Patience...and the Gardener

Patience is an important virtue for gardeners, one that is not praised enough. 

Winter ends when winter ends. The last frost is months after it is nice enough to wish to plant marigold seeds and tomatoes. I can't speed it up. Planting too early just kills the plants. So I wait. Like it or not.

nice weather but plants not up much (March)

Patience would make that easier.

Late Summer in the Garden

Late August is surely the height--or just past the height=--of summer. The temperatures are as hot as they'll get. Many plants are in full bloom. I rarely appreciate "high summer." By this time I'm tired of being too hot and weeding has gotten old. And yet, my plants are reveling in being warm and large. So I took my camera to document the peak of the growing season.

The little French marigolds (Tagetes patula) that I planted this spring are about at their best. Their flowers are open and few are beyond flowering, maturing seeds. 

French marigolds, Tagetes patula

Sculpture in Gardens

Art is one of the finest things humans produce. It gives happiness to the maker and to the viewer. Gardens may have begun for growing food or medicine, but today they are places of joy and relaxation. When you put art into gardens, there is the potential for amazing things. 

Horses --steel, in the form of origami folded paper - by Kevin Box, Santa Fe Botanic Garden

Visiting Northern California--Secret Garden Cottage, Inverness

View of Tomales Bay out the window

The word garden lured us to stay at a bed and breakfast in Inverness, California. The Inverness Secret Garden Cottage is on a hill above Tamales Bay, just inland of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Remembering it most of a year later, I am jealous. The climate of the Northern California coast is moist and mild. The garden includes wonderful plants I cannot grow.

What would those be? Oh, coast redwood, jasmine, big rhododendrons, camellias, to name a few.