a day spent gardening...

I spent the day at my parents home on the ocean in midcoast gardent. The sun was bright, there was a lovely sea breeze off the harbor. It was a perfect day.

I created two new beds…one “normal” and one that was mostly exposing granite ledge for what will be a new rock garden. The sod went to build up a hollow in a newly created “romantic spot” we built for my parents.

There is this lovely tree in the meadow next to the house and we were able to cut a path around the tree to the front, and create this wonderful spot…wild roses on both sides, spruce tree behind, dear slope of grass down to a gentle granite ledge that one can wade out on when the tide is in. We are putting a pair of Adirondack chairs before the tree…it will be a very cozy place to sit with a cool drink and hold hand *g*…My parents are celebrating their 40th anversary this week (but are overseas at the moment) and we have done all this as a surprise. It has been such fun.

To bring this all back to books…as all things should…I offer the following a engaging reads:

The 3000 Mile Garden: An Exchange of Letters on Gardening, Food and the Good Life (Leslie Land and Roger Phillips). Four years of letter exchanged by to passionate gardeners…one in rural Maine, the other in London. It is really quite fun and a fount of good advice and ideas.

Onward and Upward in the Garden (Katharine S. White). An editor of The New Yorker for 34 years (and began with them in year one), she was a gifted and prolific writer. Her husband, E.B. White states in the introduction, “She simply accepted the act of gardening as the natural thing to be occupied with in one’s spare time, no matter where one was or how deeply involved in other affairs.” It is a great read.

Thinking of E.B. White reminds me of one of my favorite quotations and I will sign off with it: “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”