My Garden Fantasy

Native Missouri primrose, Oenothera spectabilis, in bloom by our garage. Keeping good company with a European field daisy.

A wee garden tour for you.

Every year there is a garden tour in Marietta, Ohio, the town nearest us. Well, it's still about 20 miles away. And the Marietta garden tour is one of my favorite events of the year, because the kids and I get to walk through other people's backyards and see what they think is pretty. It's kind of like watching "Cops," where you get to go inside those houses that you might only drive by with a little shudder. Well, it's actually nothing like watching "Cops," but I think you know what I mean. You get to poke around, to snoop, to see what other people do and think and plant.

I have always wanted to be on the Marietta garden tour, to open my gardens to viewing. But since hundreds and hundreds of people visit the gardens, they would have to have a set of chartered buses or the world's most bodacious carpool to get them the twenty miles out here from town. So it's never going to happen, but I always go on the tour and wish. I could give a good garden tour.

I could show everyone such a good time. I'd open my tree swallow box and voila! there would be sweetly smiling rubber swallow babies cuddled down amidst the feathers.


We'd take in the view of the north shade bed along the front of the house


and admire the aptly-named Salvia superba, the culinary sage plant I grew from a seed many years ago. Put a few of those leaves in butter and throw some portobella ravioli in that butter and you have something, ma'am. And I use the leaves year-round, fresh from the plant.


I'd have my assistant, Phoebe, go in the house and fetch the blooming Psychopsis mendenhall "Hildos."


We'd set it up in front of the blooming sage plant, just for color overkill.


Everyone would gasp and want to photograph this chest-high wonder.


The eastern phoebe would tear some fibers from the cocoa mat planters, and pause on her way to the nest on our special shelf, put up just for her.

Then she'd fetch up on the Garden Forge ornament, while the Knockout rose bloomed and bloomed. Gasp!


And that's just the front bed. Mmmm. Such a sweet dream. I guess I'll have to share it with you all instead. Come to think of it, that's way better than having to weed my fingers to the nubs and clean the house and try to get the dirt out from under my nails in time for the first busload to roll up. Virtual garden tour!

Hanging On to Fall

Fall warblers—all but gone. A few yellow-rumps, maybe a late palm... I miss them already. Well, we did pull black-throated green, palm, yellow-rumped and Tennessee out of our hats at the Big Sit, but you have to be looking hard and close to see even that much now.

One of my favorite fall warblers is the chestnut-sided. Oh, what a gorgeous lime-green on its back, such a clean gray on its underparts, a surprised little white eye ring and yellow wing bars to top it all off. For those who know the chestnut-side, its posture is distinctive—it often cocks its tail like a wren, drooping its wings and hopping springily along branches as it gleans the undersides of leaves. This one cocked its tail as it inspected the Bird Spa, and I knew, from its clean green coat and cocked tail, what it was without picking up the binoculars. This is a pose I believe I'll use in a painting someday. Warbler poses don't get much better than this. It’s such a revelation when you realize that each warbler has a distinctive shape and style of movement, little things it does that help you identify it. It's what British and some American birders refer to as GISS (general impression of size and shape; a military term referring to airplane ID)--such an ugly word! or even worse, jizz. Blaaaa. I refuse to use either, but I will make fun of it.

Magnolia warblers are active little things, often falling off branches in pursuit of insects. In fluttering, you’ll see their largely white tails, which look like they’ve been dipped in black ink. This fall magnolia is clambering about in the gigantic leaves of our red mulberry tree. Does ya think I yam a Schmoo? I don’t know why our red mulberries (we’ve got three) are putting out new leaves in September and October, but they are. They are still putting out new leaves as I write, on October 16. You’d think it foolish to put new leaves out just before frost, but the tree seems to have a plan to grow as much as possible before it has to stop. Kind of like getting a facelift at 97...Sometimes I wonder if it’s trying to get some branches up out of the reach of the deer, which browse it back hard all winter.

This is the last phoebe of fall, sitting on the porch railing, looking for flies against the siding. Luther? Is that you, bathed in blue skylight in the morning?
Yes, the warblers and phoebes are gone, but we’ll have smooth smoky blue and mauve bluebirds all fall and winter, and they gladden my heart.
Hey, lady. Ya got any suet dough in there?