Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
5/26/00 - The website "Gertrude's Flower Garden" was established and put on the Internet on 21 May 1999, so that it has now had its first anniversary. The first entry is headed "Home Page," and each Friday thereafter a "Weekly Diary" was added. The "Home Page" links with the "Weekly Diary" for the next week (5/28/99) and with each current "Weekly Diary" as it appears. The current "Weekly Diary" links back with the "Home Page" and the "Diary" of the week before. All of the other "Weekly Diaries" link with the pages before and after. My original intention was to replace each previous year's entry, as it was reached, with a new "Weekly Diary," but, since space is available, I have decided to allow the original entries to remain. The links between the "Home Page" and the current "Weekly Diary" and between the individual pages will stay. Each "Weekly Diary" also has an individual address, however, so that to reach an entry somewhere in the middle of the gardening year you don't need to "leap-frog" from "Diary" to "Diary" but can call up the one you want. The key is: 5/21/99 = "home.att.net/~ntgates/index.html"; thereafter, for each entry, a numeral is added after "index." Thus, 5/28/99 is "index2" and this current "Weekly Diary" is "index54."
"Rain, rain go away/Come again another day." This last week has been an unhappy time for gardeners in this area. It has been raining or drizzling steadily enough that outdoor gardening was nearly impossible. Well, I did get out to push the edging wheel around some of the sidewalk, and did weed a bit between the showers, but not much else. Unfortunately, the garden doesn't stay status quo: everything--weeds as well as flowers--continue to grow, helped along by the gentle rain. This means that when the sun does come out, I will have to work twice as fast to catch up. For one thing, the rain is causing the grass to grow like "gang- busters," so that not only does the lawn really need cutting, but the even more time-consuming task of trimming the edges of the beds needs to be done. Gardening is like housework in that there is always something to do, but with housework there are no "rain delays."
Last week, I told you something about the irises in Gertrude's garden. This week's picture is a close-up of the lovely blue Shirley iris that I mentioned. Like many beautiful things, iris are fragile and transitory. There are usually four to six blooms per stalk, and the first ones to open fully will shrivel and dry as the new ones bloom. If I have the time, I usually try to keep the withered flowers cut off so that the new ones look even more lovely. Taylor calls "Tall Bearded Iris the most popular of all irises and commonly (before World War I) called German Iris, and still so called by many. It has thousands of named forms and varieties." Whatever varieties or colors you choose, do have irises in your garden; they are lovely flowers that will reward you with blooms year after year.
6/02/00- Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
5/19/00 - Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
Last Year's - Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
ntgates@worldnet.att.net