Clematis in February, Surfer Statue, Zoom Friends, Encouraging My Friend

 

This Clematis surprised me with its early blooms the first week of February. The flowers are about 2 inches across and have a light sweet fragrance, and this variety is Apple Blossom. They are a vine and keep their leaves. I planted it in summer of 2017 and it bloomed in February 2018, reaching the top of my six foot tall fence in those six months.

 The surfer statue across the street from my favorite coffee shop. I was at the coffee shop twice this week meeting a  different friend each time. One of them describes herself as a shut in because of her fear of covid, and she rarely leaves her house. So we had a great chat, sitting outside in the sun. It was a big step for her to venture out, and I think this encourages her to get out more. I invited her to meet our two mutual friends for lunch in a restaurant in March where there is outdoor seating and she put it on her calendar. Baby steps.

The front of the church where the coffee shop is; I like the clean architectural detail and line in my photo. This week we had our Zoom meeting, three of us have been friends for about 20 years; we met at work and are now all retired. We chat on Zoom twice a month and spend an hour catching up and meet in person quite often for lunch, next scheduled lunch is for my birthday. How is your February going?

Flowers in my garden, fun in an egg, full moon

 

I love the rose petals on the ground under my Julia Child rose. They seem to be dusting the ground like snow.

 I think I shared the above photo with you before; it shows how large the clematis flowers are.

When I cut into the hard boiled egg today and saw these hearts I laughed.

Above I am trying to catch the full moon one evening recently. The moon is so small in the photo and so big when I looked at it.

My post in which I whine related to libraries, plus Clematis vines and cat book ends

 

Above photo shows the Boston Public Library.

I don't often whine here but I got something in the mail today, the alumni newsletter from where I graduated with an M.L.S., which provoked this post. As some of you know I am a retired librarian, a career I enjoyed. A nice career for a book lover, at least in earlier years. Now it is very much involved with computers. What annoyed me in the newsletter was when I read that the university where I got my Masters Degree in Library Science has dropped the word Library from its school name. When I graduated it was School of Library and Information Sciences.

I know, don't push the river, but my alma mater's new school name is Information School. Not a whisper of Library to be found. I guess nowadays we Information Workers (formerly known as Librarians) could be working in a drafty warehouse surrounded by computers and nary a book or library user in sight. I wonder when the term librarian will disappear, replaced by something like IS Worker. Information School worker. To my mind, librarian is a noble calling and a word that evokes the joy and the power of books.

Being a librarian I researched and see that 7 well known American universities have made the school name change to Information School with the nickname of iSchool. There is now an international group of 77 universities that have made this name change to iSchool, dropping the word Library.

 

Public libraries often still value physical books, and putting those books in the hands of people. But the wave of the future has arrived in many universities. The one where I worked threw out all the books on one floor to turn the floor into study areas. I am glad that happened after I retired, I would have refused to do that, staff had to throw the books into dumpsters.

Enough of a whine on this subject. Thanks for listening, I feel a teeny bit better. To thank you for reading the above, here are some photos I took in my garden today. The first photo of my purple/red clematis shows my hand so you can see the flower size.

Above is my orange Clock Vine (Thunbergia), from India, and my purple clematis. This clematis has two petals on each flower vs. six petals on the red/purple in the other photos. I pulled out my graceful cat bookends as I am decluttering books, and put them on display on my kitchen table. Have a great week and stay well, my friends.

Photos of my birthday and some ideas

Yes, it is social isolation and my sons prepared a birthday celebration for me, which we celebrated on April 25, the actual day. They planned everything so the cooking etc. would be healthy and we would be outdoors on my backyard patio.

Above is a photo of Lane and me and below are photos of Colt and Lane.

We wore masks and maintained a distance, and stayed outside. The weather was gorgeous, 75 degrees, and it said 80 degrees on my patio. It felt rather hot sitting in the sun so my younger son got out his pop up canvas awning, size about 10 feet by 10 feet. He uses it when camping in his van in the desert. The canvas made it ideal to be outside and now I want a canvas shade for the patio, maybe one that will roll up when not needed. Below shows the canvas awning and patio as seen from the kitchen, and you see Bounce resting. The awning sets up in a few minutes and created a delightful shade.

We had shrimp on skewers, fresh salmon, marinated steak, and zucchini, onions. asparagus and mushrooms, all cooked on our grill by the superchefs, my sons.

My kitchen table is full of flowers, plants and cards. If you look closely you can see a gift of a new orchid, on the left. We agreed this is the best meal we have had since the lockdown. I said it is the best meal I have had this year. This is the first time since the crisis we have enjoyed a meal together and lots of laughter and bonding time. It seemed like normal life. Except for the masks, ha ha. And no hugging.
Here is my purple clematis.

My sons, Zoom meetings and Jesus are keeping me sane, or maintaining a semblance thereof.
It is helpful to remember the words of Jesus: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life ... Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" Matthew 6:25
And James wrote "Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise." James 5:13
Til this crisis passes and we meet again, be safe.

