Spring flowers, 2010

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Grab-bag

Six or so weeks ago, Brecks sent me a special offer: "100$ worth of perennials, grab-bag, only 25$". Yeah, right, I thought. But it was like those "Lucky Bags" we used to buy as kids: we knew that inside would be a couple of toffees, three sherbert-filled flying saucers, a few other cheap sweets, and something plastic, but we bought them anyway. We bought the excitement of opening the bag and finding-out what was inside.

So I didn't order one perennial grab-bag, I ordered two.

Last week, I received an email saying my order had been shipped from Holland and it might take two or three weeks to arrive. I looked on Brecks' website, wondering if there were any clues to what was on its way, but just found a couple of "grab-bag" reviews--from people who were not at all happy.

Oh well, I thought. You get what you pay for.

This lunchtime, the UPS truck arrived with a Brecks box, one foot square.

Inside I found:

- 10 day-glow daylilies (Hemerocalis)
- 5 tall hybrid phlox (Phlox paniculata)
- 1 golden wave begonia for a hanging basket
- 3 venus false sunflowers (Heliopsis helianthoides)
- 15 peacock orchids (Gladiolus callianthus)
- 10 white blazing star (Liatris spicata alba
-  25 Dutch delux gladiolis
- 2 Kelvin Floodlight dahlia
- 2 Garden Wonder dahlia
- 5 Double Sensation asiatic lily
- 10 oriental carpet border lily "starlight express"
- 3 Purple Prince tree lily trees
- and 24 double freesia bulbs!

I am very happy. Very Lucky-Bag.

The dahlias are planted, at the back, near the red-hot pokers. The border lilies, tree lilies (?) and asiatic lilies too. More planting tomorrow!

Moon rising

Huge, pink, floating its way up over the horizon like a molten sphere in a lava-lamp. It is going to be a light night.

Anti-mosquito device--the best ever!

Hanging out on the wires outside the house

Lodging under the eaves

and hopefully producing many more junior mosquito-eaters!

Three years on

This is the front of the house as it was the summer I bought it, three years ago.

And this is it, now.

Sometimes it's good to take a look back: it helps to see how far you've come.

There's always further to go though!

Manorville Petting Zoo--tortoise and turkey

Manorville Petting Zoo--Snow Monkeys

At first we thought she was just grooming herself, but then she moved her leg...

And we saw she had a tiny baby

They are Japanese Snow Macaques, or Snow Monkeys

Manorville Petting Zoo--Jade

Jade and the Llama

Jade and the lamb

Manorville Petting Zoo--camel

He's a little moth-eaten, and huge, but very gentle.

Cowboy up!

Iris, iris, iris

This is one of the new ones, planted last year. It is so white it's almost violet. The new iris plants will probably only have one spike of flowers this year, so I have to make the most of them!

Another new iris: this one is buttery-yellow fading to cream.

The first of the water-loving iris to flower: one yellow flag so far.

And these are the ones that were here when I moved in: in three years, they have gone from a couple of flower spikes to a whole beautiful bank. Amazing!

The bay is full of fishing boats

Maybe they saw the picture below... it is a sturgeon. And they have come fishing and are seeing what a beautiful place this is. And we have the marinas and docks for the boats, and a bait shop on Neighborhood Road (my local Welly store),

What a gorgeous day for sitting in a boat on the bay! Shame I have to work all day, but I'm really lucky that I can just look out of my window and see this while I'm working.

Mastic Beach Monster? (Come here instead of Montauk for vacation!!!)

Mystery, fish-shaped creature found close to the wetlands this morning. Is this the Montauk Monster's cousin? Will we now have TV cameras and bloggers and tourists all coming to Mastic Beach for the summer, hoping for another sighting? And seeing what a beautiful place it is while they are here?

This monster is about two feet long. It's lower jaw is missing, and gill, and it's rather monstrous. Suggestions so far have been a shark, a baracuda, and a monster.

It's the little things that matter

It is so nice to see all the flowers and plants outside the new shop on Neighborhood Road, at the traffic lights... and all the people stopping to look and buy. And take them home to make their own gardens prettier.

Have you been to Paradise yet? (For ice cream, silly. Or Italian ice, or frozen yoghurt, or old-fashioned candy like gobstoppers that would challenge a shark. You may call them jawbreakers. They're really called gobstoppers. At least, where I come from.)

Rainy-day rant

- Just because we live in one place, doesn't mean we necessarily fit the model. That's why "personalis/z/ation" needs to be just that--personal. Have defaults but let me tweak them.

- While you can gather useful information from the visitor's browser, etc., it doesn't necessarily mean that the person behind it fits the stereotype. I lived in the Netherlands and in France, but I sometimes I just wanted to read English, because it was easier. Now I live in the USA, but sometimes I want to read or watch or listen to French, or Polish, or Dutch. Or Arabic or Hebrew with subtitles.

- Everyone's saying that what's needed is more multimedia, fewer words. But you can't multitask with videos: hard to watch CNN news story and grab the main points while (mostly) focusing on a conference call or work problem--which you could do if the news story was text. Is this the end of the multitasking generation, or do we need to grow extra heads?

- We all want everything NOW. Feedback, acknowledgement, payment, response, answers, gratitude, smiles, delivery, apologies, weather, change, growth. We've lost patience. While we keep speeding everything up, let's also plant acorns, too. Some things take time to be beautiful.

March in May

It's a cool, gloomy, damp May day, more like early March than spring. Puddles in the street, raindrops on the windows: iron-grey bay moving left-to-right, rippling up Lawrence Creek. Someone in a windcheater on the little beach. An occasional howl of wind.

A day for hibernation.

Wladislawa!!!

Ever since my first visit to Poland, the year before the Berlin wall fell, I have been wondering why no peonies every smelled as beautiful as those around the farmhouse in Rodowo. Because those peonies had a scent so pure and so perfect, it seemed that all other peonies were just pale imitations--rather like shop-bought tightly-furled-and-perfect rosebuds, which when open have no scent.

So you must excuse me if, each time I see a peony, I push my nose into the flower to try to recapture that Polish spring.

And then today, after having stitches removed from knee, I had to drive past Lowes in Patchogue, and something pulled me to the garden center ("Just five minutes!")

And there I found it. A pale-pink peony with a lemon center. So pretty! I was tempted by the prettiness alone... put my nose close, not expecting anything... and WOW!!! The perfume!!!!

It was not until I had carried "her" to the checkout that I looked at the label. Paeonius lactiflora "Wladislawa". I knew she was Polish. So I went back, and bought her twin, too.

Last day of April garden

Looking east: we can use the deck now it's not overlooking a stinky, mosquito-infested pond. Already anticipating the roses and lavendar in bloom.

Lots and lots of rose bushes now, including four climbers/ramblers along the newly-repaired fence. Just need to carry up a few more stepping-stones and many more buckets of mulch.

The mexican daylily bulbs are already pointing through the mulch, and all the rosebushes are leafing up nicely.

The first iris is flowering! It's in the south-west corner, behind one of the hydrangeas.

Dog yoga: hero pose, forward bend