Weekend last was beautiful weather for anything outdoors. So after our usual morning coffee MeMa left to have her hair done and then off to pick up some snacks and supplies for our trip to Arizona. That was Saturday, Sunday she and the "Vegas Girls" made a trip of it to a favorite casino. So that meant two complete days for me to toil away in the garden, undisturbed. There were lots of spring weeds that needed to be pulled in the front garden and the last of the roses needed pruning. But truth told I would rather spend my entire day in the back "UNDISTURBED". Working as quickly as I could on the roses, first the "Garden Gnomes" came over to get some pointers on what to do with their few roses. They do have proper names but Garden Gnomes fit well because rain or shine every morning they wander through their cottage garden looking at every progress of every plant while sipping their morning cup of tea. After they gleaned the information they needed they wandered back to their garden to watch the plants grow and sip their tea. Not five minutes later the "Crazy Cat Lady" came out on her front porch and hissed, "What are you doing?" Twenty minutes later she was bored and retreated back to her cave. I continued pruning when a young couple pushing a stroller and walking a surprisingly calm Jack Russell stopped and inquired about the Monkey Puzzle tree. They explained that they bought in the neighborhood a few blocks away and were undecided on how to landscape their new home. I smiled and told them that after thirty six or so years I just re-landscaped the back garden for about the fourth time. They asked if it would be ok to take a look see? Silly kids, ask a gardener such a question. They were surprised with the extent of the back garden and really loved what was being done. I told them to first decide what style of garden they liked and go from there, and not to be afraid to change things after it was done. About an hour later I was busy once again pruning roses.
I was just finished and grabbing a quick photo of this Star Magnolia in full bloom when a familiar and quite loud....embarrassing loud voice boomed from the front of the drive....."Let,s go meet Doc, he hasn't met you yet, come on let's go say hi." I don't think that Mrs. Cope is hard of hearing thus the loud voice, she just talks really loud and laughs even louder. However she was correct I had not met her new rescue fox terrier. She told me that her daughter went and picked it up at the rescue center and since it had no name they christened it "Nonaummie". Mrs. Cope looked at me and said, "Get it? No...name...ee?" She then gave me a jab in the arm and laughed so loud she scared a couple of crows out of the garden. I laughed and said, "Oh, I got it", rubbing my arm. Working at the speed of light I grabbed my tools and shut the garage door and disappeared to the back garden.....paradise!
My next big job was to get the wisteria pruned and this last year it had really grown blocking all sunlight to the patio below it. So after an hour or so it went from this tangled mess to.......
.......this.
Cleaning up the debris was the hard part.
Last big job was removing the bubble insulation from the greenhouse walls and potting up a few tuberous begonias that belonged to my late mother. Actually the entire table is full of memorial plants that I maintain over the years. The azalea on the left is from MeMa's mother,s memorial service, my mothers begonias and my grandfathers favorite geraniums which I posted about on April 13, 2012 titled "G-Pa P's Geraniums"
