Etsy Inspiration: Bluecitrusart

Bluecitrusart's prints have me going ga-ga. Ooooooo! Lovely takes on botanical prints. Looking like hints of gardening lives unearthed from long ago. She is having a promo sale, too. A free 5" X 5" or 7" X 5" print with any purchase.

Have Baby, Will Garden

Sugar snap peas and lettuce.

Sage plants prove to be perennials in Virginia.

The rhubarb keeps on keepin' on. Much to my sweet tooth's delight.

Willa swinging in the garden.

After a Sugar Hollow Mama Gathering on Tuesday, my gardening mama friends encouraged me to get out there . . . and bring the baby swing. Eureka! Yes! Willa donned her little sun hat and snoozed in the fresh air, while I weeded and prepped the beds for more plantings.

Our lettuce patch is thriving - which has me flummoxed - as bunnies regularly tromp along the garden paths during the evenings (even under the watchful eye of Mr. Otis). Radishes are coming in. Sugar snap peas are climbing and the herb bed looks healthy. I planted our pole beans, blackberry lilies and hollyhock - all from seed. The weather is calling for more rain. I am happy to oblige.

This weekend . . . I'll be starting morning glories, hyacinth bean vine, cleome and sunflowers from seed. Fleshing out the herb garden with herbs from Milmont Greenhouses. Maybe getting some tomatoes in their bed. Puttering around the container garden. And testing out a rhubarb tart recipe.

LISH Around the News: Sweet Mentions

Life in Sugar Hollow has had a few moments of glory around the Web. My post on portable salad boxes (not my idea, but completely noteworthy and an idea that needed to be shared) was included on Reuters.

MSN's Smart Spending site took a shining to my thoughts on mints in the container garden in an article titled "No Land? You Can Still Grow A Garden".

And one of my favorite sites for everything-hip in Charlottesville, cVillain, mentioned LISH in a recent round-up of their local favorites. For their awesomeness.

Sa-weet, indeed!

Field Trip: Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

Cranesbill

Yarrow

Peony

Rose and rosebuds.

Paying due props and respect to a long standing Mother's Day tradition - Corey, Willa and I spent the afternoon in a [wait for it . . .] garden.

As a kid up in New York, my family and I would picnic on overstuffed sandwiches from a local Italian deli at Old Westbury Gardens - and then walk off the pound of meat and bakery cookies through rose arbors, haunted woods and walled gardens. It heralded in spring in the best way possible. The love of this yearly Mother's Day pilgrimage to our green mecca even stuck with me during my prickly teen years - which says a lot.

Yesterday, we explored Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, VA. Whereas it didn't offer the richness of an old estate and its centuries-old landscape, it had an energy and vibrancy that truly celebrated the season. Mothers were treated to a free plant (I snagged a deep purple petunia - a favorite mid-summer scent in my container garden) and family portraits in the conservatory. Our first!

As a botanical garden, it offers opportunities at every turn to learn. Each plant has its own signage - complete with the Latin names. There is an education center, a library, a children's garden and a gift shop (get past the kitschy stuff in the front - the back has the real-deal garden goods) . The layout of the land includes a huge greenhouse, a bog garden, woodlands with lots of local native plantings, a rose garden, a medicinal/herb garden . . .

This isn't an overly fussy garden - children are encouraged. Jogging stroller loaners were available. Oh, yes. And there is a magical tea house tucked away amid the greenery. Ouf!

I may, just may, be willing to swap out the old Italian sub tradition for high tea. My classiness trajectory just can't be stopped.

Book Tag MeMe

Dee of Red Dirt Ramblings included me in a fun and unique meme. While Dee chose a garden book - and I wish could include my favorite garden books (The Lost Gardens of Heligan and Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden), alas, both are out on loan.

Here's the deal-y-o.

Pick up a book of at least 123 pages
Open the book to page 123
Find the fifth sentence
Post the next three sentences
Tag five people

So, I pulled something from my present reading stack. My Life in France by Julia Child. I just finished it this morning and I feel like I was saying goodbye to a good friend. But as I write this, I can hear her voice and have her exclamations running through my head. "Ouf!" "Hooray!" "Bon appetit!" Which are a welcome, wholesome balance to other words that are running through my head these days - as I also have a present addiction to Deadwood. A-hem.

