summer...hardly anytime at all to get familiar with them. So I've been thrilled to see them heavy with buds this year. I must be doing something right.


Posted by Picasa
I found them growing just as they are in the field which has become the back garden. I don't know much about them as roses...there's no catalog that they came from, no details about their breeding and ancestry. Time has freed them from the weight of a name and now they live only to frustrate a string of unsatisfying adjectives.

I suspect these roses have been here along time. These roses, and the many drifts of oregano, peonies, irises, phlox, ferns and foxgloves, have been guiding me as I lay out each area's framework. As I begin to tend things a little more here and there, I continue to be surprised at what else is out there, just waiting to grow.

Anyway, I'm coming to appreciate this plant in many ways...it's quite dangerous looking, a spiky beast of a thing--but, hey, look what else it can do!!



Posted by Picasa
Other shades of sweet william have now been heard from, as these plants has come into bloom along the front driveway. These, too, remain from much earlier gardens.


Posted by Picasa