Once Again, Right On Schedule!

Mrs. G.W. Leak – May 1, 2022

Mrs. G.W. Leak is holding forth in all her glory in our garden.  She’s grown so tall over the years that she now lords it over all the others, but they don’t seem to mind a bit.  Some ladies just seem to command everyone else’s respect.  In our garden, it’s definitely Mrs. G. W. Leak!

But everyone — from the most robust to the most delicate — are joining the “look at me” chorus.  Even Nyel’s lilacs are out — not quite in full bloom and not quite in full fragrance.  But soon!  I can’t wait to fill the house with their heady perfume.

Nyel’s Lilacs

The Jean Maries (properly called “Jean Marie de Montague Rhododendrons) are budding out, little by little — letting us know that they’ll be in full bloom by May 12th — my father’s birthday!  Hard to believe he’d be 112 this year and has been gone since he was 82!  Of all the reminders he left behind, I think it is the Jean Maries that tug at my heartstrings the most.  He loved the color and was always inordinately pleased when they came out “on time” which makes me think that his birthday blooming each year was more  a happy accident than specifically planned when he and Paul Clark planted them all those years ago.

Jean Marie’s First Blossoms – May 1, 2022

Dad’s other favorites were the York Roses — perhaps actually called the “York and Lancaster Rose,” named for their red and white stripes symbolizing the Lancasters and Tudors, respectively, in England’s War of the Roses, 1455-1487.  They are now confined to six big tubs whereas they once marched down a center bed in the garden, dividing Willard’s Croquet Court from Dad’s traditional lawn-surrounded-by-flower-beds.  The York Roses seem to like the tubs, though.  Already there is a bud on one of the bushes — about two months early by my reckoning!  I wonder what that signifies… if anything.

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