Gardening – Page 10 – Gardens For Goldens

Dahlias returned

Before I began this journey to rebuild the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, I had no experience at all with Dahlias. They were the gift of a volunteer gardener and fell into my charge. I watched them blossom through the summer into magnificent plates of color and fell in love.

I dutifully dug them up in the fall; placed them in a box of vermiculite following instructions I had read, sprinkled lightly with water and a little prayer, and then left them covered in the dark, cold garage. Every six weeks or so I would open the box and add a few more sprinkles to ensure they didn’t dry out until this weekend, when I pulled them out of darkness. To my delight and amazement, each “eye” had a tiny shoot springing forth. Today, they were returned to their spot in the garden. With any luck, the Dahlias will spring forth within a couple of weeks.

“Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower.” ~ Shigenori Kameoka

All sorts of little joys were sprouting forth in the garden this weekend; the arrival of blueberries where thorny blackberries once ruled,

Blooming Honeysuckle and Clematis

Jerusalem Artichoke and Rose Campion…

and multiplying gardeners! Randy and Vonnie were back to check in on their recently planted Butterfly Garden, to continue the attack on the driveway brush, and to take their latest adopted pup, Chelsea to training class.

One of our dog walkers recruited her mother, a seasoned gardener to join our effort. It is a great way for them to have some time together around shared passions, and we could not be more delighted. Welcome Diane!

And our newest recruit, is but a sprout herself. This is Alexandria.

Her dog goes to class on Saturdays, and while she waits, she loves to wander the garden. This week she helped me with weeding and watering while she explained photosynthesis to me at a million words a minute. A gardener is born.

“The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.” ~ Gertrude Jekyll

Finally, this sweet girl, Roxy, and her foster mom, Michele, were a surprise find and a story all their own. More on them to come soon!

Until then…happy week…from the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden!

The Meadow

“How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold?

Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root,

and in that freedom bold.”

~William Wordsworth

The language of flowers: Iris

The story of the Iris flower dates back to Ancient Greece, when Iris, the Goddess of the rainbow, acted as the messenger between heaven and earth. She traveled from one world to another, carrying messages across the arc of the rainbow. Purple irises were planted over the graves of women to summon the Goddess to guide the dead in their journey. Today, the flower named for her is considered a symbol of communication and messages.

In the language of flowers, the Iris means faith, hope, and wisdom. The purple iris is symbolic of wisdom and compliments;

blue symbolizes faith and hope;

yellow symbolizes passion;

and white iris symbolizes purity. It’s fitting that they are found in abundance in the Memorial Garden, where our passionate angel volunteers travel the state to rescue and return lost, displaced and broken dogs to a place of faith and hope.

A perfect statement for our mission – standing tall and beautiful this spring in the garden.

“Where flowers bloom so does hope.”
-Lady Bird Johnson

Down the rabbit hole

If you think plant names are challenging – try coming up with unique and memorable names for thousands of rescued dogs. Lately, we have resorted to “months” – artist month, musician month, etc. This is writer month. Which is how this sweet little girl acquired the name Beatrix Potter.

She is a breeder surrender with only one functioning kidney. That makes her imperfect in a breeder’s eyes – but certainly not in ours, or in the adoring eyes of the family that adopted her today.

It is fitting that Beatrix Potter’s namesake should be represented in the garden today. The author of the Tale of Peter Rabbit must have inspired the return of our bunnies who have tunneled two burrows under our prized blueberry bushes. You might remember that this was the former site of the dreaded blackberry bramble. As fate would have it – the bramble served as the bunnies’ previous home. They have apparently returned to take their revenge!

Beatrix Potter wrote, “There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.”

The Memorial Garden is like that. Begun with a desire to contribute to the rescue’s mission, it has taken us down the most wonderful rabbit hole of friendship and extended Homeward Bound family.

Today we met to re-work Randy and Vonnie’s butterfly bed. All but the roses were lost in last December’s deluge.

So we regrouped; raised the bed; and planted a host of perennials for attracting butterflies: Bee Balm, Milkweed, Sage, Yarrow, Coreopsis, Penstemon, Lantana, and more. The bed will be quite a showpiece in a month or so – befitting its position in the center of the garden.

Then, it was time for a doggie parade.

Dressed to impress with colorful collars and leashes donated by the generous folks at Lupine, we took photos to create an appropriate “thank you”.

Some of us were more into hamming it up and cuddles than modeling, but everyone knows that looking good is important to a dog’s self-esteem!

When you look good, you feel good…and you never know where that will lead a rescue dog. Maybe even to a forever home!

Remaking our corner

“It is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.” ~ Amelia Earhart

I asked my painter friend recently: “how do you know when it is done?” She had many answers, but the bottom line was that it rarely was. She confessed to reworking a canvas as much as a year after she put it down. The Homeward Bound Memorial Garden is like that for me – much to my fellow gardener’s chagrin. They laugh at my long list of projects and inability to leave things alone.

Sunday, we re-worked the Butterfly garden which has been conspicuously absent of Butterflies. We pulled up the large, heavy bark –

and started loading in piles of soil to raise the new transplants so they won’t sit in the winter water that floods the garden in December and January. Butterfly Bush, Monarda, Yarrow, Milkweed, Coneflower, Sage, Verbena, Lantana, and more will provide a welcome home.

