Fairies and Gardens

Faeries, come, take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame!
~William Butler Yeats

Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.
― J.R.R. Tolkien

We call them faerie.
We don't believe in them.
Our loss.
~Charles de Lint

Friday afternoon I was texting with the daughter, and I happened to mention that we never made it to the massive garden center in Ajax this year. Next thing I know, we’re on a road trip after the granddaughter was let out of school. LOL

Though there may have been a few regrets over the amount of money spent, we didn’t regret it enough to part with any of our plants. The granddaughter helped pick out the plants for the fairy garden, and I think we did a pretty good job. You’ll note the toadstool I made during our craft day a few weeks ago.

We also picked out some flowers for another hanging basket – fuchsias and (my favorite) sweet peas.

The only problem is, the hanging basket I bought for it is too heavy for the shepherd’s crook. *sigh* I’m either going to have to buy a smaller hanging basket, or maybe just a stand to rest this one on.

Meanwhile, I also discovered that I sort of, kind of, overbought on the plants for the fairy garden.

There is another planter on our patio like the one on the fairy garden is in. It used to have a beautiful red rose bush in it, but for some reason it didn’t come back after the winter this year. I’m pretty sure it’s gone for good, so I could commandeer that pot for a second fairy garden. The first one has four gnomes in it – I’m sure a couple of them would be quite happy to relocate to a second pot.

I also got a couple of beefsteak tomato plants for my vegetable garden, which seem really small compared to the plants from my neighbor. My tomatoes, green beans and peppers are all doing well. The spinach is starting to show and I have a hint of the carrots, but the lettuce and beets are taking their sweet time.

My peonies all bloomed this year:

They must finally be happy in their little garden. You can’t really see in the picture, but there’s a single black lily growing in the center of the peonies. I didn’t do it deliberately, but it’s probably going to bloom once the peonies are done. Makes me think of planting more lilies in that garden, in between the peonies.

So far we’ve had a very wet start to our summer, which makes my plants very happy.

That makes one of us! LOL