Aug 27, 2014
From time to time I'll post photos from my garden, to follow its changes. I've indicated the volunteers, aka weeds.
The clematis (volunteer) and drift roses are fragrant.
Giant liriope
Ginger (it's really pink and yellow)
Beauty berries are ripening (volunteer)
Weird phallic plant (volunteer)
Marigolds and zinnia
Tibouchina and salvia
Honeybell orange
Rosie in the garden
May 10, 2013
Note: Every writer of a certain ilk must write at least one piece about gardening. I am of that ilk.
For years I had believed, without really thinking about it, that it’s wrong to buy a garden. You’re not allowed to have a nice garden unless you do the work yourself. I don’t know the origin of this belief, though it is certainly connected to a sense of guilt about our prosperity, as well as admiration for the gardens created and tended by my friends. But when we splurged with my retirement money and built a glorious pool and deck click, we decided to go whole hog and pay for landscaping.
the whole hog Image:wisecountyagrilife.blogspot.com
Bill Copenhaver, a good friend of Joe’s, was our landscaper. I drove out to his nursery and walked with him among the plants, talking about what I like, and why. I wanted native or near-native plants that, once established, don’t need a lot of attention, that tolerate a bit of cold and plenty of heat. I like curving lines, bright flowers, and plants that don’t look too tidy.
A good landscaper is an artist who paints with plants. Along with expertise in plants, Bill has an eye for space, balance and color.
With gentle persuasion over several weeks, Bill convinced me that we should dig up the so-called wildflower bed, a round area in the middle of the yard which I had left un-mowed. It was filled with wild petunias, spiderwort, Spanish needle and fleabane.
wild petunia (image:sunfarm.com), spanish needle with bee (image:beelievable.wordpress.com), spiderwort
A huge red and gold lantana had grown up there, and a magnificent beauty berry. In the summer, clematis (virgin’s bower) covered them with its soft fragrant flowers.
lantana (image:npsot.org), beauty berry (image:hsu.edu), clematis (image:whiteflowerfarm.com)
As I list all these I begin to regret that we destroyed them. But I have more clematis farther back in the yard. We moved the lantana and beauty berry to the bed by the shed, and the other flowers will pop up abundantly at the edge of the woods, where they will not be mowed.
I’ve never had a garden that didn’t eventually wither from my neglect. Now I know my plants will thrive. Bill and his son Asa laid drip irrigation tubes in all the mulched beds. He extended them to the citrus trees in the side yard, and the anise bushes at the fence line, which will protect my neighbors from the sight of my naked swimming.
I’d hate neighbors to see me like this (In the Water by Eugene de Blaas)
It’s hard to say whether the pool or the garden is giving me more pleasure. I see beauty everywhere I look – out our bedroom window, all around the pool, back by the shed, around the corner of the house where the citrus and herbs are growing. I walk around every morning, sniffing, deadheading, weeding, peeking at buds, looking for the tiny fruits forming.
from our bedroom
by the shed
The Florida blueberries have little berries on them, behind a pink flower. On the drift rose there are blossoms and many promising buds. The yellow jessamine are reaching up to the trees and the border grass is filling in, the dune sunflowers spreading till their tips touch. The princess plant is back from the freeze; the gaillardia burn red and orange. The grapefruit, tangelo, savannah holly and fringe trees are blooming, scenting my afternoon swim, and more lovely smells are coming: native azaleas, lavender, rosemary, and pineapple sage.
clockwise from top: drift roses, gaillardia, grapefruit, blueberries, dune sunflowers
In sixty-five years I have made many decisions, some good, some bad, .. Together, Joe and I have made three which I believe I will never regret: to marry, to adopt Amanda, and to build our pool and garden.
