Recent heavy rains brought flash flooding to my father’s mountain property. One foot bridge was completely washed away, and the other, larger bridge was destroyed. A wooden walkway was moved by the rising water. The air conditioning compressor is ruined. Water is under the house, and now the inside of the house smells musty and…
Tag: blooms
Pocket of Joy: Begonia
I love the term “pocket of joy.” I first heard it on a Netflix reality show when one of the main stars, speaking of his difficult growing-up years, also spoke of the pockets of joy that sustained him through those difficult times. We’ve had a difficult two weeks. My husband had another stroke, what we…
Blackberry Winter
Blackberry Winter is a term used in the American South to describe a cold snap in late Spring that coincides with the blooming of blackberry bushes. Sometimes we barely notice it, just a couple of days of cold weather amongst the warmth. But we know it has come and gone when the blackberries begin to…
In our woodland garden: Azaleas
“Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.“(Anna Quindlen)
Coincidence or Symbiotic Relationship?
The Christmas Cactus on my kitchen windowsill blooms rather frequently for a Christmas Cactus. In May 2018, I wrote about how it had bloomed three times in the previous twelve months. Since then it bloomed this past December just after Christmas and is now blooming again. However, the African Violet that shares the windowsill blooms…
Flowering Quince
Our Flowering Quince bushes bloom anytime from December to March, and this year they began to bud in February. By yesterday, the last day of the month, the buds had opened, and the blooms look lovely in our never-ending rain.
Autumn azaleas, 2018
A year ago I posted that our azaleas had surprised us by blooming in October. This year they are in bloom again right now. For 20 years the azaleas bloomed only in the Spring, but for two years now they have bloomed in the Spring and the Fall. Interesting…
Gladiolus
When we moved here over twenty years ago there were gladioli blooming in the flower bed by the side of the garage. Over the years we’ve removed a number of the plants and tried to grow other flowers, but the gladioli keep coming up. Two days ago, while checking on things after another torrential rain…
After the Deluge (3): We can get out now, no more rain, and recovering my sanity
The broken fence still needs to be repaired, and there’s a sad, bare spot where my beautiful Japanese Maple tree was, but things are slowly getting back to normal. Sunday morning I got out with a shovel and tried to fill in some of the worst places on the road in front of our house. …
“The optimist sees the rose…”
When we went away for the weekend there were no blooms on the pink rose bush. However, a message on Sunday from our neighbor that her daughter had picked one of our roses let us know that blooms appeared while we were gone… “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares…
Unexpected in common hours 