Weekend Jumble

So here's one of those honeybees who were so elusive at summer's start. This weekend, I've been seeing them everywhere...so I'm happy to say that reports of their death may have been somewhat exaggerated. That's a flowerhead of Autumn Joy sedum he's dancing about on, only just coming into bloom as Labor Day weekend gets underway.

Yes, it's that last weekend of the summer, here already, proof that Time doesn't only fly when you're having fun.

I want to say thanks to all of you who've written me your comments or private emails of support, in regards the situation with Owen and I.

I can only really skim the surface of letting you know just how much it means to me...and how important its been to hear from you.

This is probably the last thing I ever wanted to happen; ten years is a long time to be with someone and I know and love him in ways that I don't know many people. Which makes it sadder still that he knows so little about the way my brain works and what has value in Life to me.

You might guess I would be quite happy for us not to have reached this point. And that wish makes me want to be swayed, won over by the somber attitude and thoughtful demeanor I have been subject to this past week. But I know from past experience, and from other peoples' too, that this is a temporary fix...a band-aid on a bigger problem. And thankfully, every time I start to get a little weak in my resolve, one of your comments or emails appears, just in the nick of time.

I really don't want to beat a dead horse, I'm not even sure I'm prepared to declare the horse dead...but there was something else I wanted you to know.

The gardening it seems I've always done...and the blogging started just to show my long distance (and local) friends what I was working on in a secret garden not easily seen from the road...but as you all have discovered it in the last year and come back to visit over and over again, this blog has truly helped me to remember that I have a voice worth listening to, that I am important to the world, in some small way. And that, as much as everything else, has encouraged me to seek a little something better for myself.

So when I say thanks, I hope you know I mean it.

Now sweet Jesus, can we please talk about the Garden again? I am so sick of being on the edge of tears lately.

Here's a Nursery Spider we found in the kitchen sink the other day. I don't believe we have much to fear from them, which didn't mean we both weren't startled to the ceiling when it jumped over a foot to get away from us.

Yikes...

I have made a mental note that next year, zinnia seeds should be started indoors before the season gets underway, or at the very least, planted in the ground the week before Memorial Day weekend.

These guys are only just beginning to reveal their first flower buds and while they are pretty wonderful, there could be so many more by this point.

To the left is a photo taken on Friday. Below is the same flower as seen on Saturday. The whole idea behind the Jumble thing starting to be more clear?


Here are some of those fancy marigolds I bought for the lamp post garden in the spring. In the background there, you can see one flower still bears the distinctive red coloration that caught my eye in the first place.

However, it seems the rest of the plant is a little weary at this end of the summer (I wonder if it needs more water, or maybe some fertilizer), since so many of the other flowers are just plain yellow now.



I don't know what these bamboo-ey like plants are. I know there are a great many of them growing on the side of Mount Dump-it in our yard in Harwich; I see them out our back windows.

Today I noticed this cluster of the same plant out behind the restaurant, in between dumpsters...and noticed for the first time the spectacular clusters of tiny white flowers.



They aren't memorably scented or anything like that. But the flowers themselves are tiny, but kind of exciting when you look at them up close.

Perhaps you don't agree, but there was a crowd of bumblebees and honeybees who couldn't get enough of them





Here's one of the center pieces last evening's custo mers brought for the tables at their Rehearsal Dinner.

I think my favorite arrangements are the ones that don't hold to a particular color scheme, but instead engage all the colors there are. These did that wonderfully, and featured a terrific assortment of flower varieities, too.

I do enjoy the Gerbera Daisies and was a little disappointed that my budget dried before I had a chance to pick up a few for the border this summer.

I used a few as bedding plants in my first garden on the Cape all those years ago, and the effect was pretty terrific.

I have no idea what that orangey-thistly flower is, but it sure interests me. I hope to stop in at the responsible florist and see what I can find out sometime this week.

In just a little more time-travely-ness, here's what the sky looked like over Not Wisteria Lane this past Friday evening.
Thinking of everyone in New Orleans this weekend, as the third anniversary of Katrina's devastation comes and goes, marked mostly by a new evacuation in the face of a much more terrible looking storm called Gustav.

Everyone down there on the Gulf Coast (not to mention all those lives touched by this storm already as its passed through the Carribbean) has my thoughts and prayers for their safety...and hopefully yours, too.

Long Weekend

Not a long weekend as in a holiday weekend, the sort of weekend where you have all kinds of free time to work in the garden, or spend time with friends, or maybe fire up the barbecue.

