As I write this GG is up in a tree in the backyard. I'm not looking. But the door is open so I can hear her scream if she needs help.
We lost many plants over this past year. Miss Kim, our sweet little lilac: RIP. Drought 2011.
A Carolina jasmine growing on the chain link fence since 2002: executed by a weed wacker yielded by next door neighbor. Severed at the root.
A ga-huge Japanese pussywillow rooted and grown by GG and planted in the back yard 2006: Dead. Drought?
A crepe myrtle, here when I came. Faithful bloomer, needing no care. Split at root base. Dead as a doornail.
Commonly thought to be indestructible here in Virgina. Not in this yard. We're breaking records here.
The last of the woodland azaleas, a pinxter azalea . I once had two, now I have none. It was too dry and sunny here, but they struggled to live for 12 years. They will be missed.
There are other holes in the beds where campanula and anemones bloomed. They bloom no more.
But every time we cut down a vine or take down the limbs of a tree, new vistas open up and the garden is rethought.
Well except for the crepe myrtle.....that I'm going to miss. And it won't be quick to come down I fear.
But the rest, to my surprise, I'm delighted. Glass half full..
The garden now has room to grow.
And judging from these few pictures I took this afternoon, a little breathing room would not go amiss.
xo Jane