Spring Flowers and Book Discussion Group I Joined

Above is a close up of my Apple Blossom Clematis, an evergreen type that I planted as a 2 foot tall sprig two years ago. It has quickly grown to  6 feet tall and then over the fence, plus about 8 feet wide along the fence and has a delicate apple scent. The white flowers are the clematis, and the yellow flowers are Yellow Clock Vine. I ordered the clematis from a catalog, they are more rare than the clematis that lose their leaves, which I also have.

Above is my Red Star Magnolia, also about 2 years old. It was about seven feet tall when planted. I think red magnolias are found a little less often than white. Star Magnolias are noted to be smaller than other magnolias, and often reach only 12 to 15 feet tall so are a great size tree when you don't want it to dominate your garden, size wise. I am thinking perhaps this is NOT a star magnolia because of the flower shape. The trees I had planted by a landscaper had ID tags on them, and when I went out to write down the details, a worker had taken off the tags and thrown them out, which irked me!

Above is a handsome red camellia in bloom at my church. We have many of these growing there, maybe fifty. Maybe I will count them someday. I am having a landscaper plant 3 camellias in my back yard, in 3 half oak barrels. I don't know when yet, we have to choose a schedule. He is also going to create a 100 square foot flagstone patio in my front yard for a sitting area that faces west, a nice place to sit in the afternoon or evening, and has a view of the sunset.

Above is a bouquet of orange tulips I bought, they sing of spring to me.
Do you sometimes want to do something different, to add something to your activities?
I heard about a Book Discussion Group held in a city recreation center, all are welcome and it is for people age 45 plus. That is me! Sorry for those younger folks, maybe you could sneak in, ha ha.
I went for the first time this week and the next book we are reading is "Daughter of Fortune" by Isabelle Allende. I started reading it right away and like it thus far.
At each meeting we vote on the next book to read, and choose books available as book kits from the library, so we don't need to buy the books. Nineteen ladies and one man attended, and each person has about two minutes to say what they like or dislike about the book.
Earlier they read two books I love: "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett and "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion.
To answer two questions left in comments, we meet in a building owned by the city, not in people's homes, and no refreshments are served. Since the meeting was only for one hour, the time flew by.
Happy reading and gardening this spring to you all.

My garden flowers and gardens as autobiography

"A garden wall without a climbing rose, or a well-trained peach, is as meaningless to a gardener as a blank canvas is to an artist." Daniel Frogg, garden designer, 1955.
Or, I might add, a climbing flowering vine such as my purple clematis.

I planted this two inch tall Jackmani clematis in February 2018 and it is 5 feet tall now.

The same day I planted a periwinkle blue clematis, which remains 2 inches tall and has not had a flower yet. I have hopes for next season for it.
I have long thought that the books on our shelves and the plants we choose for our gardens have a touch of autobiography in them. For example, my gardens and stacks of books are not very neat, which expresses something about me. I prefer the creative and artistic aspects of gardening to house cleaning, which continually needs to be repeated. I have a book in my collection with a title I love, "A Gentle Plea for Chaos".
I have a statue of the Virgin Mary in my garden which I bought years ago with money I earned from my writing, a treat for me. My younger son gave me a Buddha statue so Buddha and Mary reside in my garden in peaceful harmony.

I like plants that birds, bees and butterflies like. Yes I do like all creatures great and small. Except for gophers and snails and slugs. Even garden snakes and bats are welcome in my garden.
Here is a quote to this point: "A garden that one makes oneself becomes associated with one's personal history and that of one's friends, interwoven with one's tastes, preferences and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten, but withall manifest, autobiography. Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like." From "The Gardens that I Love" by Alfred Austin, 1835-1913.

Above is my orange clock vine, a vigorous vine which quickly reached six feet tall on the fence and ten feet wide, and then spreads along the ground covering an additional five foot square area. I do love flowering shrubs and trees, including my lilac, 3 hydrangeas, 3 clematis, Strawberry tree and Red magnolia, soon to be joined by one or two camellias. I have a large old Cantua, the national flower of Chile, which my friend who moved here from Chile ordered for me. When she was a child in Chile a Cantua bloomed outside her second story bedroom.

I have small sculptures in my garden, yes, I like happy and pretty things. Smiling stylized suns hanging on the fence, including the one in the above photo, with jasmine growing up to it. Of course a bird bath and bird feeders. I could go on but don't want to bore you. Do you think your garden expresses a bit of who you are?

Apple Blossom Clematis in my garden

A year ago I planted a small two foot high Apple Blossom clematis and it is now six feet tall and climbing up my back fence and has lightly scented white flowers. Many clematis are deciduous but this type is evergreen and keeps its leaves year round. The flowers are about one inch across. I am looking for a Jackmanii clematis with five inch purple flowers, and which does lose its leaves each year.
In July 2017 I bought a deciduous clematis called Niobe with burgundy red blooms in spring and summer. It was dormant when I bought and planted it from a mail order nursery (Wayside Gardens)  so I haven't seen the blooms yet. It has a few leaves and tendrils at the moment. Below is a photo of Niobe in bloom.

Below are two more photos of my Apple Blossom Clematis, in bloom since March 1, 2018.