Practicing patience

This painful second quarter of the allegedly part-time Master's program I'm in takes up every minute of my time. I have scarcely seen the garden since Bloom Day, and I only saw it then because it was Bloom Day. What's more depressing is that next year will be like this too, because it's a 2-year program. I hope when it's all done I'll find a career for myself that will help pay for years and years of future gardening.

Here are some Hipstamatic shots whose moody aesthetics aptly reflect the dream-like state of memory in which the garden exists for me now.

This is on the deck outside our bedroom window, which is the one place I'm guaranteed to have some interaction with my otherwise avidly pursued avocation. The Anemone coronaria are like $.20 each, and they grow very reliably. I would get some if I were you.



The other deck has the Hardenbergia violacea on it, and it's also a nice, cheering site. If there are any bees around, I'm sure they're visiting it.



If I go down into the garden, it actually hasn't changed much in the last few months. There is no cover of snow of course, so the plants are there as they always are. There just isn't much happening. Nothing leafing out. Nothing about to flower for a few months. Nothing dieing back. While I do have a lot of garden elements that don't change much throughout the year--the fuchsias and abutilons bloom constantly--there is always something coming or going. Not so much right now. What's come is still here and what's gone is gone. It like that for a few months every year before the changes start to happen.

Bloom Day

Usually for January Bloom Day I just put up a few pictures of Hardenbergia violacea and call it a day. Unfortunately, I had to prune that vine a few months ago. That seems to have set its bloom back a few weeks. (Although I haven't noticed them blooming around town yet either. Hmm.)

Anyway, it looks like this currently:



There are a few flowering panicles.





I haven't spent more than one afternoon in the garden since October. I'm averaging about an hour or two a week. That's a significant deviation from the mean for me; I've practically lived back there since I started to garden 5 years ago. We're planning to move when I finish school in another year, hopefully to a bigger garden (otherwise, why move). Am I detaching from this one? No, I'm just very busy with school. It's probably a good thing. Let the garden grow without my constant meddling.

I will say I wonder if I will miss this garden when it's gone. I'll replace it with a new one but I'll always have the blog to remember it with.

Now then, Bloom Day. We have a few things, but not much.

















I know I should tell you their names, but I'm kind of tired of saying their names. Does that ever happen to you? Here is a plant with a name I never get tired of saying, The Marble Gardens Mystery Rose. So how do I visit Marble Gardens, and what else is growing there?



I'll come back tonight and add the Bloom Day link May Dreams, but you can go there now and read about Ida Bennett, (part 1, part 2)

ADDED: For more Bloom Day action, go visit May Dreams Gardens.

ADDED: I got an answer to my question about Marble Gardens! @AnniesAnnuals says, "b/c annij calls her garden "marble gardens" from all of the marbles she's found in it & the rose is a mystery http://ow.ly/3E9vw." Check out Anni J's garden at that link!