Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary

5/10/02 - As I mentioned in last week's "Diary" I will be away for almost two weeks so that I have had to write the "Diaries" for this week and next ahead of time. On May 27 "Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary" will have been on the Internet every week for three years--I don't want to skip the weeks that I will be away. Before I leave, my garden work, now that all of the initial planting is done, will consist mainly of edging, weeding, and generally tidying up all of the garden beds. This morning, for instance, I weeded and cultivated the long, narrow bed along the driveway which I have planted with Wings Begonias--some of them are showing color so that they should be in full bloom by the time that I return home. I also trimmed, edged, weeded and cultivated the small circle bed in front of the house. It is planted with dwarf Ageratum in pink, white, and blue. Most of the plants have flowers on them, but won't show off to their best until the foliage of the Siberian Squill dies back.
When folks ask me what kind of garden I have, I always reply that it is an "English" garden, by which I mean that the various shaped beds are planted with mixed annuals and perennials. I think that the garden that I knew as a boy was more nearly a true "English" garden, since the whole area was garden with narrow grass paths winding between the beds. The beds in Gertrude's garden are planted with bulbs, perennials, and shrubbery. This makes the planting of annuals raised in the basement garden more difficult, since I am planting between the foliage of the bulbs and of the emerging perennials. What this does give you, however, is the full, flowery appearance that is typical of the English type garden.
The town where Gertrude and I chose to build our home some sixty-five years ago is justly proud of its beautiful springtime gardens. What makes this area so beautiful at this time of year are the wonderful old plantings of those two lovely spring-blooming bushes, rhododendrons and azaleas. Our garden is blessed with many azaleas (we have only one rhododendron that has been out front since the house was built), some of which were original plantings, but most of which we added over the years. Many of these azaleas have stories attached; for instance, there is a lovely, tall, thin, pink azalea in front of the French lilac bush by the side of the garage. Both the lilac and the azalea bloom at the same time and are beautiful together. Well, years ago, when Gertrude was buying some azaleas, the nurseryman looked at a thin, scrawny bush and, saying that no one whould buy it anyway, he threw it in with her other purchases. Today it is the loveliest azalea in the garden. (See last year's "Diary" picture.) We also have a magnificent, huge, white azalea in the right front of the rockgarden. Gertrude was visiting my mother who had received a tiny azalea from a "gentleman caller." She had no where to plant it and gave it to Gertrude. It, too, is blooming right now, and is unbelievably beautiful. This week's picture looks across the corner of the rockgarden toward Gertrude's bench with some of the smaller azaleas in the foreground.

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