Goodness, no. It wasn' t that sort of long weekend at all.

What it was was a very busy weekend at work, with all sort of special events and guests thereof to host and manage and keep moving on schedule and when possible, happily so.

Fortunately, the weather worked with us for a change. While we had some heavy showers move through Friday evening (as I took that sunset and clouds photos which wrapped up the last post, actually...), the rest of the weekend has been delightful and sunny, but with reasonable temperatures and not lots of humidity.

Having seen the forecast for the weekend, however, I did manage to get out for an abbreviated watering session in the garden early yesterday, before heading off to get things set up for the day's first event.
I'm really happy with this lantana plant (left), which is doing quite nicely in its hanging basket on the front of the house. I'd grown this once or twice before...or tried to, but with only moderate success, since I was working with lesser exposure to full sunshine.

Of course, all the sunshine in the world isn't helping the Early Girl tomatoes live up to their name, as the first of those tomatoes--looking sort of apple-like, I think--are only now beginning to get the slightest blush of color.





Now of course, it's Sunday and all the business of work (save a visit to the office shortly to address some paperwork) for the weekend is happily behind me.

And it wasn't all bad, really. Certainly, it was a long and tiring string of parties, but for the most part, all of our guests were quite lovely and some very memorable and fun.

The events biz is, of course, rife with uncertainty and the need to adapt schedules and think on one's feet. Like when you have to delay dinner for over an hour because half of the guests speak a language other than English, which you've learned has seriously delayed the conclusion of the wedding rehearsal they're coming from.

And then realizing that same language barrier is making it surprisingly difficult to get across the idea that the party has come to a conclusion and all the other guests have left and "it's time you did the same so we can clean up and go home" without simply turning out the lights and pointing toward the door.

Or dealing with the self-important and drunken guest from a culture that doesn't value women as it should, who becomes angry when you defend your female employee's hard work at keeping tables at his family's party clean and orderly because she may have taken away his last half inch of watered-down scotch.

Which might actually have been consumed by the under-aged guest you've been playing cat-and-mouse with all evening.

But as I said, there are plenty of great moments, too, and for the middle of our trio of parties this weekend, we celebrated/hosted the wedding reception of some of our neighbors from here on Not Wisteria Lane. Congratulations and best wishes to Jen and Kevin!!

In the process, I was able to meet some more of our lovely neighbors here. Of course, now they know what I do for a living, they are thinking I might be talked into organizing the annual fall block party. We'll have to wait and see about that one, though.

It was just nice to get off my feet last night and relax a little with a bit of blog-and-comment reading before falling into bed finally.


All in all, it's been a pretty great weekend, even if the work schedule did mean I had to practice brevity with my earlier blog posts.

That's okay. Sometimes, I really enjoy sitting back and letting the garden speak to all of you, and see just what it encourages in you lovely people who come back regularly to visit the Midnight Garden.

I hope the weekend was a beauty for you and that all your hopes and dreams for what was hopefully a few days off came together exactly as you hoped, or maybe even better!

Before wrapping up, I'll just offer my thanks to my pal Meredith, who worked with me throughout the crazy weekend of ups and downs and kept a smile on my face and a laugh never far from my lips...even if we did have to hear the "Chicken Dance" more than once.

: )

Fireworks of the Floral Variety

Sorry to say that after the parade on Friday, the weather began to take a bit of a turn for the remainder of the holiday weekend. By late Friday night, it was raining and Saturday morning's early hours wore a foggy misty cloak of gray.

After having stayed up so late to put together the slideshow, I was happy to have the excuse not to water the garden and I didn't even take any new photos before dashing off to work.

However, I do have a few I took after the parade on Friday, which I still haven't shown you yet. One of them is terrific substitute for that great ball of fire in the sky. Is there any doubt why they're called sunflowers?


I still don't know exactly what these little purple flowers are. I've not yet found them in any guides, though have suspected they are some unhybridized version of something more familiar...perhaps another kind of veronica or something.

Anyway, nice fireworks substitute there.




Again defying reports of its death (ah, if it had been so for its namesake), the tea rose Mister Lincoln has produced a most beautiful and perfect looking rosebud. I really thought he was dead for real this time, so this just goes to show you how much I know.

This is one I really wish you could push your nose into--its scent is heavenly!

The Chrysler tea rose is being rather prolific this year, now offering its second and third yellow blossoms, with still a few more on the way after that!




Here are some lovely oriental lilies I was enjoying at work today, such a sweet fragrance!

