Best Gardening Month

Foxglove blooming last night

 May has to be the absolutely best gardening month of all, especially since I've moved to Virginia. I loved May on Long Island, but it could be unpredictable. It was usually cool until Mother's Day, and could still hover in the 60s until finally deciding to accept the inevitable fact that spring was here at last.

South central Virginia's temperatures in May are usually a sweet, temperate 70, followed by soaring 80s. This season we had cooler temperatures, a few hot days, and one frost that managed to kill some of my plants. I think I lost most of the sweet potatoes and some of the tomatoes. It's funny, but the cover over the sweet potato bed didn't protect them, but the Yukon gold potatoes growing right next to them are fine. I know that potato plants can tolerate some cold while sweet potatoes can't, but nothing illustrated this for me quite as dramatically as the state of my potato bed in the vegetable garden this week.

This week was the perfect time to host a gathering, and last night I had the honor of hosting the Heart of Virginia Master Gardeners meeting at our home.  I'm very tired from the prep work, to be honest; getting both the gardens and the house spic and span took a lot more elbow grease than I anticipated. But as I said to my husband last night, as we tumbled into our recliners, heavy-lidded to relax and watch the evening news, "Look on the bright side; at least we won't have any chores this weekend, and we can relax!"

The garden last night

As luck would have it, the downstairs toilet decided to break hours before the group was expected to arrive - nothing like jerry rigging the flapper valve with some twine and a prayer - and the cats were up to their usual antics. We sat on the porch while the group of 25 sat on folding chairs on the lawn. Various members were giving their reports, and Whitey, Shy Boy and Groucho decided to prance up and down the porch. We wanted to scoop them up and get them inside the house so that when our guests left, we wouldn't have to worry about them amidst dozens of cars exiting the driveway.  So our guests were entertained by a few minutes of us chasing cats like greased pigs around on our front porch while the poor committee chair tried to report on her group's progress.

The garden is probably at its loveliest now through the end of June. It always seems to be the time when I take the most pictures. The roses are blooming before the Japanese beetles devour them; early spring dianthus and pansies mingle with lavender, evening primrose, Dutch and German iris, verbena, salvia, nepeta and sage blooming throughout the garden. The only lovelier time to me is late summer, when the garden is lush and ripe, and the butterfly bushes and zinnia are blooming. Then the garden is dotted with hovering, fluttering colors as butterflies swoop to feed on the various shrubs.

Look at the roses now, before the Japanese beetles devour them! Blaze, above.

"Sonia" rose

Today I am going to spend a few minutes sitting on my new garden bench before the thunderstorms roll in this afternoon. It's time to enjoy the results of our springtime labors before summer's heat drives us back indoors to the air conditioning.

Book Review: Effortless Summer Entertaining

My friend and fellow writer, Marye Audet, has just published a new, inexpensive, and totally wonderful entertaining book on Kindle. Effortless Summer Entertaining incorporates recipes with tips, ideas and suggestions for creating themed summer events. From hosting a great barbecue to an ice cream social, Marye's recipe can be followed by the rest of us, or by people like me who fumble their way through my recipes and keep their fingers crossed everything will come out okay.

I've known Marye via the internet for several years now. She and I worked together at a digital publisher, sometimes with Marye as my editor, and sometimes I was Marye's editor. I have a deep and abiding respect for her as a writer and a chef. Her recipes are creative, innovative and yes - scrumptious.  Although she is knowledgeable about natural health and diet, and writes extensively about these topics, she's not amiss to sharing recipes for chocolate-bourbon-cheesecake and other delicacies.

And the Rollo cookies recipe from her first book, the cookie cookbook.Oh. My. I made these for Christmas two years ago and the look on my guests' faces when they bit into the peanut buttery outside shell of the cookie to encounter the chocolate and caramel bliss inside. I had to make two batches just to keep them stocked for Christmas!

Marye's cooking blog and website, Restless Chipotle, is also worth checking out.

Effortless Summer Entertaining includes thematic ideas and recipes.  Whether you want to host a few friends over on a hot summer afternoon or throw a big barbecue bash for a family graduation, this book will help you channel domestic goddess on a servant's budget.

Effortless Summer Entertaining is available as a Kindle book for $2.99 via Amazon.  Buy it here.

Note: I downloaded a free copy of the book on its launch date. I'm friends with Marye, and asked her permission to share the cover image. She did not pay me to write this and honors my need and request to write a truthful review.  Truthfully? Loved this book and will refer to it often this summer.

The Iris that Inspired a Garden

Iris "Immortality," a gift from Patty

Thought I'd share with you my latest writing, an article called "The Iris that Inspired a Garden."  Partially a photographic walk through my iris collection and partially a gentle how-to-grow iris story, it includes lots of pictures of this year's iris collection.

Blooming right now is iris "Immortality," a gift from my friend Patty; my father in law's grape soda pop scented purple and white iris; a purple iris from a Pat, a fellow Master Gardener's garden; and light purple and yellow iris from my friend Joan's garden. There are also two iris I purchased, the burgundy colored one and Cherub's Smile, but iris are very perennial flowers begging to be shared. Digging up an iris rhizome and passing it along to a friend is as natural around here as taking over a batch of cookies or a loaf of bread when you bake. It's just something you do as a gardener.

I've begged a root from my friend Cynthia's garden of a new iris that looked from her pictures like shimmering crimson silk, all rainbow swirls and colors.  Since iris are named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow, somehow adding a rainbow colored iris to my garden seems appropriate.

Please feel free to like, share, or Pin the link to  my article.

The Iris That Inspired a Garden

My in-laws iris that smells like grape pop.

Iris "Cherub's Smile"