The Gypsy Garden

September has been a beauty this year. With a flush in her cheeks and with a twinkle in her eye, she has begun casting her golden light over the land. I've remembered all that I love about this brilliant month. It is such a fleeting and magical time (and not just because my birthday is in this month!). Really, that deal summer made with winter, the one where winter agreed to her turning to gold and crimson and dancing out with an entourage of swirling leaves and flocking birds, was a clever deal.

 

It starts off with the subtlest blush in the mornings. Even green is a little weary of itself and longs for a bit of flash

 

The garden begins to look a little ragged around the edges, like someone who has spent too many nights out dancing under the moon and now they are a little muddied and their hair a bit wild

 

I've felt like dancing myself these last few weeks. Somehow, this season, with its insouciance stirs a little gypsy in my soul. (My English grandmother always claimed to my dad that there was some gypsy blood on her side. We never knew if this was true, but it seemed terribly romantic to me as a child.)

 

In recent years I've become interested in gypsy music. For an excellent radio documentary on the original gypsy music click here.

I know what is coming. I know the lassitude that deep winter brings. I know all about the days ahead of curling up on the couch with a good book and a glass of wine, candles lit in the late afternoon.

Until those days come, I am dancing in the golden light. To say goodbye to summer, my husband and I waltzed in the back garden in the late evening light. I said my own goodbyes in a field under the stars looking out over the ravine. But today it's time for one last joyous spin, and to thumb our noses at waiting winter. Join me, won't you?

Something about September

In these brilliant golden days with the light leaning sideways as it lists away, our inner selves seem to rise up to respond to the shifting of the earth. The natural world is very busy this time of year; birds are rising and flocking, squirrels are gathering and storing, and trees are changing colour. Profound changes; all necessary for survival.

September seems to urge us toward awareness of the changes we need to make in our own lives, whether it’s cleaning closets or calling that estranged family member, or picking up that camera, paint brush or pen. It’s a time to put our house in order and acknowledge and honour our own place in the world.

A blogger whose writing I so admire, Rilla, recently posted about September feeling very "poemy". I couldn't agree more. Her post got me to thinking about September and music.

What would be the perfect instrument to capture the spirit of September? For me, I realized, it is probably the flute. Played in the late afternoon and heard from a distance. Strange choice perhaps, but I find it carries a certain melancholy wistfulness apropos of saying good-bye to the festive nature of summer.

There is something about September and the creative spirit. I begin planning my concert and theatre-going season.

I get art framed that we have purchased over the last few months. I look for beautiful things, especially pottery, this time of year.

I crave big, fat books. I dig out my old Norton Anthologies and re-read poetry. I take my son to music lessons and bang the drums and dance with him.

I savour every last golden moment in the garden and plan for next year's. I fall in love with the scent of gingerbread again. And I walk in the woods and dream.

I found this video of a jazz flutist who captures that something about September perfectly with his rendition of Autumn in New York.

Here’s to a “poemy” September for you all. I hope September helps you find your muse. :-)

Nido de Amor

I think I first fell in love with the love. It wasn’t the house we eventually purchased that made me fall in love with our neighbourhood. It was the modest bungalow down the street.

When my son was about two months old I began attending a postnatal physiotherapy class for moms whose backs were still sore from childbirth. It was about then I was realizing my son came with loads of “stuff” and our cosy – and finally renovated to our taste! – house was too small for the three of us. After class, my son would fall asleep in the car and I began to take that opportunity to cruise neighbourhoods looking for a new home for my little family.

The bungalow was pale yellow, with a little tyndall stone around the front door. It was nestled in amongst mature shrubs and perennials. Not a house you would probably take notice of; there were plenty that style and this one had no added features, good or bad, to attract looks from the sidewalk. Except for that sign out front. Tucked in a rugosa rose that had long overtaken it, there was a hand carved sign that read “Nido de Amor”.

[This is Gryffindor, our front door lion who keeps us strong and brave]

That evening at home I asked my husband what that meant. He said it was probably something to do with “Love Nest”. Oh. How lovely. As a new mom, that went straight to my heart. I imagined the husband, thirty or forty years ago, carving that sign for his little family. I imagined the day he pounded the post in the ground, hung the sign and, together with his wife, planted the rose. So I went back the next week after physio and drove by it again. Then I began exploring the neighbourhood and was smitten.

My requirements were pretty specific. I wanted a two storey home, the master bedroom facing the back garden, a family room on the main floor, a powder room on the main floor, interior walls (I like actual rooms), and a good-sized back garden with mature trees. I also wanted to be near a large natural wooded area with trails I could wander and dream. A river or creek would be nice, too.

I found my house. It came up for sale about six doors down from the yellow bungalow. It was in dire need of renovations, the gardens were a wreck, the fence was fallen, but the bones were good and the inspection proved the house was sound. Best of all, the back garden was a tabula rasa with a stand of large trees at the back casting dappled light over the garden in the evening.