From Julia:

"One Wednesday, Paul came home to join us for lunch, and he brought Mary Parsons, the USIS librarian, who lived in the same hotel as Mary Ward. We served sole meuniere, a mixed salad with chopped hard-boiled eggs, and a dessert of crepes Suzettes flambees au Grand Marnier. As he watched us bustle about the kitchen, Paul was surprised to see how much fun both the students and teachers were having."

I tag anyone who would like to join in. I love seeing what other people are reading.

Survival Mode

Final seeds to be sown . . .

Black-eyed Susan vine . . .

A hammock beckons . . .

***********************
A day filled with spit-up, a very fussy babe and some defeats mishaps in the garden.

In between feedings and diapers (which were coming at rapid-fire pace for a good five hours - pow! pow! POW!) I tip-toed down to the herb garden to see how my new starts were faring. Mr. Otis, our basset hound/border collie, must have had a problem with the oregano and the echinacea - as he plucked them from their freshly dug spots and tossed them aside. I responded to this sight with a sinking heart.

But corners of our property and house brought me back to zero for a few minutes.

Remembering some sage, new-mom advice from my friend, Mike (a young dad and a fellow music geek), also brought me comfort. "Your job is to keep everyone alive. If you have done that much by the end of the day, you have done very well."

Well, then.

The plants, however, will have to fend for themselves. For today, at least.

Local Color: Seeds from TJ's Gardens

Yes, from high upon the mount, Monticello, down, down, down to my humble garden. The Center for Historic Plants at Monticello sells seeds that are direct descendants from Thomas Jefferson's own gardens. It is good to know I can buy myself a bit of class, thrown in with a bit of history. Makes for a good story in the garden.

I picked these up during an outing with Kris, her little boy, Will, and Willa. We walked the Thomas Jefferson Parkway up, up, up to Monticello and saw that they had plants for sale, as well as a tempting selection of seeds.

Not one to walk away from a seed rack empty handed, I am testing out . . .

Hollyhock (Alcea rosea) - "In a Garden Book entry in 1782, Thomas Jefferson noted that his Monticello hollyhocks flowered from mid-June through July. These seeds were harvested from Monticello hollyhocks, which produce four to seven (!) foot spikes of single flowers in shades of pink, with occasional white, yellow and red blooms."

Blackberry Lily (Belamcanda chinesis) - "Jefferson planted 'Chinese Ixia' in an oval flower bed in 1807. It grows to three feet with showy orange flowers in mid-summer and blackberry like seeds in September."

'Caseknife' Pole Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) - "The Caseknife pole bean is one of the oldest documented bean varieties in American gardens, dating to the 1820's."

No where near Monticello? No problem. You can buy them online here.

Neck 'n Neck

Your voices have been heard and it looks like a Saucer Magnolia for little Miss Willa. The Japanese Flowering Apricot came in a very close second. I truly love that lots of you voted - thanks so much.

And, as I am prone to overreaching when it comes to my garden plans, I am already thinking of planting both. I have a glimmer of hope that this will happen soon, as Corey has started to look at the land around our house with interest. To me, that means the living things that have struggled through house construction blitzes may have a fighting chance. And introducing new ones won't be a lost cause.

Talk is cheap! I am hoping to walk the tree planting walk very soon.

Slowing Down and Savoring April

We have a true bumper crop of rhubarb this year - with leaves that are close to two-feet wide. I made my first rhubarb crisp of the season. Promptly topped with whipped cream.

The last of our Rembrandt Tulips.

The blue sign reads:
"Today is the day of Salvation."

We drove by this log cabin as Willa and I went for a visit to Shady Lane Greenhouses yesterday. We found salvation in a flat of 'maters, herbs, a heliotrope, marigolds, lobelia, coleus and a pot of black-eyed susan vine. Hallelujah!

April Reaches A Fever Pitch

Flowers from Leora - Bleeding Hearts, Wild Phlox and Dogwood.

Having a blast as spring bursts on the scene in Virginia. Obviously doing more than writing. But I will catch up . . . the past week has included a visit to the Historic Plant Center at Monticello. A wildflower walk in Sugar Hollow. An ongoing obsession with lilacs that has history. Annual seed plantings in our gardens. Native plantings from last year rise like the phoenix from the flames in our much abused front garden beds. Weeding, weeding and furthermore, weeding. And, I consider resuscitating two insanely overgrown raised beds through several different methods. Stay tuned, peeps.