garden | First things first

Someone who owned my house before me put in some lovely perennials, and for that I am very grateful. (Grateful enough almost to forget some of the half-assed repairs they did inside the house…almost, but not quite.)

I took these photos two weeks ago and had big plans for a fun! and exciting! update about my garden, but losing our cat sort of detrailed all of that. The garden already looks a lot different now from how it looked then, just two weeks ago.

Reading: The Longitude Prize, by Joan Dash. Officially, this is a “children’s book” (one that I spotted on a shelf while Sylvia and I were on our weekly library trip), and the publisher’s note even specifies that it’s suitable for ages 9 to 12. It’s written at a much higher level than most books targeting that age group—and I’m delighted about that, since I find that most so-called children’s literature isn’t particularly well-written or intellectually challenging. This book happens to tell a terrific tale, too: the true story about how one self-educated, poor clockmaker figured out how to determine longitude at sea. Reading about his genius is thrilling, as is learning about the science of the day. How exciting* it much have been to be alive during the 18th century, when so many discoveries were being made.

Eating: The last of this season’s sugar snap peas and spinach. The pea plants are yellowing and will surely be spent within the next couple of days; the spinach was already starting to bolt, so I pulled it all up two days ago.

Watching: As We Forgive. I’m not even sure where to begin in talking about this documentary film. The words “amazing” and “powerful” and “moving” come to mind, for all that they are trite. The synopsis for this film begins with “Could you forgive a person who murdered your family?” I’ve heard this question before, especially in the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks, when there were numerous interviews and articles about people who’d lost family members in the Twin Towers. But in those cases, the connections between killers and victims were distant or anonymous. This movie, about the reconciliation movement in Rwanda, is about situations in which the connections were quite close and personal: people who had been neighbors and friends turned on each other—not only killing, but killing in extremely gruesome and hands-on ways. Over one million people died in less than four months. There are over one million stories to tell, but this short film focuses on two. In each case, we hear a killer describe in detail what he did, and then we hear from the victim’s family about how they feel about the crime and about offering asked-for forgiveness for it.

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*If you were a wealthy, highly educated, upper-class, western European man, of course.

Our garden is doing great! We’ve been picking sugar snap peas for about two weeks now. (Sylvia does most of the picking. And the eating, too—right there in the garden.) Last weekend we picked enough lettuce to make a huge salad for four adults, and yesterday we picked this big pile of spinach* (and accompanying dirt) and more sugar snap peas than Sylvia could eat before it was time to head back inside.

There are still tons of immature pea pods and pea flowers, so I imagine we’ll be enjoying those for another week or so. The small spinach leaves should be pickable next week, we have enough lettuce to feed an entire rabbit warren, and the bean plants are covered with purple flowers. For some reason, our Swiss chard has gone kaput. I think that’s the first time this has ever happened to us—it’s usually a champion grower that weathers the heat well and produces all season long until the first frost. I think I’ll throw a few more seeds in the ground there and give the chard another chance.
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*Which of course cooked down to almost nothing.

Our garden is full of all sorts of neat growing things. It’s such an exciting time of year! I’m especially thrilled by how our sugar snap peas are doing. This year I actually got my act together and put them in the ground early enough (on St. Patrick’s Day) to give them a chance before the summer heat arrives. And they are doing great! Here they are last week, with Sylvia’s hand reaching in to “help them find the net” (she likes to guide the tendrils to the support net and see the curly ends latch onto it).

And here they are just a few days ago. Flowers! Peas aren’t far behind…

I see you shiver with antici…

…pation.

I just can’t help myself: suddenly, gobs of flowers are appearing everywhere, and I must photograph them.

I spent Mother’s Day with Jan and Sylvia (and two of our friends) at Winterthur. We visited the fairy garden first (of course), then strolled though most of the other gardens. Weather-wise, the day couldn’t have been better. And our timing was impeccable: the blossoms in Azalea Woods traditionally reach their peak on Mother’s Day, and this year was no exception.

Azaleas don’t do much for me during the fifty weeks when they’re simple shrubs. But when they’re festooned with brilliantly colored flowers for two weeks each spring—wow.

Tuesday was one of those spring days that are just about perfect. You know what I mean? Sylvia didn’t have school that day, so we decided to celebrate the arrival of spring with a trip to Winterthur, a self-described “museum and country estate.” It was built by the DuPonts, and it’s a pretty amazing place. The house now houses a museum with several collections of the sorts of things that make the Antiques Roadshow hosts start to drool. I much prefer the grounds, which are a delight to explore in any season. On this visit, Sylvia and I got to see the March Bank covered with a carpet of periwinkles.

When we got on the open-air tram (Sylvia loves to ride it), the driver looked at us and said, “I bet I know where you’re going. The Enchanted Woods, right?” You bet. We call it “the fairy garden,” and it’s our favorite part of the entire estate.

As soon as we got there, Sylvia visited the Green Man, hopped on some stepping stones, and ran a labyrinth (so much for its meditative aspects!). We visited the fairy ring and the little (kid-sized!) thatched cottage and the giant bird’s nest and all of our other favorite spots.

After that, we just walked around and explored. We saw one of our old friends, a 250-year-old sycamore. By late morning we had shed our coats and by lunchtime the sun was warming up everything nicely. All told, we spent four hours there, finding signs of spring everywhere we went. All over the place are huge swaths of dark green, where daffodils are pushing through. I expect they’ll be blooming in a week or two. And we’ll probably go back to see them.