Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
Dodging the rain in the Northeast, we find ourselves in hot and steamy Des Moines for the Iowa Quilt Show. One of Juana’s bucket list items is to attend this exhibition of hundreds of quilts, and the fact that our niece, Lucy, lives nearby makes it so much easier to make the journey. Entering the […]
This first weekend of Fall is apropos given its cold, rainy start. The heat comes on as we wake to remove the dawn’s chill now that temperatures in the low 50s put us to sleep each night. The clicking and gurgle of water in the radiators replaces the morning chirps of birds now that windows […]
Olivia strains with our final tomato harvest. There have been plenty of fruits, though in the last week they have stubbornly held on to their green color. She is a good helper, harvesting fruit regardless of its shade and eating half of what she pulls. Juana separates the tomatoes into different paper bags according to […]
The morning air is crisp and the sun is rising just a bit later and a tad to the east each morning. The equinox is but a few days away signaling the coming of Fall and the shutting down of garden growth. Yet each day, I find new signs of life. The morning glories have […]
The golden rod is out in full bloom with bees, wasps and hornets taking full advantage to feed off its flowers. We have let large stands of it take over parts of the yard preferring its tall, spreading, leggy stems to more predictable plants that we would install. It is one of the few plants […]
This is the year of beach plums. Rather than having to fight off deer and other foragers for a slight handful of these tasty fruits, they are in obscene abundance. Every bush has clumps of these deep purple pitted fruits waiting for the taking. And take I do. Grabbing a bunch, like so many grapes […]
With Labor Day approaching, I am starting to feel a bit like the sentinel-like sunflowers in the front yard. A month ago they were tall and erect, holding their heads high, soaking in rays. Now, each weighed down with hundreds of seeds, they are bent over appearing to have a vegetative osteoporosis. Their petals are […]
The monarch butterflies have not been too plentiful this season and I feel fortunate that I spotted one feeding on our butterfly bush. As it flittered between blossoms, I wondered if I would see any more this season.
The most common butterfly we have seen this year is the yellow swallowtail. Its distinctive yellow and black pattern is a constant in the garden flittering between the many flowers we have. But as the season wanes so will they. Now I see that a great many caterpillars have emerged, first on my celery plant […]
All the flowers are exploding with wild abandon, no doubt sensing that we are in the waining days of summer. Sunflowers, in particular, are taking their turn, poking their dinner-plate sized heads above the fence attracting bees and other pollinators. Ours seem a bit confused this year as only some have turned toward the sun. […]