While they mock me, I see them making plans of their own. With the ground work begun in the Butterfly bed, Maria had us turn attention to the herb garden. We love our pups; but not the way they relieve themselves on the herbs. So we have devised a scheme to put flowers in front and raised herbs in the rear.

Ina, meanwhile sneaks off to “contemplate” – which is almost always followed by a burst of fresh ~~perspiration~~ inspiration. This time, she has designs on the leftover stone. We’ll see what masterpiece she cooks up next.

The dogs? They just laugh. Unsure why anyone would want to work so hard when there are walks to be had –

apples to be retrieved…

and little boys to be played with.

“Gardeners are – let’s face it – control freaks. Who else would willingly spend his leisure hours wresting weeds out of the ground, blithely making life or death decisions about living beings, moving earth from here to there, changing the course of waterways? The more one thinks about it, the odder it seems; this compulsion to remake a little corner of the planet according to some plan or vision.” ~ Abby Adams, What is a Garden Anyway

Compulsion or not, this little corner of the planet seems a little better for the effort.

let it rain

After a long, dry winter, the garden bows and say ‘thank you’ for the rain.

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
~ Langston Hughes

To know the garden

“I knew in my heart that I wanted to know the garden intimately, to know all the flowers
in each season, to be there from spring through autumn, digging, pruning, planting,
feeding, rejoicing. In short, I had fallen in love.”
~ Elizabeth Murray

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The gardener as instrument

“All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.” ~ Helen Hayes

My friend Tanner is still dreaming…while I am working.

But what a wonderful feeling to weed and mow and trim as the Memorial Garden bursts forth around me.

Two different visitors confessed today that they never believed this garden would be realized.

I guess there is no telling what a few devoted gardeners can accomplish.

All of last season’s hard work is evident again.

Even those we thought were lost, like this butterfly ~~twig~~ bush is now making a comeback.

“Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.” ~ Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” ~ Margaret Atwood

Dirt, and dogs, I say. And I so happily do.

A flower for every smile

For the first time since I began volunteering at Homeward Bound, the kennels are only half full (a temporary situation, I’m sure.) Despite the reduced workload, the volunteers were out in abundance. I overheard one of them explaining to someone about what draws her here: the joy she feels when she pulls through the gates; the serenity of the country surroundings; the garden; the people – like Michele and Chip who visited with their failed foster, Murphy, to pick out a new foster pup (they have fostered more than 20);

and of course, the dogs.

These are the loved dogs of Homeward Bound…

the ones that have been with us a long while because their special needs make them hardest to place.

We have faith that someday their perfect match will come along. But until that time, we are very happy to love on them.

“If I had a flower for every time you made me smile,
I’d be walking in an endless garden.” ~ Author Unknown

The garden is smiling back at us;

every visit this time of year brings new spring delights in the waking of perennials, trees and grasses from their winter slumber. I was thrilled to find the Mexican Sage finally popping out from its wood sticks, and Campanula making its way skyward.

I am under orders not to make any significant changes until Ina and Maria return. Does editing the Hummingbird bed count as a significant change?

I don’t think so. Wanting some greater structure during the winter, I added a smoke tree bush, dwarf blue spruce, blue fescue, some boxwood and others.

What do they expect, leaving me alone in our endless garden?

The Garden as teacher

After a year of working in the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, I have – to my amazement – become a more patient gardener. I walk right past the impulse buy tables in the garden store.

Tempting as they are, I now favor these young divides –

trusting that they will grow into stronger, healthier plants that will shoot forth year after year.

This season, I will even experiment with seeds – something I never had the patience for before.

The gardeners and I have watched and learned what works and what doesn’t. Plant in mounds to avoid drowning in the winter rains…

Don’t cut back until after all frosts; it is colder in the country and our little friends need their cover…

And tulips belong in pots, well out of bunny reach!

Last year was all about planning and planting; this season is about waiting.

Including sitting out this Killdeer’s brood; 3-4 weeks incubation time after the last egg is laid. Her nest is so well-known to us that we leave it marked with a little statue for her return each year. No digging here for at least three more weeks, yet she allows us to walk within a couple of feet of her without too much fuss.

“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”~ Gertrude Jekyll

A return visit

The fertile soils (former wetlands) and Mediterranean climate of the Sacramento Valley provide an ideal environment for growing. The winters are temperate, the summers warm – cooled by Delta breezes. Old trees in established neighborhoods provide frost protection and shade from the blazing late July and August sun. Buildings create closed spaces blocking cold winds that can otherwise quickly freeze fragile plants. As a result, microclimates can be a full zone apart from an area just a few minutes away.

The Memorial Garden is in the country not far from Sacramento – surrounded by flat rice fields. It soaks up sun, but cools off quickly with nothing to block the wind. That’s a wonderful air conditioning system in the summer when breezes come off the wet fields, but it delays our spring, keeping nights and early morning temperatures ~~cool~~ cold.

So, while we wait for our full spring to burst forth at the garden (and while some of you still wait out winter) I made a return trip to the Sacramento City Cemetery, which sits not far from the river, but in the middle of town. Sheltered, and blanketed with old trees, it boasts a much milder growing environment. You might remember my last, late summer visit captured in the post From Whence They Came. I was anxious to see what it looked like in spring. It did not disappoint. Enjoy.

Signs of Spring

“The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size.” ~ Gertrude S. Wister

The signs of spring are everywhere in the Memorial Garden. For those of you still suffering winter, a few vignettes are shared here with a hope that your spring is on the way.