The Daffodil Project

Have you heard about The Daffodil Project? I hadn't until recently when I saw some pictures online about this amazing citywide initiative in New York City.  Founded in 2001 after September 11, the Daffodil Project was started by 3 people-- a NYC commissioner, a garden designer and NY4Parks member,  and a Dutch bulb company executive-- who wanted to do something to help the city regain some hope and beauty. More than 250,000 bulbs were planted that first fall of 2001 in remembrance of the victims of September 11, and now there are more than 5 million daffodils blooming in the school yards, street corners, sidewalk gardens, and community gardens of New York City. Every fall school children, garden clubs, civic groups, and willing individuals turn out to plant the free bulbs in their city, with more than 40,000 volunteers so far.

I love that people turn to the simple daffodil as a symbol of spring,  and of hope and renewal.

April Chores, by Jane Kenyon

April Chores, by Jane Kenyon

When I take the chilly tools

from the shed's darkness, I come

out to a world made new

by heat and light.

The snake basks and dozes

on a large flat stone.

It reared and scolded me

for raking too close to its hole.

Like a mad red brain

the involute rhubarb leaf

thinks its way up

through loam.

Time for Some Pink

A beautiful spring weekend, starting with a wedding downtown on Saturday for the daughter of our good friends Mark and Mary. It was a perfect day for a cherry blossom themed DC wedding, and we had a great time!

Just married

Then yesterday we worked outside all day, checking lots of things off my to do list. I finally cleaned out and shellac-ed all my gourd birdhouses and hung them in the trees, and by late afternoon the birds were already checking them out, flying from one to another. They really love those gourd birdhouses, and they are always in use. I think they've been waiting for me!  It's really feeling like spring now, so much color outside, flowers blooming,  and trees leafing out.  I especially love those fat green buds of the hostas and the delicate fronds of ferns unfurling through the soil. The trees are all in flower now--my cherry tree is so lush and delicious right now, I just want to bury my face in it.  The dogwoods, serviceberry, redbuds, and my viburnum carelesii are all in bloom. I went out this morning for some pictures, and it's all about pink today.

Pink dogwood

Rebud

Viburnum carlesii

Cherry tree

Bleeding heart

Pink pulmonary

Bleeding heart, unfurling

Friday Fleurs: DC Cherry Blossoms

Last night after work I took the metro downtown to get my fix of the cherry blossoms. It was dusky when I got there, so not the best pictures, but it was still pretty heavenly. There was quite a wind picking up, so for awhile it was almost like it was snowing, with petals floating down over everyone. It was very crowded--Washington really turns out for their cherry blossoms--but everyone was happy and helpful with taking pictures.  The cherry blossoms are one of the DC's best sights--those cherry trees ringing around the Tidal Basin are really pretty amazing.

Leaf Magazine

Where have I been? I recently discovered this online gardening magazine and I can't stop reading it.  Started in 2011 by two garden designers, it reminds me a little of the old Garden Design magazine, with its gorgeous photos and over the top gardens.  There are articles about plants and gardens, garden books, garden tools and garden art,  garden projects, and tons more.  I love magazines, but I tend not to buy them much anymore. I used to get Fine Gardening and Horticulture, but I got tired of magazines piling up and so now I read Fine Gardening at the library. So this might be a good solution for me.  Check it out, you'll be hooked. And it's free!

Beach Weekend at Rehoboth

Dusk on the beach

Prudy, Eileen, and I spent the past weekend at Prudy's place in Rehoboth Beach. We had a great time, really relaxed the whole weekend. We walked the boardwalk, shopped in Reho and Lewes, went to happy hours both nights, cooked up some delicious scallops, laughed a lot,  and talked about all the things we are going to do when we retire!

Boardwalk at dusk

There were lots of signs of spring to be seen in Lewes. It's such a pretty little town, such charming houses and sweet little pocket gardens. 

Saturday was a perfect day for kites on the beach, cool and windy. Just look at that blue sky!

Prudy, Eileen, and me, with the cookbook we cooked up 5 years ago this weekend

Off to the Beach

I am off to the beach this morning with Eileen and Prudy for the weekend.  Prudy reminded us that it was five years ago this very weekend that we went to her place in Rehoboth to start writing our now famous cookbook, 3 Friends, 3 Decades, 3 Dozen Cookies!  It poured rain that weekend, and we sat inside Prudy's place all weekend (well, not all weekend) on our computers choosing and typing recipes. Looks like it's going to be chilly at Rehoboth, in the 50s, so I made us a raspberry almond coffee cake to have with our tea (or more likely, wine).

