Sunday, April 06, 2008

Domingo en el jardín

Gardening calls for patience and hope. One must not give up too soon. Life is persistent.

Last spring I planted sundry trees, shrubs, vines, and (later) vegetables in the sandbox that was my back yard. We have gone through my first winter and dormant time, when for months the back yard was textured but displayed a limited palette of grays and browns and tans.

Today I watered. Later I took the camera out, feeling very remorseful that I never photographed the Red Haven peach tree when it was blooming at its peak. My fruit trees are all still saplings, but it was glorious on its own petite scale.

In the upper left of this photo is one of the bearded iris showing green. Hooray! They are supposed to thrive here and I was beginning to despair. I have forgotten the name of the shrub in the lower right but it does well and has lovely misty blue blossoms. (No, it's not love-in-a-mist.)

Here you can see the Black Tartarian cherry to the left and the Santa Rosa plum to the right.

This is a very small ornamental sage that survived!
Here on the left we have one of two culinary sages. They have hung in there all through the winter. To the right we see the resurrection of the Greek oregano.
And her is some green on the Thompson seedless grape, planted in honor of my ancestors who grew and dried raisins in the San Joaquin Valley.

I admit to adjusting contrast and brightness on these somewhat washed out photos, but no other adjustments.

May new life manifest in your lives, my friends.
--the BB

2 comments:

Jane R said...

Lovely! New life indeed.

The fruit trees have begun to bloom here. There is one outside my window. It is on the edge of the woods and I am not sure whether it is plum, apple, or cherry. It is pink.

We had some much needed rain this weekend and now more green leaves have popped out. The earth is much happier.

The tulip tree blooms have come and gone. Perhaps the early stretch of warm weather at Easter fooled them, though they always seem to bloom before any other trees. (They have nothing to do with regular tulips as far as I know.) The magnolia buds are swelling now.

Padre Mickey said...

I miss having a garden, so I really enjoy your updates on your garden.
The Lovely Mona and I tried to have a garden when we lived in Paraíso, but the leaf-cutter ants would carry everything off to the tropical forest.

Good luck with the uvas!