Two weeks..

It is already two weeks into May--and two weeks since my final Poetry Month post. In the past two weeks, I have witnessed my garden springing to life--counting excitedly the perennials that saw fit to return (despite the name, perennials do not ALWAYS come back in my experience) and planting (hopefully) this year's crop of geraniums and parsley and basil and lavender and mint and thyme. (There's one spot in one pot where lavender stubbornly refuses to take hold, no matter how many times I plant it..)

I've wandered the mulched aisles of nurseries and garden centers and found (and alas, purchased) a variegated ginger plant that I've coveted since I saw a pair, exploding from urns flanking the door of the Craft Shop in Williamsburg. Forget the facts that, first, according to the proprietor, it cannot tolerate afternoon sun, and second, that I don't have a pot large enough to contain it and give it room to grow. I love it and may be moving it around the patio all summer in its yet-to-be-purchased pot. Perhaps a pot on roller-skates. It IS a big plant. But beautiful.

I have also had my beloved fountain dismantled, cleaned and repaired. The first time I started it this year, it immediately exhibited a previously undetected leak. I might as well have poured the water directly from the filling jug onto the brick pavement. Although it took the guy three times the time he'd promised me, we are now back to full-burble. The birds are happy, as am I.

Against my brick wall facing the street, all my large pots are sporting new growth. Last fall's pansies have resurrected, and, even though they are looking a little leggy and will soon need to be replaced, color is color. And my pinks are aggressively pink this year, and threaten to obliterate the centrally-placed junipers in their pots. Never saying die, I also replanted my wall-hung Wooly Pockets from last year. Last year's inaugural plantings withered and died in the blistering afternoon sun, and were replaced with fake plants. This year, I planted trailing sedums, with a few petunias for color. If the sedums don't survive, next year I may have to plant cacti...it's that hot on that wall.

Emerging from the garden, I traveled with JC to his old hometown: Rogersville, Tennessee--to visit relatives and touch base with some old friends of his from high school. We then continued on to Asheville, NC, and the Grove Park Inn and the Biltmore Estate, to play tourist for a while.

And now, we are back. Not to normal (never that!) but back to the Folger and the new tour format, back to doctor's appointments and dinner parties (JC's first last night, for some generous guinea-pig neighbors, with him doing all the cooking!) and maybe, if the weather can finally make up its mind, storing winter clothing and unearthing summer from our closets. Before you know it, we will be traveling again to Shepherdstown and Chautauqua...but those are grist for a future mill.

It is good to be back.