An apology

I owe all the bulbs of the world an apology. Yes, an apology.

Because after ripping bulbs a good one for their chronically uninspired performance (in particular the 50 or so apparent no-shows I planted in my backyard last fall), it now appears I have a collection of bulbs coming up. At lease 25, and maybe more, at last count this morning.

I have no doubt the squirrels nicked a few over the winter, but 25 of anything purposely planted and now blooming in my garden is no less than miraculous.

Mea culpa, bulbs.

Turning into a pumpkin 5

I knew it.

I just f-ing knew it.

I KNEW there would be another pumpkin. Hidden in the mess of pumpkin vines, cherry tomatoes, sunflowers, lady's mantle and yarrow we now call the northeast corner of our backyard.

And. lo and behold, there it was. Brad discovered it yesterday while watering.

Sissy is smaller than Junior as you might expect of an August cum September latecomer. But she's perfect. Still green, but ahh, we have a few more warm days and nights ahead of us. Enough time to find her orange pumpkin vibe.

Sissy's little bench awaits.

Turning into a pumpkin 4

My somewhat newly discovered pumpkin is turning orange at an astonishing rate. It was only about 10 days ago when I first detected a faint trace of orange gracing Junior's crown. A check this morning reveals more orange than green. It's sort of an awkward combination, a little unattractive, really. But I know from years of as a purchaser of carving pumpkins that full-on Halloween orange is just around the corner.

As is fall.

It's the middle of August, and true to form, the last two mornings have had a distinct chill. The air is clear. The lazy haze that days in the 90s leave behind each night is gone for now. My roses have perked up, enjoying a respite from the heat.

Thankfully, there will be more days in the 90s before the leaves (and snow) fall, but a cool warning shot has been fired across our seasonal bow.

There are other little signs. My sedum blooms are beginng to go from chartreuse to dusky pink on their way to a brick red that melds nicely with autumn colors. A rogue sunflower has taken up residence in what use to be my night garden. The goldfinches' bright yellow feathers are giving way to a darker, more somber tone more in keeping with winter.

And there's my pumpkin. Turning orange. Just in time for Halloween.

P.S. And see what I mean about our cherry tomato plant?

Turning into a pumpkin 3

I. HAVE. A. PUMPKIN.

I REPEAT.

I. HAVE. A. PUMPKIN.

Amazingly, I wasn't even aware of its presence till about a week ago. I'd been carefully coddling a couple of other blooms that were showing the baby beginnings of pumpkins when one morning, out watering, I pushed back a leaf and there my pumpkin was in all its green glory.

Nearly scared the crap out of me.

Sometimes horticultural success does that to you.

And truth be told -- there may be more. Between the pumpkin vine and the most wildly robust Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant we've ever had (the damn thing's taller -- and wider -- than me and loaded with tomatoes to boot), it's kind of hard to tell what exactly is going on back in that corner of the garden. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, we have Junior is resing comfortably on a plastic footstool so he won't stress his vine too much (I read that in a book somewhere.)

And I shout to the world -- I. HAVE. A. PUMPKIN.

Blooming

An age-old gardening question -- is the garden a sum total of all its parts? Most will answer yes. And it is. Mostly.

That's the beauty of gardening -- the melding of color with texture, hardscape with yard art, long-blooming botanical warriors with short-lived floral flibbertigibbets. It takes time -- and effort -- to arrive at the right balance of color and space.

But there is a pay-off : For me, it's the the end of the day when the garden is almost animated -- a gentle, dusky palette of colors bobbing and swaying gently in a light breeze.

But, recently, I discovered a new pay-off -- dead heading, or the process of picking off dead blooms to encourage new ones. I was dutifully flying through a perennial bed a few weeks back when I accidentally snipped off a healthy bud. I held it in my hand for a moment and, for the first time in a long time, actually looked carefully at a single flower in bloom.

It was a wondrous composition of angle, curve and color -- a type of transient perfection that we can often miss when we look at our gardens as just a sum total.