Blogging on the Powwow

Yes, two blog posts in just two days! Confession - this is mostly a picture post. Confession number two - there's a little exaggeration in the title of this blog post...or maybe a lot of exaggeration: Not an entire New England garden in just one week here in Washington, but close enough. It's only May 9 and I'm seeing flowers and plants in gardens in Washington that I normally wouldn't see until late June, July, and sometimes August. I saw a sunflower plant that was three feet tall this week. The damn thing almost reached over and slapped me a "high-5!" Actually, I was so impressed, I offered to give it  a "high-5." I believe that the sunflower sighed and breathed, "You must be a damned northerner." This brings me to my main realization - which is that Washington, D.C. is actually quite southern! There's a lot of debate about whether or not this is the case, but I'm not really speaking culturally, I mean geographically and in te...

Slowly getting back to blogging... Actually, I'm not sure if posting a video on one's blog truly counts as blogging, but at this point in the semester, this is pretty much the best that I have to offer! I hope that you enjoy this video of our early spring gardens. The next few weeks has so much more to offer in the garden!  (And, the end of the semester is so close that I can almost touch it. Almost.)

A couple of years ago, when I was blogging more regularly, I had a weekly series called, "This Week in the Garden." I think that it was mostly entertaining for me, but a few of my friends and readers commented that they enjoyed it. So, in that vein, I offer this blog post. I call this a protest post,  because I don't actually have time for blogging this weekend, but I'm feeling a bit resistant to my workload, so a blog post it is.  As it turns out, week 12 of the semester has never been so alive in the garden. I'll start with the example of the turtles. Anyone who follows me on Facebook or who just talks to us in summers knows about the wonders of the Mama turtles who climb out of the Powwow River, make their way to our rose garden, and lay eggs. Last summer we had five nests and we knew roughly where they were in the garden. In truth, we thought we had four, but then in September, baby turtles started climbing out of the ground in a nest that had been comple...

Our recent trip to Hawaii for a conference, followed by vacation got in the way of me making my usual posts about the garden. That might be a good thing. I think that my readers and I might be tiring of these posts. Nevertheless, I'll continue with the series for the season and see how I feel next summer. Come to think of it, this is the last summer for my dahlia-obsession; in the spring 2014, I'll be planting two new perennial beds. Certainly, that will be worth documenting! Anyway, I digress, which I am wont to do. Back to our current gardens. The most recent transformations in the yard include sunflowers, the hibiscus plant and the rose of Sharon bushes -- all in full bloom. Also, Neil had a box of rocks - yes, you read that correctly - a box of rocks which has been sitting on our side porch for the better part of the season. It was filled with beautiful and special rocks. I removed them from the decaying box and placed them throughout the yard. Some look great; others loo...

I see that my last post about our gardens was June 22. I suspected that this might happen. In addition to my own schedule and writing woes, I have a friend who says " Facebook Killed My Blog ." It is pretty easy for me to just throw my garden pictures up on Facebook for many, many more people to see, as compared to those who will read my blog. Then again, not everyone uses or enjoys Facebook. Anyway, I digress. Our gardens have been wonderful! I cannot complain. I have found perennials on half-off sales and plunked those in the ground, I have found perennials at full-price, which I just had  to have, I have found perennials which I didn't especially like, but which had good color, and things which have sprung to life which have been more wonderful than I ever remember from a previous summer. I think that's the way it is with memories though, which is quite the blessing, come to think of it! So, on with the pictures and my attempts to identify the plants in our garde...