Category Archives: my garden

Tulip or magnolia or both.

my garden, other gardens, trees,
Pippin with Liriodendron

Yesterday I talked with the dental hygienist Joan about hikes and trees and flowers. She asked, “Are you a plant person? Did you see the saucer magnolia trees across the street?” Oh, yes, I had seen those lovelies, smallish ones with their flowers opening so brightly pink.

“I have my camera and want to take their picture when I leave,” I said. But later with all my strolling about and photo-shooting I never got a good one of those Chinese Magnolias that people often mistakenly call Tulip Trees.

Chinese Magnolia

I told my friend when she took the pointy tools out of my mouth, “I had a real Tulip Tree in my yard once so I know that those are not really that.” She misunderstood, and said, “Oh, but tulip trees are magnolias.”

I explained that what I was talking about was nothing like what she was talking about, and promised to send her information when I got home. I also sent her this photo of Pippin as a young girl enjoying the blossoms and leaves of our tree, which we had planted a few years previous.

It was a fast grower and a joy to have around, shading the play fort and adding grace to the landscape. Here it is in the 80’s on the right behind the children.

Yard with Tulip Tree

But in researching the botanical name of our Tulip Tree, I discovered that is IS a member of the magnolia family (but it is not what Joan thought). Oh, my — crazy how confusing things get when humans try to classify the world formally and informally all at the same time.

In 2011 I planted tulip bulbs in the front yard (here where we have no trees with that name), and had a glorious display last spring. It looked as though they weren’t going to come up a second time; often tulips don’t last, in our climate, because it’s too warm and wet. This winter was cold and drier, and what do you know, there are little tulip leaves bravely poking through now. Perhaps in a month or so I’ll have another kind of tulip flower to write about.

What is is change.

my garden, nature, quotes, ,

Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up. What was is not and never again will be; what is is change.  -Edwin Teale

I went out into the misty autumn morning to find fine threads laced in and out among flower petals and fence rails.

The only sun was in the form of letters labeling the Sunsugar tomato.
Unless you count the few remaining mini-globes of golden fruit.

But in the midst of leaves turning brown, under skies cast over with grey, the last flowers were even more obvious in their brilliance. So I gave them the attention they wanted.

A few Cécile Brunner roses had come out, a few miniature roses….

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But the salvia blooms are in the thousands. The party they seem to be celebrating has clearly just begun.

Rosemary and The Bee

my garden, nature

Like the bees, Mr. Glad and I have been using the last warm days of autumn to finish up some outdoor projects. I wanted to have a pot of flowers by the front door, and he had got us started on a new long triangle of lawn-replacement landscaping. Today we finished up the latter, and I took some pictures of various things in the front yard.

I have several pots now that I can rotate in and out sitting on the upended log by the door. The roses were blooming in the back yard so brought them out front to the place of honor without bothering to pull out the weeds.

This pic shows where the patch of lawn was replaced with some little shrubs and perennials that don’t need much water. They are small now but will spread out before long. Parts of the front yard still need sprucing up for winter, but I wanted to take this picture before the flowers faded from the new plants.

Wouldn’t you know it, the bees have not run out of flowers from which to gather nectar. They were working alongside us, in the rosemary bushes that are in full bloom. Now I think I’ve posted pictures of bees in five or six different flowers. I’ll have to do some research on that and consider doing a bee album!

Tomato Festival

food and cooking, my garden,
Persimmon and Early Girl

With all the new varieties Mr. Glad and I are growing this summer, we can have our own Backyard Tomato Tasting Festival.

It’s the best tomato year in at least a decade, partly because we planted more vines, and maybe for some other reasons we are mulling over.

Trays and platters and bowls of tomatoes are crowding the kitchen counters and tables. Time to make soup or just freeze some after I peel and dice them — and take their pictures, of course.

Juliet, SunSugar, Northern Lights

There are some puzzling and disappointing results, like Czech Bush, which was billed by our nursery as being an “orange slicer,” but bears red fruits the size of a large cherry.

Ailsa Craig is in theory interesting, as Tatiana writes on her TOMATObase site, “…a variety of tomato that has been an experimental staple of tomato molecular biology and biotechnology. Originally Ailsa Craig, named for a small rocky island off the coast of England, was grown for greenhouse production of tomatoes in Great Britain. Apparently this crop is particularly important for English breakfasts.”

None of the English or Scottish breakfasts I knew featured tomatoes that small. One seed site predicted 1.5-oz. fruits, another “medium” size, and another 70-90 gm. for Ailsa Craig. I must have read the “medium” word last spring, but now that heirloom tomatoes are so popular, in the future I will do more research, as on Tatiana’s site, and have fewer surprises. And I know now that I want my slicers to be a minimum of 8 oz.

Northern Lights is a pinkish tomato that we expected to be “smallish,” but it was a local news columnist’s “favorite red tomato! Very productive….” The flavor is truly fantastic, but again, they are too small to slice, and too large to pop into the mouth like a cherry tomato — and anyway, we have plenty of cherry tomatoes.

The Brazilian Beauty fruits aren’t large, but the plant is loaded with fruit. I like the unusual flavor, often called “smoky,” and I would like to plant them again, but I’m not sure my husband would go for it. I like having a “black” tomato, and these are nicely shaped and look good arranged on a plate with other varieties.

Brazilian Beauty, Persimmon, and Early Girl

Isn’t that Persimmon gorgeous? It tastes divine, too. I think we will always plant Persimmon tomatoes if we can get them. (In the old days it was Jubilees we adored for orange tomatoes.)

Our one Early Girl plant continues to amaze us – the many fruits are running 8 oz. or more, and are perfect smooth globes with great flavor. The local nursery’s special hybrid is a similarly big, productive and luscious specimen.

Yesterday we made grilled cheese and BLT sandwiches with orange, red and black tomatoes in them. I slice Juliets and Sunsugars in half and throw them into salads, and grab a few as I’m walking past throughout the day.

September is often our biggest tomato month. Even as the nights are getting chillier, and apples are coming on, we are surrounded by these lavish gifts of Summer.