Saturday, October 20, 2007

Looking again

I've been less than enthused about my garden for the past several months for various reasons, some too tedious to go into and some obvious, like the heat that's continued — as I know it will every year and yet still begrudge — into October.

Much of the garden just looks tired, not unusual for this time of year, and the rest looks unkempt or worse. Then there are those parts I'm just tired of: plants that failed in some way to earn their keep or outgrew their spaces, plants I've failed to take care of and whose unattractive state only reminds me of work undone. I had gotten to a point where all I noticed were the problems (that and the spider webs).

Then an offhand comment made me look at the garden with fresh eyes.

A friend was visiting and walked out into the upstairs garden. She looked around for a minute and, just as I was about to open my mouth to make excuses for the sorry state of things, she said, "Oh, your garden looks so lovely." I resisted the automatic denial that is always so easy for me and, after she left, came out and looked around again. I still saw the problems but I also saw things I liked.

This area by the upstairs porch is, despite the problems I also see (but about which I'll keep my mouth shut for now), the bit that caught my eye that day. Not a lot blooming (you can't see the sparks of blue from the sporadically blooming salvia guaranitica in the picture) but I like the forms of the succulents contrasting with each other and with the leafier plants behind. And the fading blooms of the salvia leucantha in the background are still worth looking at, even as the plant sprawls every which way.



And a couple of days later I stopped to look at the far back bed, which from a distance is a tangle of overgrown and underwatered plants. Up close though I saw a combination of colors and textures that I hadn't noticed from a distance: the yellow tubular shapes of the tecoma stans and the smaller orange trumpets of hamelia patens, intertwined with the vivid aubergine straps of purple heart.


When I went to download these images I noticed this picture of pavonia flowers (and that sweetly pillowed bud, or is that a flower just closing up for the day?) that I took a month or so ago but never found a reason to post. The pavonia has stopped blooming for this year but maybe I'll remember to look more closely when it starts blooming again next spring.

7 comments:

Carol Michel said...

Sometimes we do get so close to our gardens that all we see are the problems and flaws. Sounds like your friend was just what you needed to see your garden as the wonderful place it must surely be.

All gardens tended by a gardener are magical places, in spite of the flaws of the garden or the gardener. We are all trying...

Carol at May Dreams Gardens

Anonymous said...

You do have a lovely garden, Susan. Even if the plants (and gardener) are tired, the form of your garden will carry it through. It'll still be there when you're ready to get out in it again.

Now that we're having beautiful weather, you might feel differently already.

Green thumb said...

Hi Susan! i can fully empathise with you as i have similar bouts of inadequacy.
Your Garden looks beautiful and one of the reasons I can identify with you is that we have similar plants, and probably, similar weather too.

Unknown said...

Its so easy to be critical and see the little issues in our garden but never see the bigger picture of colors and textures. Glad you shared the photos, the colors are really beautiful.

Priscilla George said...

Well from what I see I think it looks beautiful. A lot of times what we have we don't like but others do. Just look at things differently when you can. Pick out the good things and find inspiration to get you back on your feet. Maybe go look at some seed/plant catalogs and try to things of great things to put in your garden.

Austin School Garden Network said...

Hello,

We'd like to notify you that the Austin School Garden Network website has launched and we've included your blog on our blog roll.

The Austin School Garden Network is a collaboration of groups, agencies and individuals dedicated to reconnecting children and nature. The purpose is connecting Central Texas community resources to promote the social, nutritional, environmental, and academic benefits of school and youth gardening programs. We have included a local gardening blog section to help new gardeners learn more about gardening in our area.



For more information visit our About Us page.
http://www.austinsgn.org/about.htm

Your blog is linked to from our Gardening Blog page.
http://www.austinsgn.org/gardening_blogs.htm


If you would like us to remove the link to your blog from our website please contact, Lisa Anhaiser at laanhaiser[at]ag.tamu.edu.


Get growing and keep going!

Austin School Garden Network

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