Friday, July 14, 2006

It Grows Like This

Sure, Gura's title question was rhetorical, but I thought I'd answer anyway. Our garden was re-designed a few months back, and everything is finally filling in. I'm surprised at how much pleasure I'm taking in it; every day new things pop open. A gifted photographer could make so much more of this than I'm able to, but I thought I'd share some of my fave flora anyways.

Here's one of the espaliered apple trees. It will bear many a fuji apple at some point. This is good, since the girls are more than capable of eating, collectively, a dozen apples a day. The next picture is one of the flowers in the butterfly garden. How much would Mariah like that? She's so jealous right now:



There are a bunch of these whateverbells (I made that name up. If that's not what they're called, it should be) in the front yard. The other picture doesn't do justice to this weird flowering plant. It's so interesting, what with the extra-glossy leaves, white blossoms and then the clusters of little blue ones, too:



Here's my favorite. My only formal request for the garden was a magnolia tree. And here's the first chunky ol' flower. Can't wait 'til it opens up:



My parsley and basil are out of control. The basil is almost waist-high at the moment, which means I need to make...bruschetta? Rosemary, two kinds of sage, thyme, and some other herbs are also a-growing:



I love this spiky, reddish plant. There are a couple of these; they look like they'd kill you if you fell on them. And, finally, one of the new tomato plants:



This concludes the Nesting Ground Garden Tour. Which, I'm fully aware, was just as exciting as my homemade paper wallet.

6 comments:

Gura said...

lovely garden pics, Miss Ver! My parents had an apricot tree and to this day I can't stand the store bought kind (I'm so spoiled). I used to have an herb box garden but my balcony didn't get enough sun for that. The plants are always reaching out over the edge to get an extra bit of sun. Fortunately, this year they cut back the tree limbs so there are no more squirrels on the balcony digging up my plants (they found it oh so more convenient to dig on the 3rd story than go all the way down to the ground). If each house on a block had a different fruit tree, there'd be more than enough fruit for several blocks.

ver said...

Thanks Gura! That's a good point about fruit trees, ya know. Our friends who live across the street grow tons of plums, and right next door they have lemons. A guy down the street used to bring me tomatoes, and another lady grew lettuce (wow, what a difference between store-bought and truly fresh!!) So we do lots of sharing. I'm "supplying the herb." Hahahahahaha!

Anonymous said...

Very admirable!!! I'm trying to do the same in the dessert. My Basil does nothing like it used to in Salinas, but I'm sure getting a lot of peppers. We put in a pond and have 5 out of 16 fish that have survived. One fish is very large. Hmmmmm where did the other 11 go?

JD from Sparks

Anonymous said...

I vote the other 11 went to a racoon sushi bar.

Gura said...

I vote the other 11 went to a racoon sushi bar.

Anonymous said...

i am reminded of the struggling little basil that lived on your windowsill and you encouraged with bits of eggshell.
we have a million oranges to contribute to the community food bank.