Chilly Days

Winter just doesn't seem to want to let go around here. As I write this at 8 am it is 28 degrees outside.  It sounds like it may warm up--finally--this weekend to the 60s, but we'll see. I just took a walkabout around the yard to see what is going on, and not much has changed in the last week. The cold has just kind of stopped everything in its tracks.  My cherry tree is just beginning to show a few blooms. And this tree was in full bloom last year on March 21, according to my garden journal, as was the serviceberry, plum, redbud, and viburnum carlesii. They don't look even close to blooming yet this year. Even my azaleas were in bud last year by this time. I think last year was unusual, though,  as that seems to have been the earliest yet. Even the cherry trees downtown around the Tidal Basin are late this year. They were predicting peak bloom for this week, but now they are saying Sunday through next week. Here is a link to the cherry blossom webcam if you are interested.  Last year we went to see the cherry blossoms on March 19!

I keep making lists of everything I need to do outside, and it will be nice to finally get started on some of those chores. I really need to spray my peonies with fungicide, as you are supposed to spray when they are first about 6 inches. But it seems so cold to spray!  They really seemed to look  better last year after I had sprayed them a few times.  They had much less black spot and mildewy leaves by the mid-summer. Maybe next week it will warm up and I can get started on some of those chores. We have been smelling skunk the past few nights, so I know spring is on its way. We have an unfortunate history with skunks, but so far no sign of them digging under our deck...fingers crossed.

Cherry tree

Iris pallida

Peonies

Forsythia

Bleeding Heart

Proclamation of a Birth, by Linda Pastan

The National Gallery of Art

Proclamation of a Birth, by Linda Pastan

Let every tree 

burst into blossom

whatever the season.

Let the snow melt

mild as milk

and the new rain wash

the gutters clean

of last year's 

prophecies.

Let the guns sweep out 

their chambers

and the criminals doze

dreaming themselves

back to infancy.

Let the sailors throw

their crisp white caps

as high as they can

which like so many doves

will return to the ark

with lilacs.

Let the frogs turn

into princes,

the princes to frogs.

Let the madrigals,

let the musical croakings

begin.

Dürer Comes to DC

I have had a thing for the German artist Albrecht Dürer ever since I took a German history class in college and for some reason, became enamored with him. It was one of the first classes that I remember being really passionate about. I wrote a paper about Dürer for that class that my history professor loved and he actually had it published in some obscure history journal. So when a new exhibit of Dürer's works from the Albertina in Vienna came to the National Gallery (it opened last weekend), I was pretty excited to see it. So on Sunday morning Walt and I went downtown to the National Gallery and first listened to a lecture about Dürer by one of the museum's curators of prints and drawings,  and then took a leisurely walk around the exhibit.  Dürer was  best known for his woodcuts and engravings, as well as his watercolors and realistic drawings of animals, birds, flowers, and grasses.  His focus on nature and his observation of the world around him is what really draws me to his work.

I couldn't take pictures inside the exhibit, so I have copied images of some of his most famous works. I have always loved this watercolor of cowslips (primroses).

Tuft of Cowslip, 1526

Probably his most recognizable work is Praying Hands, a drawing done in pen and ink, with a technique called chiaroscuro.

Praying Hands, pen and ink, 1509

Another of Dürer's masterpieces is Great Piece of Turf, below. This is one of his most famous watercolors, and the picture of wildflowers, grasses, and weeds is "filled with light and space, creating a scene balanced between scientific observation and artistic poetry." Painted in 1503, it is considered the earliest realistic depiction of plant life. I learned from the exhibit that Dürer was one of the earliest painters of flowers and botanica, and influenced the botanical artists of the seventeenth century. No wonder I like him so much!

Great Piece of Turf, 1503

Hare, 1502

I was so excited to see and think about Dürer again that, when I got home,  I went down to my basement and look what I found in an old box of college stuff.  Believe me, I didn't keep all my papers from college, but I did keep this one because it meant a lot to me. Who knew I would reconnect with Albrecht Dürer, 40 years later!!