Dolce Domum

"Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way...shabby indeed, and small and poorly furnished, and yet his, the home he had made for himself, the home he had been so happy to get back to after his day's work..."
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Home should always be sweet, wherever it is. Here are more pictures from my sister’s garden in Michigan. There are very few things that grow equally well in Southern California and central Michigan. So we often exchange pictures and envy what flourishes in one's garden that languishes in the other's. The only thing we have in common below is iris, although my thirsty and anorexic plants make her iris patch look like a jungle to my eyes. Here are M’s pictures with her captions.

I started a bunch of bicolor violets from seed (looked more red and yellow in the catalog) to live around my mailbox, where I need something short. The first flower opened the day I put them in the ground.

The irises just started to open, at the left front of my house. The viburnum beyond them is now about 8 years old and flowering for the first time (just a little topknot of three). There were so many old roots there from the juniper we'd removed that I ended up planting the poor thing in a narrow little clay hole, where it bare survived. It is finally feeling comfy.

To the right of the viburnum is the white rose I used to have in a patio tub. It looks much happier, although I did just spray it for aphids. I bought it on impulse because of its clove-scented blooms, but the super spiny branches tried to kill me every year when I was surrounding it with a cage filled with leaves for winter insulation. No more of that!

To the right of that is the hole where I butchered a too-large viburnum down to movable size and moved it to the back yard.(When that bed starts to fill out, I'll send photos.) In its place is a sad Little Honey oakleaf hydrangea, still barely recovered from its Fed Ex journey. I really need to buy more locally in the future."

The clematis on the lamp-post is much happier since I gave it an inadequate trellis. Behind it, the stupid peony is in bud (stupid, because it can't hold up its own heavy flowers).

I've been too busy working in my own yard, making the most of the lingering chill on mornings to stop and take pictures and blog. As much as I envy M's peony clematis, my own garden always has the sweet fragrance of home, sweet home.