Be practical

The first week of June brings intermittent fog and rain.  I weed the brick and stone pathways that weave between my perennial beds until I’m forced into retreat before an onslaught of mosquitoes.

Several years ago, I groused to Liesbeth about the small stones constantly turning up  in my garden.

“Be practical,” she told me.  “If you can’t get rid of something, put it to use.”

I took her advice.  I combined unwelcome garden stones with generous portions of odd-lot bricks from a landscape supply house in Westerly.  Purchased at the end of the landscape season, I negotiated a good price for the summer’s leftovers.  In the spring, I combined the brick with copious amounts of small stones to extend the walkways and the garden.

Unsettled weather continues into the second week of June.  Rain and wind, with gusts higher than 20mph, buffet the coast.  Large white clematis that inter-grows with pink roses is torn apart by the tempest.  The wind lifts a patio umbrella out of its thirty-pound metal base and hurls it into an ancient boxwood.

I rescue a peony bloom from the walkways after the rain.  It’s  snow white with a single layer of petals.  The blossom soon falls apart.  Petals litter the tabletop and pile up around family photos.  Peony scent is subtler than oriental lilies, but even with a breeze dissipating the scent, I can just tolerate it -- barely.

A grackle with iridescent purple-bronze feathers drops into a pathway to pull some grassy weeds.  I watch from behind a window.  He drops his load and snaps at a sixpacks of young pepper seedlings.  I gasp my dismay.  He hears me and drops his stolen leaf.  Back to the path for more grass.  With a shake of his head to remove dirt from the roots, he’s off to his nest with what looks like an impossible load.

The weather turns sunny and gorgeous.  Puffy white clouds scud across the sky, pushed by a light breeze.  I have neglected the horseshoe garden, and it needs weeding.  Planted by a prior owner, the area has gradually become a shaded woodland place as oaks and white pine grow tall. Cimicifuga, whose common name is Fairies’ Candles thrive here and will soon have stalks six feet tall.