WORK IN PROGRESS

Today I'm working on this:


More pruning, some clearing, a thorough washdown of the bench, clearing and planting of the pot with some red,white and blue petunias, and later in the season, when we have some of the tea parties we have planned, I'd like to festoon all the small cut limbs with ribbons holding a cascade of pretty teacups.

And see the little bistro set hidden in the background?

It started out set just slightly inside the ivy, but over several years, the encroaching spread had made it impossible to go sit with a cup of tea without bruising the beautiful green with your feet. So the little set (rusted and hazy when I bought it at a yard sale) has become weather-worn and grubby. It was a pretty little vignette as you drove into the drive, and now Caro has suggested that we bring it out right onto the pavement a bit, for easier use, and added a pedestal with a graceful pot for more of the petunias.

She's also going to put a pretty little lantern-shaped white "chandelier" on one of the shorn tree-limbs right above the table.

It's so uplifting to see everyone's gardens, the progress and the blooms and the care and work and tending which show in every bed, every shrub, every plot and place and vignette and area and room and space which has been made into something beautiful.

I love those glimpses into the handiwork of others, their way with plants and rocks and water and statuary and small arrangements of pretties which brighten the landscapes.

And I wish I had the touch for that---and the inclination, I suppose. I have absolutely NONE of the generations of genes which have coaxed fruit and vegetables and glorious bloom from the deep richness of Mississippi soil. Anything I touch (or neglect) turns to one of two extremes: Arid and dead, or jungle. There's no middle ground. I pot, they perish. I leave things alone, and you get swallowed up in the green.

I DO love the rich luxuriant growth of the grapevine across the garages; the spread of the shining ivy from eight little slips a few years ago has reached lawn proportions, creeping tendrils out and out, until the carpet gleams way out into what used to be grass.

The kudzu-tendencies of all the vines on the fence, the honeysuckle trees which shade more and more of the lawn each Spring, needing ruthless pruning to keep them under control, and the constant force which through the green fuse drives the flower---those are rampant and raging their way up onto the patio and into the potting shed.

I DO love the shaggy overgrowth, to see the lush swell of the buds and the leaves, to watch a rusted fenceline entwine with green velvet, then disappear into the shady cloak. I'd probably leave everything to kudzu itself into a landscape of blobby shapes-of-trees and house and cars, had I not the wise and guiding hand of Caro to keep things in check.

Angel seems happy to be sitting amongst all the overfill; all she needs is a little cleaning, a little fresh water for the chipmunks in the cup of her skirt, and all will be well.

PS This morning also included weeding the hosta bed, and using Sweetpea's tee-ninecy little yellow yard broom to get up all the maple spinners. At last.