Hot

The hottest day of the year.  It was already 95 at lunchtime with a high of 103.  I went outside to see what was happening.

It was hot.  Really hot. The neighborhood was desserted.  The air conditioners whirred near the houses.  The chicadas screamed loudly in the shrubbery and occasionally there was a chirp from a cardinal. Even the mosquitos were lethargic.

The tiger swallowtail butterflies that had been nectaring on the Abelia chinensis were gone, but there was one small brown butterfly taking some nourishment.

  
I put fresh water in the birdbaths and turned on the dripper over the summersweet Clethra.

I walked to the side of the house where a pipevine swallowtail butterfly was laying her eggs on the Aristolochia, her wings beating wildly.

Small dark caterpillars were munching on the leaves.  Soon there will be many more swallowtail butterflies.

The passionvine was enjoying the heat, splaying its wide purple flowers for fat fuzzy bees.

Squirrels hung out on the driveway, sifting through a pile of black oil sunflower seeds.

Startled, the squirrel ran away to join the clan hanging out near the fence. 

The sunflower seeds failed to entice the chipmunks from their favorite spot in a pile of stones on the side of the driveway.  Maybe it was cooler there. 

Overhead some clouds were kicking up and a breeze started a soft rustling in the trees.  Maybe the weather is changing.

Piano

For 25 years, I worked in the same windowless office at Duke University.  Two years ago, I moved to a new office with a window, but I still have the same job. 

Before I came to Duke, I advanced rapidly in my career.  But after the children came, I lost my motivation to move up.  My life was full of skinned knees and business information.

Over the years, the knees healed and left home, and the information moved to other offices.

Last night I dreamed about a bicycle pump, a sign that it is time for me to power myself into a new role.   What should that be?

Years ago, a friend of a friend offered me a free piano.  Our daughters has started taking lessons with the music director at our church and we needed an instrument for practice.  

I drove to a neighborhood with oak and pine trees that towered over one story houses.  It felt awkward to walk into the living room to judge the merits of a family's piano. The instrument was tall and ornate with dark scrollwork backed by rough red burlap.  This piano had more character than the new uprights I had seen in Pearson Music near the mall.  With difficulty, we moved it to the house.

Now my children are grown and living in their own homes.  We still have the piano, but no one plays it any more.  The instrument has been sitting in the same spot for 15 years, but the piano tuner told us that it is not worth relocating. 

From time to time, I wondered how it would look as a planter.

Then I saw the photo below, taken by Durham gardener, Eleanor Mills, on her recent visit to Daniel Stowe Garden near Charlotte.

I recognized it immediately in its new career as a planter, set outdoors.  Very nice work.  This piano has nicks and scratches from the long pull, yet seems warm and wise, comfortable in its new role.

Tree regret

I have long regretted planting the crape myrtles. 

When I first moved to North Carolina from the midwest, I was attracted by the trees, their graceful form and their color in bloom, bright white or hot pink or soft purple. They bloomed generously during the hottest and driest weeks of summer and even the neglected trees at shopping centers and in parking lots were covered with colorful clusters of flowers.

As a new gardener, I asked a man named Ross from a local garden shop to come to my home and recommend trees to plant.  He looked around the yard and turned his head to evaluate the oak trees.  Right then, I should have judged that there was not enough sun to grow crape myrtles.  But I was happy to hear Ross recommend the crapes, so I got out the shovel and didn't think anything else about it.

I wish Ross had recommended native trees that would tolerate the shade from the oaks.  Redbuds would be fully mature by now with dark twisted trunks and billows of magenta blooms in April.  Understory natives like Carolina silverbell or fringe tree or serviceberry would feed the birds.

But that's not what was sold in Ross's shop.  It was a maple and dogwood and crape myrtle sort of nursery and I was too inexperienced to know the difference.

In the Southeast, July is hot and humid with no rain for weeks.  The garden is dry and parched.  The crape myrtles stand tall and gangly, their misshapen branches mingling with the oaks overhead.  Yet if you look up, you are surprised by a wave of brave blossoms in spite of the shade and heat and drought.

I put my regrets on hold until the following spring.  

Woodbine

There's a shadow the color of dried blood under the maple tree.

Not much will grow in that dim and dry place, only deep green foliaged plants like woodbine and hellebores. Even the Japanese painted ferns died in their second year.

I walk through this space on my way to the spigot for the hose. I step carefully, not knowing what lies under those wide palmate leaves. Occasionally, I stamp my feet to warn any snakes hiding among the deep green of the foliage.

The woodbine planted itself under the maple tree years ago and grew slowly in that inhospitable space. Year after year, it increased in width and depth until it covered the dark shadow completely.

One autumn day, I gave the vine a full inch of leaf mold as a vitamin treatment. The following spring, the woodbine rewarded me by dying in places.

After that, I learned to leave the woodbine alone.

In the side yard, the woodbine grows under the dogwood tree, bubbling near the driveway, where it enjoys an occasional drink from the hose. It climbs the oak tree nearby, attaching itself firmly to the trunk with sticky brown holdfasts.

In the backyard, the it forms a green ribbon in front of the stones where the turtlehead and the bloodroot is planted. Under the sourwood and the buckeye trees, it forms a thick carpet in the acid soil that was created for blueberry bushes that didn't work out.

Woodbine grows lush and green throughout the garden, a beautiful plant that would be loved and cherished by gardeners if only it were not so enthusiastic.