Apr 26, 2013
I have spent my adult life obsessed with poverty, and hanging around with people who have way less than enough. I believe it’s wrong that some have so much, and some so little, and when I bother to analyze the reasons, I find that the difference is rarely attributable to personal merit. click So I suffer from what people sneeringly call liberal guilt.
liberal guilt – image from Nicole Holofcener's film Please Give (2010)
I share all kinds of embarrassing personal information with you – about my messiness, my weak resolve, the complete and comical failure of my short-term memory – but the hardest thing for me to write about is our luxurious life. In the name of honesty, however, and out of my obsession with our latest adventure, I have to confess that we now have a swimming pool.
I’ve always wanted to have an outdoor living space. North Florida is glorious year-round, and it seemed a shame not to take advantage of it. We had a hammock in the backyard and a small wooden deck, but from May to September it was too hot and buggy to sit outside, and rain was a problem year-round.
too hot and buggy
Amanda gets the credit for suggesting we build a pool. I first seriously considered it when I was at the beach with the Muumuus: I jumped into the icy pool before dawn and felt all my old joints cry out in relief. Joe and I talked it over for months, and eventually decided that since we had the money, and it would make such a difference in our lives and health, we would go ahead and do it.
We began the process last April, consulting with contractors and making decisions about features and design. Joe did most of the work, and though I truly appreciated it, I had to struggle for patience with repeated discussions of every conceivable detail. click In the end we decided on a salt-water pool with solar heat, a lap machine, a big deck, and a screen enclosure with an overhanging roof, so we could be outdoors all year round.
First, three big trees had to come down. It was not a difficult decision. Two were completely hollow. The third, very close to the house, was a menace: the tree surgeon told us it would certainly come down on its own if we didn’t take it down. We had already had one tree through the roof click and weren’t eager to repeat the experience. Still, these trees had filled most of the sky in our backyard, and framed thousands of sunsets. It was sad to see them come down, but after they were gone, we discovered that the newly opened sky, still surrounded by trees, gave us many more stars.
roadrunner333 photobucket.com
The tree surgeon finished his work and the big machines came to stay for awhile. They rumbled around, tearing up the weeds and wildflowers, leaving a big expanse of bare sandy dirt. It was noisy, and there were men in the yard for months, but it was fascinating to watch the pool being built. I had a ringside seat from my recliner, and sat watching with a cat in my lap and a glass of tea. The best was when a concrete mixer moved into the driveway for a couple of days and sprayed concrete through a huge tube into the hole – they call it blowing the pool.
(Alas – ALL my wonderful pictures of the pool construction disappeared. This is from ultimatepools.com)
They built the deck, installed the pump, the salt chlorine generator and the lap machine. The electrician came and upgraded our circuits, hooked up the machines, installed lights and a fan. A solar contractor installed a bunch of tubes on the roof to heat the water, and a different company built a high screen enclosure. Finally they filled the pool with water from our garden hose – it took two days.
In November, for the first time, Joe and Amanda and I jumped into the cold water and played around for about ten minutes, till we were chilled to the bone. And then every morning before drinking my coffee, so that I was too sleepy to think, I jumped into the 64-degree water. I loved it, looking up at the stars and feeling the icy water on all my aching joints.
After ten days of this, I developed a terrible rash on my legs, arms, breasts, butt, and belly that itched like poison ivy.
image:poison-ivy.org (the pictures of rashes were just too gross)
A friend speculated that the curing concrete was affecting the water. Though our test strips didn’t show a problem, I decided to wait thirty days to let it cure, and try again. But when the time came, I kept postponing the trial. I was afraid the rash would return, and was bracing myself for the disappointment of a pool I couldn't swim in.
Finally in March I ventured in again, and all was well. Now Joe and I are swimming almost every day. In the evening the three of us cavort, and with the weather and water warming up, we’ll be inviting friends to play. Inside the screen, the bugs can’t get us, and when we get too hot, we just jump in the pool. Joe’s spacious design has given us a high open room, where we can sit under the roof and watch the wild Florida rains. Neither broken nest egg nor liberal guilt can diminish my delight.
