Mid-May Blooms for GBBD

An old friend texted me this week and asked if he could stop by: "I want to see all your flowers." I knew what he wanted to see--all the different tulips I had been posting daily on Facebook the last few weeks.  Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be home that day, and in my reply I explained that all the tulips were finished for the year.  "What? The tulips are gone?"  How do you explain to a non-gardener that spring blooms are fleeting, that you must enjoy each day because a garden is not static, especially in spring?

I'm always a little sad, too, to see the end of tulip season, but now I'm eager for their complete demise.  The late ones are still standing erect and green, but headless, and most are withering away, their papery, brown leaves cluttering up parts of the garden.  I'll be glad when I can clean up the last of the remains.  I did find one tulip in the shade garden that I thought looked rather pretty in its dying days.  This is a tulip new to my garden this year, 'Blue Spectacle,' which was advertised as a true blue tulip.  It was a pretty double tulip, but I was sure disappointed that it was lavender, not blue at all.

I did find a few late tulips still blooming in the roadside garden,  I don't remember the name of this one, but I do know it's supposed to be lavender.

While the tulips may be gone, other flowers are beginning to take their place on this May Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.  Behind the lavender tulips, the Baptisia is blooming.  It's smaller, though, than in past years, and I'm not sure why.  In fact, the spring display in this small garden area was a disappointment--only the newest tulips bloomed, and one lone allium appeared.  I noticed when cleaning up this bed in March that it looked like the soil had been really disturbed--perhaps interlopers like deer or other wildlife dug up some of my bulbs and plants.  The good news is the lilies and coneflowers are growing like crazy, so this area should have a better display come summer.

The warm weather the previous two weeks kick-started many of the later spring bloomers.  While I was busy admiring the tulips, I neglected taking photos of these until almost too late.  The 'Purple Sensation' Allium in the arbor bed, for example, are already past their prime.

The perennial geranium in the Arbor Bed still has a few blooms, but not as many as a week ago.

The same is true of the lilacs.  My huge old-fashioned lilac is no longer blooming, but a few blooms remain on two newer and smaller varieties.  This is a new compact lilac I bought last fall, purely because of its name 'Scent and Sensibility.'

'Bloomerang' also is quickly fading.  It wasn't such a pretty sight this year as it is still recovering from the winter of 2013-14.

A new plant in my garden this year--Camassia.  I am kicking myself for not taking a photo when it was in full bloom.  Only the very tops still have petals, but these were such cool-looking plants when the whole stem was covered.  I think I might have to find a place for more of these bulbs this fall.

The irises are just beginning to bloom--the first to bloom was this purple passalong from my aunt.

'Immortality' was a close second.

Mid-May to early June is a time of transition in the garden as spring flowers fade, and summer flowers have yet to bloom.  I like to fill in the gaps with colorful annuals, and I've spent a lot of time plant shopping--one of my favorite activities of the spring!  I've only begun, though, to start planting all the containers.

One of my favorite annual combos--'Raspberry Blast' petunias, with Persian Shield and Helichrysum.

There are more perennials beginning to bloom, though.  One of the welcome signs of spring, Phlox pilosa, better known to most people as PPPP, thanks to the generosity of blogging friend Gail of Clay and Limestone.  Gail kindly sent me a few starts several years ago, and it is now spreading through the Butterfly Garden, much to my delight.

Another spring favorite of mine is Amsonia; this is Amsonia tabernaemontana,

 but my Amsonia hubrichtii is starting to bloom as well.

'May Night' Salvia, one of many salvias in my garden.

A new plant in the shade garden last year, Sweet Woodruff. 

 I'm surprised how much it has already grown since last summer; I hope I don't regret planting this.

Speaking of the shade garden, my intention was to divide more hostas again this year before they got too big.  Oops, looks like I'm late once again.  The poor 'Georgia Peach' Heuchera barely visible in the center of the photo has to be moved soon before it's completely overtaken by one of my favorite hostas.

