The Last Afternoon

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We have all said goodbye to a garden or two. This is never something we want to go through but always resulting in a new garden, a new spot and a whole new experience. I will always have a special spot for the garden I just left, the garden I will share here. One long last afternoon, the final day I was at ease, just enjoying before the moving began and nothing was the same again.

I pulled a chair out into the middle, backed up against tall sunflowers and thick dark blooms of stock, the smell sweet and warm around me, the buzz of bees cutting the soft rush of the breeze rustling. The midday shadow of the big spruce was wandering across the garden, shivering pools of sunshine coming through birch limbs to both sides. This is when the heat of the morning lifted off with a few hours of respite before the hot afternoon. (My sunshine began at 3AM and stayed full until 11AM all from the gentle lower east sky, wonderful warm mornings, something I feel myself missing.) Once I had everything prepared I went in and got a cup before entering the Last Afternoon.

Stepping out the door onto the porch, of course my L. stenocephala is immediately singing! She is a real treasure to me, my darling. No one enjoys the respite in the shadow of the big spruce more than she!

I pass down my steps and there next to my chair is the other, L.przewalskii. She sits in a pool of light, smaller and slimmer in all respects from stenocephala. This is only the first year with me but it seems to enjoy well enough, and bloomed again strangely at the base later in the season. I expect much from it to come.

Once settled into my spot to enjoy this last day, I immediately got caught up with the Lychnis. This one commands attention through its blooming period, what a wonderful color! A spot of sun had just moved to it, and it alone. It just glowed there, singing to me of happiness and wonder.

I had my telephoto, so what better time to practice a little with my garden, immediately discovering that I could find what I was feeling using this lens, more than any other. The distance really showcasing whatever I was focused to.

My eyes turned to the Ladybells, Adenophora liliifolium, a new ray of sun catching the bunch, coloring it a brilliant lavender. These are spreading and growing with the geraniums more than any other plant I have. Slowly I’m separating the two, as I received them wild in patches of Convallaria which I’m slowly separating as well. She is so tall and wonderful!

After a time, enjoying, admiring, I see the sun has moved over the runner beans. These have been a must in this garden, I’ve grown them up the poles at each end of the porch as long as I have lived here. Always trusted to grow 8+ feet in a season, they have always pleased. This time of year, August 1, they are blooming strong, the first beans beginning to form.

To the left of my chair, the sun lit up my new pentagonal bed, the cosmo’s blooming like little pinwheels above the cloud of wispy foliage. I grew the cosmo from seed, to fill in around perennials. You can see they swamped them, the cotoneaster poking a branch through the top. Common with cosmo here, the larger varieties never reach bloom in our season. This shorter picotee bloomed while the other variety just got bigger and bigger. I’ve already thinned this patch in half twice by this pic. Still, those that bloomed are lovely things.

Squeezed beneath the valerian and cosmos sits my new old fashioned Dicentra. She thrived there, blooming through the entirety of the season and doubling in size. The foliage took on a lovely blue cast that I did not expect. Fingers crossed that this one will survive a winter. I have yet to bring a dicentra through, and the new neighbor said it is the only one she can’t bring through as well. I can’t help but keep trying. :-)

Poking through the cosmo on the other side is a new Acteae simplex (Cimicifuga), still very small but such a wonderful color. More likely to survive in the new garden, I may even see blooms one day. Its time to blooming is a little long for here. Another new treasure if I can keep it. Pondering the new additions, I find a moment away from my goodbyes as I think about how well this will do in the new garden.

Thinking of new plants, the Icelandic poppy demands attention from the other side. I found this deep red-orange so stimulating and it has done very well, forming a healthy clump. The telephoto lets me drift away with them, just lost in that stunning color.

I found a little fuchsia catching the sun beneath the immense sprawl of the valerian. Just a cutting from another it was meant as filler, but the valerian set it back a bit, much larger than I expected it to be. I’ll be taking my fuchsia cuttings earlier next year.

Still on the telephoto I drifted away with the cosmos, letting the sun wash over me, the familiar hum of the garden filling my senses, ah, such heaven.

At last drawing away, I see that the lig is now in the light, the shaded lavender of the ladybells contrasting around them. Taking that in I see the sun is filling the beds up above the cabin, in the lawn. The Artemisia ludoviciana returned doubled in size and this year, blooming in this little dry golden flower, before going to seed. She is native to where I was born, and brings a deeply sentimental emotion of childhood when I smell her. This is another Treasure.

Growing just beneath the Artemisia, my orange electric lillies bloom happily. I’ve begun an addiction with these, nothing I have added yet doing anything but multiplying. So reliable I find collecting very pleasing and blooms filling the garden from midsummer right through to the first frosts. This is one of the more interesting, wonderfully softened by the silver of the artemisia.

Turning back to the house, now realizing that the Last Afternoon is beginning to pass I see the long awaited begonias, glowing in the sun. Though late to come, they are wonderfully large and colorful. They were a bargain and I wasn’t sure how they would turn out. They are the last to bloom in the porch boxes, coming right as the schizanthus are finishing.

The boxes turned out just as I wanted. Years I’ve spent perfecting what would look best here against the rails. Now, I’m pulling down the boxes and taking them somewhere new. I just look and admire for now.

Finally pulling away as the shadow of the late day touches my toes and the air begins to cool, I see the roses nestled against the porch steps. The peace roses best blooms are in the spring. These are the summer blooms, always only a few, and the fall blooms are just too wet, never amounting to much. I love my Peace rose and wish it long life every day.

Reluctantly I turn to the tasks at hand. About to travel and when returning, immediately moving everything. The Last Afternoon is passing. Only something new in the future. Thank for you visiting my old garden in these last days. Only pics of late summer blooms and the move to come. The lovely days of summer in the compass garden are ended.

• 9 Nov, 2012
• 18 likes

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