Staycate

The boiling hot Tuesday of my second week off in August I set foot in a garden. (Not mine. I set sprinklers as soon as I got home but avoided mine until sometime the beginning of September.) I have considered Layanee a good friend for the last 3 years at least but still hadn’t visited her garden – all the way over yonder in Foster, RI. By Rudeyelin standids, Layanee’s garden is days away from mine. In actual fact it took an hour and 15 to get there. Just in case though, I brought my mom because she likes road trips – and gardens – and getting “lost” on the gray roads.

Despite Layanee’s demurrals and apologies her garden was actually still lush and colorful – and full of puppy. It just doesn’t get more inspiring than that. I am disappointed in my pictures but I didn’t even really want to take any because it was such a treat to experience it for reals. Pictures don’t do it justice anyway. Even after seeing years’ worth of Layanee’s pictures from every angle in every season, I had no real conception about the lay of the land. – There’s simply no way to find your bearings in a photo unless you’ve actually been there. I realized – and I feel a little silly to say this because I should always be keenly aware of it – that feeling grounded and present is an enormous part of the pleasure of seeing a garden. Ledge and Gardens was both more intimate in parts and more spacious in parts than I imagined and the vignettes and combinations much more interesting and beautiful for being held within the whole.

I liked my own garden better after the roadtrip – I’m not really sure why since it’s cramped and wonky and young in any kind of direct comparison. Then again there is no comparison, and no competition in gardening. It’s apples and orangutans. There’s only infectious enthusiasm – even when we’re all hot and exhausted and kind of over it.

Good neighbors

My neighbor, Walter is on a bender again this weekend blaring his four early 60′s vintage albums and I’m extremely wistful for all the good neighbors I met last weekend in Buffalo. I wish my friends and fellow garden bloggers lived much closer to me than the distant interwebs. I also wish that I lived in as sympathetic a neighborhood as the cottage district in Buffalo. In my neighborhood, all we seem to inspire in each other is increased volume. So (with thanks to Lynn for introducing me to the music) I’m here with all of my people. Turn it way up.

I miss you guys!

High time on the High Line

Just as my roses were starting; the very moment my gifted peonies were about to reveal their true color; when the elderberry began to bear flowers for the first time in its life; before the stipa grew feathers and the tansy, lace, I left town for NYC. It was high time to pay a friend of mine a visit and it’s been 4 years – much too long since I’ve been to The City. So on the eve of Memorial Day weekend, I landed in at Penn Station with both walking feet and a full bladder. (FYI, the ladies’ at Macy’s is on the second floor, all the way to the back.)

Of all the places that my excellent tour guide and I walked to, over, through or around (including but not limited to the Brooklyn bridge, Battery Park, Trinity Wall Street, Hank’s – a dive bar, the Old Town – an ancestral bar, the Brooklyn Flea, Staten Island, and Ditmas Park) the High Line impressed me the most. The High Line is a historical elevated freight train line hovering above the very edge of Chelsea. The track bed has been recently repurposed as a park with walkways, public event spaces, benches and what must be literally tons of cool, tough-as-nails plants. Not only do I find it a little bit incredible that hordes of people walk up stairs to get to it (though if I lived in NYC and didn’t have a garden bigger than my windowsill, I’d probably hoof it up stairs in search of a garden too) but its design is truly sublime. They’ve managed to plant a lot of interesting things from amelanchiers to alliums while leaving the merest hint of nostalgic windblown dereliction growing through the train tracks. It’s genius.

I feel like I could live in NYC. I’m envious that my friend’s neighborhood has more natural food stores and farm-to-table restaurants in a one block radius than I have within 25 miles. With a little practice, I feel like I too could maybe navigate the subway without always ending up in New Jersey. But RI is home. My garden lives here and I don’t have to climb stairs to get to it. (And my gifted peonies are still blooming – white, hugely puff-tastic and wicked fragrant. Thanks, Layanee!)