'Sweet Tea' Heucherella, fortunately, is at the front of the border where it isn't as likely to be swallowed up.  I've noticed several of the Heucheras are sending up blooms already.

While there isn't as much in bloom right now as a few weeks ago, there are promises

 of much more to come very soon.  Above, the spireas are covered in buds.

And a bud I am very excited about--the first peony about to open up.  This is a new one given to me by a friend as a bare root last fall.  I was not expecting it to bloom this year, but I can't wait to meet 'Scarlett O'Hara'!

What is in bloom in your garden in this merry month of May?  Join us at May Dreams Gardens, where hostess Carol welcomes you to share on this Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

The Invention of Wings: A Book Review

There was a time in Africa the people could fly.  Mauma told me this one night when I was ten years old.  She said "Handful, your granny-mauma saw it for herself.  She say they flew like blackbirds.  When we came here, we left that magic behind."  Mauma pointed to her shoulder blades and said, "This all what left of your wings...one day you gon get 'em back."

Hetty Handful Grimke, a young slave in early 19th century Charleston, South Carolina, learns at her mother's knee to be proud despite her desperate situation in life.  Her mother is an accomplished seamstress who tells her life story through quilts and teaches Hetty the craft, until Hetty becomes even more skilled with the needle than Mauma.

Sarah Grimke, the privileged daughter of a white plantation owner, is brought up quite differently by her mother, who hopes only that Sarah will be a proper young Southern lady and eventually marry well.  Sarah, however, is headstrong and after devouring the books in her father's library, decides she wants to be a jurist just like her father, a "preposterous notion" for a young girl of the time.  At the age of four, she witnesses an act of cruelty to a slave that causes her to develop a speech impediment and affects her outlook on slavery for the rest of her life.

When Sarah is given Hetty as her personal slave on her 11th birthday, Sarah is horrified.  She tries to give her back, but her parents refuse her request.  Instead, the two girls form a bond, and Sarah teaches Hetty to read and write, a forbidden act, until one day their secret is discovered and both are punished, one physically and the other emotionally.

Despite their friendship, Hetty knows she is still a slave in everyone else's eyes and is more influenced by her mother, who, unbeknownst to her, has extracted a promise from young Sarah that she will one day free Hetty.  Mauma is also secretly saving money to buy Hetty's and her freedom eventually.  Despite the cruel punishments she receives for some of her acts of defiance, Mauma becomes even more determined to become a free woman.

"We might stay here the rest of our lives with the sky slammed shut, but Mauma had found the part of herself that refused to bow and scrape, and once you find that, you got trouble breathing on your neck."

As Hetty grows up, she performs her own secret acts of defiance, and her childhood friendship with Sarah becomes strained.  Sarah, meanwhile, is facing her own problems and disappointments.  Her only joy in life is her younger sister Angelina, whose care Sarah takes on as her personal responsibility. Angelina is pretty and much more outgoing than Sarah.  She shares Sarah's beliefs on slavery and grows up to become more outspoken and brave in her abolitionist views, eventually pushing Sarah to find her voice and her purpose in life.

The Invention of Wings traces the lives of the two protagonists over thirty-five years.  Monk alternates the voices of Hetty and Sarah, giving the reader two different perspectives of life during the era of slavery.  While Charleston, South Carolina remains firmly entrenched in its traditions, Sarah and Hetty are more critical of those traditions, and through the changes and disappointments they experience, they both eventually find their "wings."

The novel is fiction, but is based on the lives of two actual sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke of Charleston,  as Kidd explains in the Afterword.   By the late 1830's "they were arguably the most famous, as well as the most infamous, women in America, yet they seemed only marginally known [today]."  The Grimke sisters were the first female abolition agents and among the earliest American feminists, influencing such better-known feminists as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.

It has been eight years since Sue Monk Kidd has written a novel, despite the success of her two previous works of fiction, The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair, two of my personal favorites.  Time certainly hasn't diminished her skills--her eloquent prose and memorable characters are just as strong in this inspiring book.  The book was all the more fascinating to me because of the basis in historical fact.  Why, I wondered, have so few people heard of these courageous sisters? Whatever the reason, after reading The Invention of Wings, no one will forget the remarkable Grimke sisters nor the fictional Hetty and their powerful story.


