Leslie Cox
Special to The Record
Wow! Spring is wrapping up already. Three months almost gone. Kaput.
Seems like those months have passed in the blink of an eye but what I look at out the window into the back garden tells me the garden has indeed kept pace with time.
My view at the time of the spring equinox was an expanse of dark soil, liberally dotted with tiny mounds of emerging herbaceous perennials. Twelve weeks later on the advent of the summer solstice, I cannot see much soil, hardly any of the meandering paths, and I have definitely lost my husband in all the lush growth. These days, I have resorted to sending Sadie into the “wild”, and following her, when I need to find John.
Sad as I am to see the passing of spring already, I am thankful for the advent of summer. So many gorgeous blooms, they are attracting an incredible number of bee and butterfly species. Truthfully, I am still seeing mostly bumblebees in our garden and very few honey-bees, although more honey-bees are appearing now the Eryngium alpinum (sea holly) and a few of their other favourite plants are in full flower in our garden.
Early ripening fruits are also bringing in more birds than usual, and we typically have a lot of birds flitting about our garden. Just identified a female evening grosbeak the other day and got a close up look at a pair of cedar waxwings, no more than four feet away. Both bird species were after the berries on the Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Princess Diana’, (serviceberry), and quite oblivious to us.
I was tempted to contest the birds’ rights to our berries as I had a new cobbler recipe to trial. But John successfully argued in the birds’ favour to which I scratched my plan for cobbler dessert.
Instead, I sent John into the sour cherry trees on a harvest mission of his own. Sour cherries may not be everyone’s taste sensation but, boy, are they ever delicious combined with rhubarb in a pie.
And so harvest season is getting underway in earnest with the advent of summer. Will not be too long before the garlic will have to be pulled up.
Leslie Cox co-owns Growing Concern Cottage Garden in Black Creek. Her website is at www.duchessofdirt.ca and her column appears every second Thursday in The Record.