Category Archives: Natural beauty

A garden as autobiography.

By Posted in Natural beauty, Travels, Where to go Tagged , , , 5 Comments

 

Beautiful gardens aren’t just about the flowers. Last month’s Friends of the Library Garden Tour was memorable for more than just the plantings. Yes, the flowers were lush, the colors, vivid, but it was the settings and the expanses, that captured my husband and me.

We drove along roads we hadn’t traveled before to visit seven gardens scattered across the county.

It would be hard to pick favorites, but the 1800s farmhouse lorded over by huge sycamores was special. A swooping green swathe to one side led to a gazebo perched atop a spring. The tiny stream, crisscrossed by little foot bridges, caught my fancy. Old-log guest houses nestled around the original house like chicks to a mother hen. A cellist and a violinist kept time with the breezes.

Oh, and the rope swing, did I mention the rope swing hanging high from the tallest sycamore? I wanted try it, but when I attempted to lower myself onto the wooden seat, my knees wouldn’t cooperate. Its height was set for little children. Just as well, I might have launched myself into the next county if I’d been able to soar as high as it could go.

Another garden’s entrance was framed by an old catalpa tree. Set against a hillside, the back of the original farmhouse was ringed by brilliant day lilies as colorful as ladies’ hats at an English wedding. Conifers, hardwoods, and shrubs intermingled perfectly. Interesting rocks and glittering crystals lay amongst the plantings — jewels on grandmother’s Sunday dress. Best of all was an old log cabin set into the scape. The vast field up and away to the right and back of the house hinted at more joy beyond.

A third garden, edged by a stream, had a decidedly fairytale look. Large trees hovered and whimsical touches all ’round made me wonder if three bears or maybe seven little people lived there. The large koi pond was punctuated with stepping stones and bright orange table and chairs. The owners accessorize their garden with “hand-me-downs, found objects, and thrift store purchases.”

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This trio of pictures, taken at my favorite garden, exemplify my blog’s name: Wherever you go…there you are.

Each of the gardens on the tour had their own special magic, memories brought home to caption my photos from that “once upon a time” day.

 

Click on photos to enlarge them; use arrows to scroll through each grouping.

Oh-h say can you see?

By Posted in Natural beauty, Nostalgia Tagged , 11 Comments

 

IMG_0551Thank goodness my morning walks often inspire ideas for my blog posts, and, thank goodness, this morning was no exception once I spotted fog blanketing the turf grass research fields.  The Fourths of July in my memory are steamy and blindingly sunny. Today, not so much.

Even though posting new blogs is at the writer’s whim, I pile guilt upon myself when I don’t give equal time to both my sites. June was Alzheimer’s Awareness month and with Father’s Day thrown in, I concentrated on “Dementia isn’t funny.” The heap of guilt on my shoulders resembles the shoulder pads 1940’s movie stars sported.

But as I walked, I thought, ah, July 4 and it’s not blazingly, meltingly hot. An idea blossomed. I looked at my garden when I got home and realized how striking the colors are by dawn’s early light. While I took these photos, the sun was a flashlight — on, off, on, off — but it was the gentle mist that made the colors glow.

Lucifers (Crocosima) so red.
Bee balm and echinacea.
Globe thistle (echinops) just blueing up
Yellow climbing beauty
Tiger lilies.
Lantana makes me think of quilts
Blue spruce succulent’s yellow flowers.
Knockout rose.
‘Fireworks’ grass
Faithful peach hollyhock
Good use of crockery.
Bee balm aka Oswego tea.
Echinacea
Coleus pairs with frog.
Lichen grows on the gate.
Graceful Lucifers.
Our ‘secret garden’ gate.

 

July Fourth brings memories of  homemade strawberry ice cream, parades, blueberry pie, my dad’s birthday, and always, the stars and stripes forever.

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Plumbago’s brilliant blue, white daisies and a tiny flag brighten my desk.

 

 

 

Another memorable weekend.

By Posted in Natural beauty, Nostalgia, Seasons Tagged , 8 Comments
Delicate fairy punchbowls?
Laurel in dense woods.
Dainty cousin to Rhodos.

Mountain Laurel was in full bloom — exquisite!

Decoration Day, as designated in 1868, was the original name of what we now call Memorial Day. The original date, unchanged for 103 years, was May 30. In 1971, the National Holiday Act moved the date to the last Monday in May to ensure a three-day Federal holiday. I’ve groused about it ever since.

I remember the days when I swooped high in my rope swing over the bed of purple “flags” — iris — mom grew at the bottom of our back yard. The days when the marching band pounded up Main Street, while bicycles fluttered by, cards attached to their spokes with clothespins. Days when dad fried “hamburgs,” as he called them, on the old river stone fireplace in the back yard, and when Great Aunt Daisy entertained us when she tried to eat corn-on-the-cob with her loose dentures.

This year’s Memorial Day was memorable, too.

I confess, I didn’t think of the significance of the actual date until we arrived home that evening. This year, the last Monday fell on May 25, precisely forty-one years after the Memorial Day of our very first date, Peter’s and mine.

We spent that day in the woods, too, at the north end of the Shenandoah Valley, hiking unaware towards a flock of wild turkeys who scared us into the next county. This year we were in the woods too, but on the southeast side of the Blue Ridge, at daughter Leslie and son-in-law Martin’s little cabin.

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Lettuce awaits the salad bowl.

The weather was absolute perfection. Dense thickets of Mountain Laurel filled the woods, Fire Pink lurked amongst the ferns, while Spiderwort and Dames Rocket purpled the undergrowth. We helped weed the vegetable garden, ate the first of the lettuce and the last of the rhubarb. Even weeding is fun when soft warm breezes brush by.

We sat on the deck in the glow of a sunset, on the front porch to swing in the early mornings, and on the screened porch to eat our meals and listen to the river below.

The very best part of the weekend came when we arrived home. “Thank you,” Peter said.

I looked at him, surprised. “What for?” I asked.

“For driving me there — wish I could still drive. But it was a nice weekend. Couldn’t have asked for better weather,” he said.

Wow.

Fire Pink peeks through ferns, while toad shelters under a trillium leaf.
Woodpile ready for winter.
Pallet is great herb garden.
Down the hill to the river.
Vivid colors of late summer glow.
Smith River.
Evening primrose midday.
Lady bugs adorn birdhouse..
Evening primrose at dusk
Gallery

Can you keep a secret?

This gallery contains 11 photos.

You don’t have to go far afield to see beautiful scenery in our little corner of Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains edge the eastern side of our valley, the Appalachians, the west. Gentle hills, rollicking streams, and the impressive New River all inspire photographers. The first week of May was absolutely glorious in these parts. Mother Nature showed […]

Fall, leaves, fall. Snow, flakes, snow.

By Posted in Natural beauty, Seasons Tagged , Leave a comment

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
                 — Emily Bronte (1818-1848)

I love watching the leaves flutter around me while I sit on the garden bench with a book and a cup of coffee. Even raking leaves is pleasant for me. My husband, not so much. Every year he complains about their vast numbers, always wanting me to estimate how many leaves there are compared to how many there might have been last year. He fusses and sweeps and bags, never happy until that last leaf falls.

Today, Mother Nature is showing off the best of two seasons: light snow swirls like glitter in a snow globe, while leaves swoop to color November’s strange beauty with their brilliant reds and golds.

Bronte’s poem sings to me.

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©Revey cartoon.