We have been here three years now and are gradually working on the house and garden while raising our little son. I have never been happier.


The little yellow bungalow is for sale now. A few days after the For Sale sign went up the Nido de Amor sign came down. I hope they are taking it with them to wherever their next stop is. It some ways, I feel the sign is still here and that they have passed it on to us. Thank you, little bungalow, for sharing the love.

White After Labour Day?

It's enough to make a proper flower blush!

My Morden Snowbeauty is in week two of its second flush. I couldn't be more pleased with this lovely beauty.

The pale pink buds are opening this time a little pinker than the first pure white flush and it is really rather enchanting.

My annual pelargoniums will bloom right into the fall if last year is any indication.

And are a welcome counterpoint to all the rosy complexions out there.

My delightful little fairy bells are in full bloom again. This is my first year with them and I hope they make it through the winter as I am rather charmed with their tiny dancing when a breeze blows over them.

My Little Lamb hydrangea has put out it biggest blooms ever, after a harsh winter that took it down to its base.

I wonder if the seven flower heads on it are so big because my toddler cut the others off when they were just getting started? Hmmm...maybe he is a gardener in the making. :)

These creamy little sprays are not a part of the garden.

They are a present from hubby for my birthday. It appears he knows how to make me blush after Labour Day as well. :)
Hope you are enjoying the beauty of your late summer gardens!

One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve.
~Henry David Thoreau

My Nose is Sleepy and other stories of the late summer garden

“Your eyes are sleepy, beautiful boy. It’s time to close them and go to sleep.”

“No, Mommy, my nose is sleepy. It goes up and my eyes go down.”

~ conversation at bedtime with my little son earlier this week.

Late summer and my nodding Annabelle hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle') adds a dreamy element to the garden. We tucked it in close to the Holmstrup cedar (Thuja occidentalis 'Holmstrup) by the back door and just in front of a new Dart’s Gold ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius 'Dart's Gold').


It seems to have made this spot its own, hanging over some silvery Lamium maculatum 'White Nancy'. My hubby brought this hydrangea home after admiring it in many of our neighbour’s gardens. Normally he leaves the garden purchases to me, but since he offered that we might find some place for it, and he knew I liked hydrangeas, we made it a home. This is only our first season with it so I don’t know how it will overwinter. However, given that so many are thriving in our area, I am hopeful.

As for the nodding off that it tends to do, I have heard that they straighten up a little after a few years of good pruning. But I do understand if it gets a sleepy nose this time of year. I know we all do.

Autumn at the Gate

So, the Autumn Equinox will arrive within the day. No wonder I was feeling spooky on Sunday afternoon as I wandered, coffee in hand, through the garden centre. I thought maybe it was the slightly Klezmer-sounding flute music they were playing that got me to thinking about Tom Waits and that play I so love, Black Rider.

Or maybe it was the stone water features all burbling away in the lean golden light of late afternoon, their leafy patterns, stone lions and carved acorns looking more pagan than suburban.

Maybe it was the ragged remains of the last trees for sale, listing against each other.

Either way, I needed to temper the cheer of my front step flowers with something a little darker.

So I got this little fellow.

He added just the touch I was looking for. To me he spoke of rustling leaves soon to dance and blow and the far off stirrings of the snow queen.

I added this swirl of pheasant feather (not real) for an extra bit of texture.

Ah, now I am ready to meet Autumn at the gate.

Hey, Little Bud

Remember the hosta I bought, then froze, then kept potted for two months while the garden was renovated?

Well, this sweet little thing, ‘Touch of Class’, has settled in nicely and has now decided to send up a bud. Now? Yes, now. Sept. 16 to be exact.

I hope I get to see it bloom before this warm, sunny autumn takes a turn in the other direction. This is my first summer with this hosta so maybe this is typical for this hosta when planted in zone 3b - or maybe things are just a little off this year?

Either way, I'm delighted to see it. Bloom soon, won't you little bud?

September Sunshine

Need a jolt of September sunshine? Just fill your monitor with these sumptious flowers and your room will glow.

Yesterday we took our little two-year-old to the butterfly house at the Devonian Gardens, a botanical garden just outside the city run by the University of Alberta. (Oh yes, he loved it, and I promise to share pictures!)

On the way out he and his Daddy bought me this bouquet at the gift shop - only 5 bucks!

When we got home I added the mountain ash berries from one of my trees and some greenery from a shrub that needed pruning back.

Now they sit on my mantel in the family room and radiate good cheer out into the hallway.

Hope September is sending good cheer your way!

Evening Cloak

You know, I start to crave the robust colours of fall this time of year. I'm not normally a bright colours person, in my personal style (except perhaps red), home decor or plantings. However, September finds me staring and smiling at bright yellows and brilliant reds and purples.

Maybe because I know this time of blazing colour is so fleeting or because there is just such a flamboyant farewell to it. Mother Nature leaves the summer party by throwing on her red and gold embroidered cloak and tossing her hair over her shoulders. I would love to leave a party with that much panache.