xtcian

perennial favorites

6/12/05

Why I Am a Total Gaybot, Chapter 17

I like growing things better than almost anything else in life. When I was a little brat in the 1970s, my mom had one of the best gardens in Cedar Rapids, IA, and she always gave me a little plot at the end - about 5' by 5' so I could grow radishes. Man, I could grow the fuck out of radishes, and they were good with salt.

me in pile of leaves by garden, circa 1972

Or maybe they weren't, but the sense of accomplishment was so great that it could make even boring vegetables worthy of magic.

When we bought this little farm up in Columbia County, the first thing I did was plant a garden with everything too close together, but the output was incredible (see the treatise on pumpkins or my curious tomato haul). This year, in case some of you didn't get the memo, we're going to be in California from July to September, so the garden is going to lay fallow. But don't fret, pumpkin lovers: I planted the patch this weekend, and as long as it rains this summer, we're going to have fruits bigger than last year, or else I'll hand in my Best Pumpkin Attitude 2002 medal.

In the meantime, the farm has erupted with the perennial flowers planted by the house's previous owner Virginia Nelson. Virginia, by all accounts, was an awesome, totally solid, lovely woman - who obsessed over her garden until she died at the age of 86 about seven years ago.

Va. Nelson at her/our farm in 1959

What is amazing is that pieces of her still live on: the perennials don't stay blooming very long (as opposed to annuals, which only last a year but bloom all summer) but they ALL came out this week, and because I dig this stuff as much as I dig tequila shots, pretty clouds and a good scrum, I took some pictures for posterity. This blog goes out to Virginia, whose beauty peeks out for a couple of weeks every year until we stop telling stories about her.

the blue irises came up for the first time in two years

the purple bearded iris (yes, it sounds like a sex toy)

the vining clematis: hard to believe they stay dormant all winter

Tessa pruning the peonies with baby monitor on belt = rock star