Phyllis and flowers

Phyllis, my mother, was the first flower gardener I knew as a child and I have vivid memories of some of her flowers that grew in our yard from those early days in the late 1950s. I returned home to Manassas in 1985 after years of study and fun in New York City to find she had let flower gardening slide and I dreamed of rebuilding a big flowering garden. With a lot of free time and the suburban luxury of the big yard in I began to discover gardening and Phyllis has supported our garden delights ever since. I was inspired also after I worked for a few years in a flower shop in NYC, called Pure Mädderlake, where I learned the names of lots of cut flowers and developed a taste for some really nice varieties. In Manassas I had a chance to try and grow them if I could find them and make it work in our climate and soil. Seems from this flower gardening I have developed an ever expanding interest in the environment and the natural world. 

This week I set out to take Phyllis to a native plants ground cover talk hosted by the Virginia Native Plants Society downtown Manassas. It was a great experience to be in a room with some many people interested in local native plants and the speaker Janet Davis from Hill House Farm and Nursery was inspired giving us lots to think about in the way a garden is constructed and grown. I recognized several plants during the slide show from experiences in gardening and walking the trails of the area. This plant we brought home seems to be the same one I was obsessed with photographing on my hike out at the Battlefield recently that was growing and blooming throughout the meadows and at the woods edge. 

I hope it grows for us in our home garden as well as it does out in the open untended fields of the battlefield park . 

The home garden was looking good, full of flowers and creatures. A few of them I had close encounters with and brought back images to share. 

While staking and tying up tall flowers in the front flower beds I nearly jumped out of my skin when I lifted a long bough of phlox to step into the garden and nearly stepped right on top of this great eastern box turtle. It's the first time we have seen one in the garden. 

This lovely sphinx moth that looked like a small humming bird or a really big bumble bee was all over the flowering butterfly bush and other deep throat flower trumpets sipping the nectar. It's Moth Week so I was excited to get home and discover I had some images of a very cool one who lives and flies in daylight hours. Its called a Snowberry Clearwing Hemaris diffinis fully described in the hot link. 

Sweet gum or Liquid amber tree by the old Koi pond still stands out in the back yard.

Virginia Creeper native vine 

 Our neighbor down Lomond Drive has six honey bee hives discreetly located behind a six foot tall fence and those bees are regular visitors now to the flowers and especially the purple flowering hyssop that smells like licorice candy when you crush the leaves. Makes me wonder if sipping that nectar impacts the flavor of his honey?

Last but not least the birds were always on my mind and in view when I looked for them in the trees around the house. These cardinals showed up twice and the catbird modeled in a low branch of the crepe myrtle trees for a nice portrait. 

I think I remember in grade school we were given little golden books to help identify various things like an adult I use books and now the internet to look up what I can. Though I never liked to read as a kid those picture books were endlessly interesting because of the great pictures and they helped me look more closely at the world around us where we played in the back yard and on trips to SW Virginia the woods the fields where we learned to respect the dangers and appreciate the other creatures in the world. It feels like I still have a lot to learn about the world around us.

Summer begins: flowers, fireworks, birds and quilt labels

The time is flying by as are new birds and blooming sections of the garden this year. It has been pretty mild for the beginning of the summer. July 4th in my memory is always miserably humid, hot and hazy with the threat of thunder storms looming off in the distance. This year it was cool 75ºF and very low humidity with clear skies and a great view of the Washington DC National Fireworks display. Keith and I took it in with our friend Meron from Ethiopia for another first American experience. We were all impressed with the crowd and the show in the sky. The half moon was out in the sky just up to the left in my photos below.

 

Today I am enjoying the day lilies, bee balm and summer phlox among other flowers as well as the fledgling birds in our garden. We had a clutch of House Wren's last month leave the brown bird house and now it looks like the green A frame bird house has a new set of House Wrens laying eggs and singing their bold songs.

We have blue bird and starling fledgelings who pose while eyeing the big guy at the garden table with the camera reluctant but unsure if I represent danger, they are learning slowly.

a fledgling blue jay has a very short tail and does a lot of crying for food.

The birds flock to our yard to eat the bitter sour choke cherries that hang high in the old tree at the corner of our yard. It's mostly bigger birds like blue jay, starling, cardinals, catbirds, grackles and mocking birds that eat the berries. I got a few shots of these tiny choke cherries look like high over head. I find the pits all over the bird baths and garden where new trees spout every year. As a native tree it's clearly connected to the raising of babies an important food source for those local birds and bugs like the tent caterpillars who often take up residence to eat the first flush of new leaves. Birds eat them too so I don't do anything to remove them as they are native moths in the making. It's all connected. You can see that the second batch of leaves sustain the tree after the caterpillars eat their fill. 

Adult birds are here too and the blue jay was skipping around our compost pile this morning. The robins love digging out the worms from that same pile but I haven't seen the blue jay catch on yet. 

They Blue Jay can be rather bold. There was one yesterday at the bird bath while I was at the table ten feet away. 

Now for a few of the flowers in our garden I am enjoying and wanted to share... 

The red crepe myrtle survived the cold winter snows and freezing to bloom brightly.

Then there is the quilting. I enjoyed several DC Modern Quilt Guild meetings and a class-workshop that taught me how to take apart, lubricate and clean my antique Singer Featherweight sewing machine. 

My current quilt projects are progressing slowly. I have a new one ready to reveal but the  first label failed because the embroidery floss doesn't show up very well. I am creating a second version that will be completed soon. 

the first label failed to be easily readable

This label is looking much better.