Disclaimer: No compensation of any kind was received for this review, and I checked out The Invention of Wings from my local libary . . . after a long waiting list. As always, I review only books I enjoy and think others would enjoy reading too. 

Also, the photos here have nothing to do with the novel, other than the fact that one of Hetty's family members becomes quite an accomplished gardener.  Really, it was just a chance for me to show off some of what has been blooming in my garden the past week. Top to bottom: 'Walker's Low' Nepeta, 'Nelly Moser' Clematis, unnamed peony, and 'Immortality' iris.

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Book Review and a Few New Blooms

The first of June always means the beginning of summer to me, no matter what the calendar may say.  School is out, and the pace of life seems to slow down.  Whether you are planning a relaxing getaway soon or, like me, planning to relax on the couch during the hot afternoons after a morning of gardening, you may be looking for a good book to while away those hours.  If so, I have the perfect fun read for lazy summer afternoons--The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat.

Best friends since high school, Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean were first dubbed "The Supremes" by Little Earl of the All-You-Can-Eat in Plainview, Indiana.  Now, nearly forty years later, they still gather at the diner every Sunday after church with their husbands to share good food, family news, and, of course, the latest gossip.

Not to distract you too much, but I have to show off a little of what is blooming now in my garden.  First, my big box store bargain peony is covered with huge blooms for the first time ever.

Feisty Odette is happily married but doesn't confide in her husband about some strange encounters she has had recently.  Clarice, not so happily married, is a gifted pianist who gave up a promising career to marry her high school sweetheart, the star football player, now a philandering husband.  Barbara Jean, who has overcome a troubled childhood, still turns heads with her beauty.  But a tragic loss many years before has left a hole in her heart that not even her best friends can mend.

The iris have done so well this year--this, a true-blue passalong from my mother.

The story weaves easily from present to past as events and characters from the past help to explain the forces that shaped their lives and the bond these women share.  Although a somewhat surprising revelation is made near the end of the book, this is a novel driven by its characters rather than by plot.  And what memorable characters they are!

'Nelly Moser' clematis

The three protagonists are admirable and compelling, but this book has a whole town full of entertaining and often quirky characters.  My favorite has to be Odette's mother whose habit of smoking pot (as preventative medicine for glaucoma, she says) embarrasses her family.  "Mama" is frequently visited by people who have passed on and isn't afraid to give her opinion on any subject.  Early in the book she gives this advice to Odette on dealing with hot flashes:

"You might want to get that checked out.  You don't wanna change too much.  Your Aunt Marjorie started changin' and kept it up till she changed into a man . . . Okay, maybe she didn't switch all the way over to a man, but Marjorie grew a mustache, shaved her head, and took to wearin' overalls to church.  I'm not sayin' the look didn't suit her; I'm just sayin' you can draw a straight line between her first hot flash and that bar fight she died in."

Allium 'Roseum'

Obviously, Mama contributes some comic relief in the book.

'Zephirine Drouhin,'  a climbing rose, is smothered in blooms in only her third year.

If you didn't look at the book jacket first, you might be surprised that the author is male, because the voices of women ring true throughout the novel. Edward Kelsey Moore says that his debut novel was inspired by conversations he overheard among the women in his family. "My intention in writing this novel was to celebrate the joy of true friendship and to invite readers to remember the smart, funny, and strong women in their lives."

Moore definitely succeeds--you may find yourself laughing or crying as you read, but most of all, you will wish you, too, could join Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean for a Sunday afternoon at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat.

And finally, with all the rain we've had this spring, I also have plenty of these "blooms"!

Disclaimer:  No compensation of any kind was received for this review.  I review only books I like and think others would enjoy reading; I either check the book out of the library, or, as in this case, purchase my own copy.

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@Barrie Summy