They were featured in the wedding arrange ments of Leia and Frank, who were joined in marriage at our location and then celebrated throughout the afternoon.

It's been a pleasure working with them these last few weeks and I offer them my heartiest congratulations, along with best wishes for Much Happiness and Love Always.

(And hey, look in the background, you can see those three yucca plants blooming along the driveway!)

Some late afternoon showers were pretty heavy and managed to dampen my spirits for trying to do some fireworks photography near Rock Harbor this evening. By the time the skies cleared again, just before the display was to begin, I was already comfortably relaxing at home and didn't feature getting back into the car again.

Summer's First Saturday

The scent of the honeysuckle drifting in the window last evening and scenting the driveway in the warm sun of morning is absolutely intoxicating. It makes me feel silly and nostalgic and fresh all at the same time. But t'would be an exercise in frustration to attempt further description, so let me just share another image of the flowers, glowing in the early morning sun.

There was little time to tarry in the garden this morning, with an afternoon's wedding and reception to prepare for at work. I went staggering out into the light with first coffee in hand to hook up the soaker hose and then let those first real waking moments find me as I let my eyes wandered around the garden.

The foxglove are hitting their stride. Indeed, a few of the lower flowers on the stem of this first one have already let go and twirled down to the floor of the garden.

The beans are showing nicely at the feet of the corn seedings in the Three Sisters Garden - I'll be sowing squash seeds there, too, in a few days. It looks like the first snapdragon will be a pink one. Several of the lilies are beginning to show buds. Recently deadheaded marigolds are rebounding quickly with a ratio close to two new blossoms for every faded one I snipped. Wee...

And once everyone had a reasonably good drink (and I'd managed a second cup of coffee), it was off to the showers to prepare for the day and all its details.

My congratulations and best wishes for long happiness go out to Carrie and Jon, who exchanged teary vows and then celebrated through the rest of this longest day of the year.


I've shown you several of these little red roses over the past couple of days, but haven't really mentioned them.

This is the rose plant I rescued from beneath the remains of a fallen tree, when I was playing in the orchard garden in Eastham. It had been growing there on the rustic trellace that looked a little like a DNA strand. Their fragrance matches that of those white roses, making the air just a little richer with flavor.

That trellace, I'm sorry to say, had reached the end of its useful life and didn't make the move with us. I must gather up some new branches to make a new one sometime soon. That's always a fun project, as you never quite know what shape it will take until you see what the branches themselves suggest.

One of the Supersweet 100 cherry tomato plants in the border has already flowered and is now showing its first tiny green tomatoes.

The earlier columbine flowers have all turned to seedpods now, though it will be a little while before they have dried enough to release the seeds. Meanwhile, a second flush of flowers (about half the size of the original blooms) has now begun a little lower on the flower stalks.

Yet another variety of dianthus has joined the vast chorus of its cousins now. I've had this red one for four or five years now...possibly a little longer, actually. I admit I've lost track. It was a container plant most recently in Eastham, but I was happy to put it back in the ground here...and apparently, it's happy, as well.

One of the long day's true highlights was getting word that two of my very favorite people, Sara and Danny, were in town from Manhattan for the briefest of stays this weekend and extending a dinner invitation.

After I'd gotten home from work, wandered the garden a little and had a nice walk around the block with Em, I got back into the car and went off to see them at the beach house overlooking Cape Cod Bay.


My timing could hardly have been better, too, since I arrived to find Danny in the outdoor shower, following an afternoon spent doing battle with the installation of a new storm door.

I think he thought I was kidding when I said I needed pictures for the internets...but you can't invite a photo blogger to dinner without some possible consequences, now, can you?

The ever-lovely Sara already had dinner prepa rations well under way and we got caught up on a variety of topics, including plans for the upcoming December nuptials in New York, while Dan finished up in the shower.

The wedding should be great fun, especially since it also turns out to the weekend of my birthday. Celebrating in the Big Apple sounds like a great plan to me. Fingers crossed that all my personal logistics fall into place for getting there.

Dinner was wonderful: Baked flounder, spicy sweet potato fries, grilled steak and corn, a few beers, excellent company, many laughs...and a perfect summer sunset for dessert!


After sunset, the bugs settled down and we hung out on the deck and wandered along the beach, the sand in our toes, as we chatted about all manner of things and generally enjoyed one another's company.

As the day drew to a close, we retired inside away from the no-see-ums and creeping fog for a showing of that classic feel-good movie, The Big Chill.