Merry Solstice Eve!
“Like Beltane, the Summer Solstice is said to be one of the times of year when the fairy court changes residence. Anyone who has ever seen fireflies flitting around on Midsummer might believe this is true, and certainly Shakespeare thought there was enough connection between the fey and Midsummer to write an entire play about it.” – Thea Sabin
Hebe and Salvia starting to dominate the show in the rock garden border, with Erigeron’s, Happlopapus and so many other composites filling in between the Thyme.
I write to say Happy Solstice to all, a day early yes, but tomorrow is also make music day, so between playing my guitar and going to watch the hundreds of street musicians that will crowd Salem, Oregon’s downtown tomorrow I’ll be busy celebrating the longest day. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere (45th parallel to be exact) we celebrate the peak of the sunshine, the time to walk around the garden at 9:30 at night and catch the perfect light on so many flowers that peak this time of year is near perfection for me. As a kid those long nights were the start of summer, when school was out and I would meet my friends down by the creek to go crawdadding or build forts in the surely haunted “black cat swamp” with it’s huge and rank skunk cabbage leaves, muddy creek bottom and blackberry thickets where no adult would dare to go looking for us. Those were golden times, the long days meant we could stay out late and the walk home through the cow pastures and up into the Doug fir forest where home was well beyond civil twilight was always an adventure with a racoon spotting or a skunk making us run for our lives with old Skipper the golden lab in tow hoping he wouldn’t get sprayed.
I always get nostalgic around these celestial events, and I feel lately these passings of moon phases and sun movement epochs have a deeper meaning then they ever did before. I guess it’s the getting older that makes one register these events on a more heartfelt level. As we go into summer, and I get ready to head off on some plant hunting expeditions, I thought I would share a bit of fun stuff blooming or growing around the nursery. Click on the gallery to see and read about them all.
Just a reminder that even though the catalog offerings are down for the season we have some great deals in the online shop for plant collection boxes, that are loaded with some awesome alpine/rock garden and crevice plants if you are still planting this time of year we will ship them out to you priority so you will have your plants in no time at all.
It was very nice to have some heavy rain showers move through this weekend, giving some badly needed soil moisture and freshening up all aspects of the garden, even, unfortunately the weeds.
Cheers to all on the longest day of the year up here in the North! Remember after tomorrow, Winter is coming.
Mark