Gardening – Page 6 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Basil, Cilantro, Cooking, Dill, French Tarragon, Gardening, Gardens, Garlic, Garlic Scapes, Herb Gardens, Parsley

Herbs …. Ho Hum

July 6, 2014July 6, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

My blog has received its first complaint.

Seems I’ve produced fine stories about fine people and fine flowers.

My crime is that I’ve completely ignored the fine herbs and vegetables growing in my husband’s gardens.

Like the fragrant apple mint, which we use to flavour drinking water and in delicious mint jelly too. We also chop it up and mix with fresh blueberries and sliced mangoes, for dessert.

But I digress.

Husband is complaining. Reminding me that: “You can’t eat flowers. At least, not most of them!”

And along comes Vito, for reinforcement.

Yes, the vintner-gardener-historian of our neighborhood who turns up repeatedly in A Good Home, turned up at our garden gate this morning. That same Vito who believes only vegetables and herbs — and wine grapes — have a right to exist in a garden.

As if my husband needed any reinforcement….

But I digress.

Since one does not wish to upset the finest cook ( some may say the only cook) in this household, I’ve decided to make amends.

We’ll come back to the vegetables one day soon. For now, I hope you enjoy these photos of the herbs which my husband tends more faithfully than the flowers in our garden.

I cannot say they are the most interesting photos I ever saw. Take this parsley.

And this French Tarragon. For a plain-looking herb — exemplifies uber-exuberance. N’est-ce pas?

Not that I’m complaining. Herbs taste very good in the dishes my husband makes. Basil, for example, goes well with tomato dishes.

Some herbs grew from last year’s seeds. We got lots of re-seeded dill, which goes well with fish, especially salmon. Cilantro, below, is great in salads. And goes well with avocado, shrimp dishes, etc.

But I digress.

My issue: Herbs tend to have small flowers, and most of them are white. Why aren’t some red or blue or yellow? This onion flower would look great in red.

Not that I’m complaining.

Chives, above, go well with omelettes and scrambled eggs.

And did you know you can eat garlic scapes? Great in a vegetable stir-fry.

And did I say that garlic is easy to grow? If you let the scapes go to seed, then drop the seeds in a small part of your garden, and lightly cover with soil, you’ll have garlic next year.

Not that I know anything about such stuff, of course.

I’m a flower garden person.

Photos by Hamlin Grange

A Good Home, Blue Clematis, Blue Flowers, Blue Garden, Blue Salvia, Flowers, Gardening, Gardens, Homes, July Garden, Summer Garden

I’ve Got The Blues

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

If you’d asked me if I had many blue flowers in my summer garden, I would have said ‘no’. But turns out I would have been wrong. As borne out by this blue Clematis, above. The blue-lavender Clematis on the right, below. And the blue Salvia on the left. Morning Glories get in on the act, and this one is lovely. Blue Salvia will soon get crowded out by Margaritas… But right now it’s holding its own. Blue and yellow make a refreshing mix in the garden. And — honestly — this Clematis below is a blue-lavender. But compared to the sky, it’s positively pink.

Except for this other blue Clematis, which has somehow risen above the pink one and is holding court. While, just below them both, this flower – whose name I’ve never learned – blooms all summer. Do you know what it is? Almost a Forget-Me-Not, but I don’t know what it is or where it came from.

It’s a far more vivid blue than the photo shows.

Here’s to the blues!

A Good Home, Canada, Canadians, Clematis, Daisy buds, Flowers, Gardening, Gardens, Hosta, Lady's Matnle, Life in canada, Lifestyle, Rain, Red currants, Spruce tree, Sun

Rain, Shine and the Spaces Between

July 1, 2014June 3, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

The skies turn dark, more grey than black.

The air becomes perfectly still.

And then comes the rain, in sheets and showers.

Pouring down on dry grass, garden beds…

… and our verandah roof.

The water streams down in front of and beside the verandah.

I sit on a chair, enjoying this moment from a safe perch of my own.

“I should grab my camera”, I tell myself. But I sit still, unwilling to interrupt the moment.

Overhead, small branches of pale-green maple leaves sway in the air.

Red weigela flowers move amid green leaves, showered by water, ruffled by wind.

Below them both, large hosta leaves are weighed down with raindrops.

Dip, dip. Fall back.

Unless you’re laden with red currants… in which case: Dip, dip. Fall forward.

The tall blue spruce tree stands majestic, appearing unmoved by the wind and showers.

But there’s light movement in its outermost branches. The tree has taken on a soft look, its face gentled by the rain.

All birds have taken cover, tucking themselves into dry spaces between thick branches.

One small bird sees opportunity. It darts into the rain, tail feathers wet and glistening, and aims straight for its target. It stays there, pecking, content to be alone with what it usually has to compete for: a space at the feeder.

From the verandah’s eaves trough, powerful streams torrent into the garden bed below. The Annabelle hydrangea is taking a beating, it seems. Branches, gracefully upright a few minutes ago, part with the wisdom of growing things faced with the unstoppable power of water.

It’s merely minutes later now.

The water from the eaves trough narrows. Long thin streams of vertical water form a transparent drape in the space between verandah posts.

Five streams falling steadily on the earth. Then four. Then, three. Then two, then one.

A trickle, now.

Then a quiet drip.

The rush of water, the soft thud of raindrops, the splash on leaves and flowers — all come to a stop. As if a mighty switch was turned on, then off, the rain has come and gone.

Flowers glisten.

Birds chirp and fly towards a single spot: the feeder.

And I think, as I watch them:

How smart that first bird was.

The one that went before, wet tail-feathers and all.

And how remarkable water is.

Liquid, fluid, transparent. Forceful and life giving.

And as I sit on my verandah, giving thanks for it all – the rain, the trees and shrubs and flowers, and the birds and a place in which to sit, protected — the sun comes out.

As quickly as the rain began, except there was no warning this time. Almost no space between.

Rain and Sun. Doing their part to keep us alive.

We depend on them so much, that ironically we take them for granted.

We give them names that begin with lower case letters.

But Rain and Sun are Capital Gifts. Sacred Gifts.

A Good Home, Decorating skills, Domestic Divas, Flower Arranging, Flowers, Gardening, Gardens, Interior Design

Inferior Design — A Natural Talent

June 28, 2014June 28, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

If I call to invite close relatives to supper, their reply goes like this:

“Oh! How nice…”

A long pause follows.

Then:

“Er… Who’s cooking?”

So — naturally — I reply: “You have nothing to fear. Husband is cooking.”

Joyful sounds erupt from the telephone.

Me, take offense? No way.

I’m the untalented one in a family of creatively gifted domestic divas and I know it.

My mother, sisters, cousins and daughters — all are fabulous cooks and bakers.

All were born knowing how to arrange a room artfully.

Clothes and hair? Fabulously stylish. Floral arrangements? To sigh for.

And then there’s me. I have to work really, really hard at all these things – with surprisingly strange results.

An expert at inferior design, is what I am.

My greatest talent was in designing and planting our gardens. Really nice gardens — if you like the lush, exuberant kind. There, I seem to know instinctively what flowers and colours go together.

But, these days, I mostly pick the flowers, not plant them.

So — naturally — I recently decided to try floral arranging.

You may remember that I once ruined a very simple Christmas arrangement.

But hope springs eternal.

So — naturally — I decided to channel my inner Christiane, and Karen B. – two wonderfully creative, flower-loving women. I love their blogs.

I stuck some flowers in a vase. Peonies and Solomon’s seal.