April 18, 2013 --more wild violets

The reflections and extraneous shadows in this photo are almost as illuminating as the intended subject of the photo. The intended subject was another little clump of wild violets that I transplanted into a vase. And this time I sat the vase on a Japanese pedestal. Reflected in the window on the left are a couple of the violet leaves. Reflected on the right is my white night gown, which I am wearing at 8 p.m. because I am so pollinated (i.e. suffering from allergies) that I could go to bed right now and sleep until... well...say... maybe June when all the pollen has settled?

 

April 16, 2013 -- spring mix

This is just a mix of leftovers and new flowers blooming in the garden--purple violas (far right), tulips, Lenten roses, Chinese temple bells, and pussy willow twigs in the larger bottles (left). I think theres a little leftover piece of wild mustard in this, too. and I know there's one stem of yellow archangel.

April 15, 2013 -- NC wildflowers

I visited the North Carolina Botanical Garden yesterday, where I was reminded how beautiful southeastern wildflowers are. Cultivated flowers seem sort of garish and over-obvious in comparison. Table decorations at a luncheon I attended were done by Wendy Wenck from wildflowers at the Garden. So beautiful! Nancy Easterling gave me one to take home, and here it is in the windowsill. I know it includes yellow ragwort, sedge foliage, and blue woodland phlox, but I'm not sure what the creamy white flowers are. From a shrub, I think. Maybe a native spirea?

April 12, 2013 -- fragrant viburnum

Spring is arriving at warp speed in Virginia. Redbuds, which were late, went from bud to bloom in about 5 seconds. And I totally missed the bud stage (which is my favorite stage) of this viburnum (Viburnum carlesii). It's in full bloom now and fabulously fragrant.

There's leftover aucuba foliage in these bottles, too. It's pretty ragged, and I should probably have replaced it.

April 13, 2013 -- wild violets

I don't own (or need to own) many precious objects, but today I found myself wishing I had some priceless china vase for these wild violets. They seemed to deserve it! Instead, I dug them up roots and all and put them in the most precious thing I had, this little china bowl.  

April11, 2013 -- iris leaves

Gardened and cleaned all day at Flower Camp today. Most jobs proved about twice as hard as I'd expected, but one--raking dead river oats foliage out of a patch of irises--was mercifully easy. Unfortunately, my delight in finding this job easy resulted in irrational exuberance, and I knocked off some iris foliage by mistake. Couldn't throw it away, so I carried it back to the house and dropped it into this plastic cup. It's so beautiful, even in this inelegant container.

April 9, 2013 -- windflowers

Here they come--the catalogs offering bulbs to plant for next spring. And spring has just arrived (bearing 80 degree temperatures!) in Virginia. The nice thing this catalog brought with it was a reminder that some of the flowers blooming in the garden were windflowers (Anemone blanda, I guess). I have no idea where they came from--a friend, a freebie with another bulb order? They are gorgeous in the garden and pretty impressive in the windowsill, too. I keep waiting for them to close up, but it hasn't happened yet.