Lace Cap Hydrangea

 This beauty blooms underneath the deep shadow of a saucer magnolia. It always reminds me to slow down and not miss the hidden beauties in life.

Late Summer Flowers and a Book

 In space between mid and late summer, few plants bloom. But I found some in our gardens to share. I've included a book snapshot at the end because I love nothing better than to get caught up in a good book in the languid days of summer (or the orange light of autumn or the snows of winter or the fragrance of spring). Okay, every season is a great time to read.

Crepe myrtles.

Cyclamen. I'm babysitting this for my dad. 

I love this stump. The rich browns, the character lines,
and the ivy trying to subdue it. 

Phlox in my wildflower garden.

More wildflowers.

Tiger lilies.

My figs will ripen soon. Hopefully, I can pick them before the deer and squirrels feast. Last year, the night before I was going to harvest, the critters stripped both trees of every single fig.

Simon and Schuster sent me an ARC (advanced reader copy) of this novel. I'll post a review soon--I love shouting-out for debut authors. And if psychological thrillers with unreliable narrators are your thing--they are mine--then this is a book for you. It goes on sale January 4, 2022. 

Backyard Wildflowers

 Writing is my true love. But a close second is gardening. When my characters are misbehaving or I feel blocked, pulling weeds, pruning shrubs, or cutting flowers (by far my favorite garden activity) is the tonic I need.

Two years ago, I experimented with wildflowers. I started small with a mix, which promised year-round perennial wildflowers. 

I should've gotten a photo with a bathing bird, but they can be shy.

When I saw how much the bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds (and I) enjoyed the flowers, I decided to plant a bank of wildflowers.

 When I cut flowers to bring inside the house, the bumblebees grumble.

In the fall, when the flower seeds ripen on the stalks, goldfinches descend in clouds of golden glory to gorge their bellies.

Spring!

I know it’s only February and it’s still freezing every night, but the flowers are insisting that it’s spring in Chattanooga. So I thought I’d share some photos for all of you who are still stuck in snow and frigid weather--the icy ground crunched under foot this morning as I took these photos, but when there are daffodils, winter is over.

Here's a hellebore (also called a Lenten Rose).

This picture is boring. But it's my patch of mint that's come out of dormancy. This means I'll soon be having mint tea at bedtime. Thanks, Suzie, for teaching me to make a proper mint tisane. It's like drinking liquid sleep.

Thanks, everyone, for your well wishes for Jake and Matt’s Shakespeare tryouts. Jake got the role of Antonio in The Tempest. And Matt got the role of Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. 

Scrofulous Lawn

Why is it that I can grow flowers, but not grass? I put time, money, and energy into gardening. And my flower gardens look great (except for what the drought killed). My roses, lilies, tulips, etc., all bloom happily. I give the yard just as much attention: roto-tilling, grass seed, water, fertilizers, weed killers, mowing, even hand weeding when necessary. And how does my grass reward me? By growing only in the flower beds.

I have to admit that I take it as a personal affront. If I can convince recalcitrant orchids to come into flower, why can’t I get grass to grow? Is this supposed to be some sort of humbling process to rid me of my green-thumb hubris? If so, I admit it, I can’t get my grass to grow. So, is that good? Will it grow now?

I don’t think so. Here’s the thing that’s even weirder. I’ve been known to dig up a nice patch of green grass growing in my flower beds and transplant it into the yard. I even do it in the spring rain to avoid damaging/drying out the roots. Imagine me slogging through the mud, rain dripping off my baseball cap, digging up tufts of grass and replanting them in the middle of the yard. I consider it a job well done until the next morning. When I go out to check on the plugs of grass, they are shriveled and brown. How does this happen? It was a great mystery to me. Until…

This morning I had a revelation while I was showering (I have all my great thoughts while washing my hair). I know why the grass dies. Last year we had a lush emerald green carpet for two months, and then it one day it was a disaster. Cal and I couldn’t figure out what happened. But now I know. During the middle of the night, lawn care companies looking for new accounts troll the cities spraying Round-up and tossing fungus spores on people’s lawns. Then the next week they come by and spread seeds of nutgrass, crab grass, Devil grass, and the infamous dandelion. A couple of weeks later when your beautiful lawn is now a wasteland of weeds and disease, they leave a flyer on/in your mailbox (which is illegal) advertising their services.

But I’m on to them now. It’s only a matter of time before I catch them in their nefarious schemes. But that would mean staying up late for days—and I need my sleep. Maybe I can be content with a scrofulous yard. Besides I can always blame the lawn care people.

If My Hands are Filthy, It Must Be Spring

The green tops of daffodil stems have pushed their way through the hard ground. And I know that spring is still months away, but the gardener in me is beginning to salivate. Besides writing, there’s nothing I love more than getting my hands in the dirt. So, the only way to satisfy my need for dirt under my fingernails is to write about it.

Maybe love of gardening comes from a fascination with earthworms that I had when I was a girl. There’s nothing weirder than holding a wriggling worm. Nothing more magical than the way they chew up the soil and poop it out again. Sorry—but it’s true.

When Ariel was a little girl, she was captured by the same worm curiosity and for one delightful spring she had a worm box—we started with a couple of worms and ended up with a box of fat nightcrawlers.

But it’s not just the earthworms that enthrall me, it’s the beauty of seeing in the physical realm a spiritual reality. Every spring, things that seem dead and forgotten burst forth in a riot of color. They proclaim loudly the truth of the resurrection. First it’s the crocus. She blooms in yellows and purples so bright that it burns your eyes after the drab grays and browns of winter. Next, daffodils dressed like yellow bonneted-milk maids raise their faces to the sun. Then the hyacinths bloom. Their scent makes the rosebush blush in shame. Then the tulips rise up out of the ground, their stems bearing petalled flowers much too heavy for their skinny stems. And when a late winter storm hits and you think they’re surely ruined, you go outside on the next warm day and see the tulips drinking in the sun.

I’m tempted to go on and on about my flowers. But, of course, they don’t happen in a vacuum. I have to get my hands dirty. They need fertilizer. I have to battle their nasty enemies: aphids, mildews, beetles, etc. But more than anything I hate grubs. They remind me of creatures from Dante’s Inferno. I have nightmares about grubs. I can see their obese death-white bodies in my mind when I close my eyes. All they want to do is destroy my beloved plants and flowers.

The flowerbeds at our house are all new. When we bought our house, it was clear that no one had put any work into the yard in maybe fifty years. So, I put in flower beds. We wrote an IOU to the grass. But when the city dug up our yard to replace the sewage pipes last winter it became clear that we need to do something sooner rather than later since our yard was now littered with rocks. We raked, roto-tilled and planted seed. And a beautiful lawn of tall fescue graced our front yard. It was so emerald green you had to shield your eyes. Until…brown patch fungus took over. Pretty soon, our emerald green mat became a rug polka-dotted with brown spots. Within a month, the fungus and the Southern heat destroyed my lawn. Now it’s being over-run with Bermuda grass, which is beginning to look like a friend to me, despite the fact that I’ve always called it “Devil grass” and ripped it out with a passion to equal my hatred for grubs. But, if it actually survives and thrives, I may call it my “dear Devil grass,” or maybe “resurrection grass” since it goes dormant in the winter too. Hmm, I hope that doesn’t get me into theological problems… Maybe I’ll just call it Bermuda grass.