Design garden with signature planting: forward and hope

Paula is home visiting her mom.  Seeing we’re planting hyacinth, tulip and daffodil bulbs, etc., she asked “how many?” I said “you mean how many hundreds?”

Emily Dickinson wrote her garden “perished with beautiful reluctance”, but seeing the garden “sank from color, scent, and liveliness into decay” evokes melancholic mood.  Planting in November for next spring is therapeutic, it connects this season to the next; it makes one feel the garden hasn’t died; life goes on.  These sleeping beauties will hibernate when the winter comes.  If the winter comes, can spring be far behind?

So our garden moves “forward” and there is “hope” (I am using Obama’s winning campaign slogans).  With hundreds of bulbs to plant, we have to be creative.  You can see KATY’s tulips.  Planting this way is a gamble, as KATY may not be fully shown unless all bulbs planted emerge next spring.  But, then again this is “the Audacity of Hope”.

How to deliver the surplus garden produce?

This is yesterday's comic, Pickles, showing how Earl and Opal got rid of their surplus zucchini.  That is also the way we do away with our surplus Italian Squash and Taiwanese pumpkin.  Even though we didn't do it in the pitch-black of the night, we also left them in the doorstep of the home of our friends, taking advantage of their not being home when we delivered the “goods” to Pittsburgh.

No wonder I love the comic strips as I seem to live the life of the characters in the comic strips. Yesterday I was Linus in the Charlie Brown's.

風韻猶存—There is beauty at the end

Peggy wrote there is beauty at the end; I think she is trying to say 風韻猶存, which more or less can describe our garden today (10/6/12); some might have lost their luster and scent, but color remained.  As Emily Dickinson’s flowers, they will “perish with beautiful reluctance”.  These photos were taken 10/5/12 and 10/6/12.

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Chrysanthemum (菊花) begins to bloom to extend our garden life

It is not quite time to write post like “Our garden refuses to die” yet, but they’re certainly on the way out, hopefully it will be “a long goodbye”.  Sensing our mood, chrysanthemum (菊花) began to bloom last week.  As I said many of the residents in our garden 是有名有姓的; the chrysanthemum came from Mrs. Wen, who is an excellent gardener.  These photos were taken on 10/1/12 and 10/5/12.

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American Grown or American Crown

One hour before the kick off of the 2009 Super Bowl, Matt Lauer’s interviewing President Obama was aired and President Obama predicted Pittsburgh Steelers will beat Arizona Cardinals; at that moment I wrote in a Super Bowl post at Sermo, “The King has spoken and that is the way it shall be!”

Two years ago on our color-chasing trip to New England, we dined at Stewman’s Oceanfront Lobster Pond (at Bar Harbour, Maine), Obama family also dined there that summer, I wrote in my blog, “When in Maine, eat like a Mainer, nay, eat like a King.”

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-dined-where-first-family-did-at-bar.html

With that in mind, when I first saw Michelle Obama’s garden book, “American Grown”, I thought it was “American Crown”.

The First Lady said her book is “another extension of the garden”, the same is also true for my blog.” 

An unexpected spectacle in the garden

While watching TV late last night, Katy learned there will be a frost at 2AM.  We hurried making effort to cover the veggies that are still producing.  These photos were taken early this morning.  All the veggies and flowers survived the first frost of the year.

The First Lady, Michelle Obama said she has been anxious paying close attention to the weather for her White House kitchen garden; she had the guy from the Weather Service Bureau report to her.  Poor little ‘subjects’ like us have to watch TV or surf internet to get the up-to-date weather news.  During the hot dry spell in June and early July, I bet she ordered the archbishop of Washington D.C. to pray fervently for rain.