Bloomin’ Update 31: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Before I get into this post, I wanted to send out a special thanks to those of you who took the time to add a caption to the previous post.  Your creativity and humor were  wonderful treats after I arrived home and logged in to catch up on blog duty.  I’m still smiling and LOL-ing!

I’m not a fan of the Western.  I have always found the film genre too gritty, too violent, and too filled with underhanded, unsavory characters.  I like comedy, drama, melodrama, a soundtrack, and always a happy ending.

But when Joe and I arrived home at 3:00 a.m. after a marathon drive from Fort Lauderdale, we entered the house as if we were a couple of sun-baked cattle rustlers in our own Western.  Unshaven.  Sweaty.  Delirious.  Exhausted.  Even our mouths were tired as we spoke to on another with jaws that were just shy of clenched.  Ironically, our newly repaired covered wagon — I mean the car — was in better shape than we were!  Any thoughts or worries about my garden would have to wait until daylight — or at least until I was prepared to see daylight.

The forecasters, however, had other ideas about daylight.  It seems that the next few days would be filled with heavy thunderstorms, strong winds, and possible hail.  What’s a gardener in search of a happy ending to do? 

Heading Home — And It’s All Write By Me

Hooray!  The car is fixed and we’re finally heading home.  Since I am out of wireless and Internet range, I’m leaving the post writing to you.  Remember, keep each other entertained until I get home. 

We had a visitor the other day.  At first, from the corner of his eye, Joe thought it was a rock.  I thought it was a helmet — because, well, it makes perfect sense that a helmet would randomly appear outside the front door, right?  I know.  A definite “duh” moment.

In any event, the rock/helmet came to life with legs and a head.

Repost: The Sounds of Summer

 I’m still in South Florida, waiting for my car to be fixed.  The mechanic informs me that the transfer casing needs to be replaced and there is only one brand new part in the entire country and GMC cannot locate it.  There is, fortunately, a used part in Orlando that has arrived and just needs to be installed.

My mind is worried about my New York garden and the clean-up that is waiting for me there.  Three weeks is an awfully long time to be away, and I’m sure that there is mowing and weeding and staking to be done.

And my heart and prayers are in Colorado.  It seems silly, doesn’t it?  To be worried about car repairs and gardening when there is so much pain and absolute sadness surrounding the tragedy in Aurora.  With each news update, I long for simpler times.  Innocent times.  Times  when evil didn’t walk into a movie theater — or a school or a mall or a military base . . . and the only sounds to be heard came from life.

Photo courtesy of http://www.entomology.umn.edu

It’s positively steamy outside. I’m watching the sprinkler water the zinnias on the far side of the pool, and completely drowning out the sound of running water is the non-stop, rapid-fire droning chirps of the Cicadas. Some might consider the sound a nuisance or torture, but I find the chirping can trigger memories and it sparks my imagination.

As a kid, we always incorrectly referred to these buzzers as locusts — but no matter what we called them, no sound reminds me more of the dog days of summer than the Cicada’s song. It’s like a sizzling sound effect, perfectly accentuating the sun’s rays scorching the garden. A never-ending sizzle, that forces me to stand as still as the hot, humid air. As one chorus whines to an end, another starts up, and so on and so on.

Bloomin’ Update 30: Night Fever

I know.  I know.  This was supposed to be the on-the-road post, the one where I post a picture and you write the caption and Joe and I drive back to New York.  The car, though, had other plans and is now sitting in a repair shop — which means the you-do-the-writing post will have to wait.

As will we — waiting for our car and for the arrival of Saharan dust.  Yes, you read that correctly.  A cloud of Saharan dust is making its way to South Florida.  Forecasters say the most noticeable effect will be a milky, hazy sky — nothing blue about it.  All I know is that it’s a little something extra to make the heat feel hotter.  I guess you could say it’s a dry heat, and how often can that be said in Fort Lauderdale?

So what should a couple of disheartened travelers do on a clear, dust-free night?  Take a walk, of course. 

Repost: Lily’s Grand Opening

I’m still in South Florida and while here, I’m thinking of there — my Long Island garden.  Before Joe and I left, the bud of my Stargazer Lily was setting itself up to bloom.  I just know that by now, nearly two weeks since we left, I missed Lily’s grand opening — and divas hate that.  So in an effort to make amends with Lily, I offer you this repost.

The stars are ageless, aren’t they?

Let me first begin by saying that this is not the post that I had planned — but some plants tend to be divas. My initial idea was to give you a “Bloomin’ Update,” with a series of photos documenting the opening of a lily. My one and only lily that hasn’t been seen in years. To use a film reference, this lily is my very own Norma Desmond of Sunset Boulevard fame.

This post actually began long ago, well before there was a blog. I had planted three lilies in what I will call the perennial garden. In fact, the perennial garden was really my first attempt at gardening, and I felt the need to fill it with as many flowers as I could order, purchase, find, borrow, root. There was really no rhyme or reason. Regardless, the lilies bloomed beautifully, but their perfume was overpowering. At times, I wasn’t sure if I was smelling my yard or the funeral home that backs against the woods behind my property.

Bloomin’ Update 29: How To Read A Palm

Based on readers’ comments from the previous post, I thought I would delve deeper into the wonders of Cocos nucifera, or the coconut palm.  Many northern gardeners had commented that either they had never really considered the seed-quality of a coconut or had never seen one sprout. 

I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts

Florida?  In summer?  Are you nuts?

If you’ve read any previous posts, you already know the answer to that question.  But in this case, there is a reason to the madness.  In a nutshell — a coconut shell, that is – South Florida will someday be our new home.  About one month before Hurricane Andrew arrived in 1992, Joe and I purchased a house.  Each year since, we have traveled to Fort Lauderdale several times a year to do the most relaxing of vacation activities: yard work.  And as we go about our palm tree trimming and bundling and bagging of debris, we do a lot of planning and dreaming.

Re-Post: Do You Suffer From G-SAD?

This post first appeared nearly a year ago, and since I am somewhere on a highway on my way to a vacation and faraway from any Internet service , I thought it was quite appropriate to revisit the anxiety that I feel when I have to leave my garden in someone else’s hands.  For longtime readers, I apologize for this repeat broadcast; for new readers, I hope you enjoy.

I have done what every therapist and doctor advises people not to do. I have self-diagnosed, but let me first explain.

It’s summertime, and Joe and I are going on vacation for a few days. It’s a chance to relax, to get away from everything, to reconnect, to breathe. In actuality, though, the days leading up to departure mean a growing sense of unease and worry. I become consumed with obsessive thoughts, anxiety, and stress — and none of it comes from the what-to-pack, what-not-to-pack scenario, nor from the airport pat-down, nor from who will mind the dog and the cat, nor from the last-second question, “Did I remember to take my trusted Swiss army knife out of my carry-on?” No. For me, the physical-emotional symptoms stem from leaving my garden and entrusting its care to someone other than myself. I am now calling these symptoms Garden Separation Anxiety Disorder, also known as G-SAD, as in, “Gee, That’s sad.”