I was looking through last year's New York pictures, clearing many out, keeping many, when I looked at the deliciously fragrant Viburnum farreri I photographed around the corner here in Cobble Hill on March 28th, 2009.
This year I photographed it on the 25th of March, with just this one flower cluster left on the tree, which was already fully leafed out.
Vince and I visited Dias Beach at Cape Point while we were in Cape Town, and I wrote about it for the informative Cape Town Blog, where it is posted today.
I winced and then laughed a little at my wincing, to see myself described at the end of the post as a "landscaper". Argh. Perhaps it's a North American thing. But as I said to the editor in an email, "landscaper" conjures up visions of acres of red mulch, brutally pruned (juniper) topiaries and a clapped-out van with tools hanging from it. I..."Ay"...I said, am a garden designer. "Desayner..."
One other correction is that the pretty little blue flower in the post, so heliophila-ish, whose identity had me stumped, was id'd very kindly by Tony Rebelo, as Heliophila (yes!) cinerea, or limestone sporrie, who said it is endemic to sandy areas over limestone, on the southern peninsula. Not 'the Cape' (a huge area), as the description reads.
Yes, there were bluebottles that day. The sea was very rough, as it always is on that beach, and the high water mark was blue with them, so we trod carefully. But they are beautiful.
Forsythia on the Brooklyn Promenade.
Thanks to Frank, whose suggestion it was, I have started to index my recipes on a blog called 66 Square Feet (the Food). Some friends have kvetched that it is hard to find specific recipes here, and I agree. Not neat enough.
On a rainy, foggy evening, we walked along what is almost the Brooklyn waterfront, to see what had become of the park on the East River, whose fence-banners proclaim a "Winter 2010" opening. After a long, traffic-noisy trudge from Atlantic Avenue, along Furman Street, we saw a lot of earth moving. It looked a lot like it did a year ago.
Pretty perfect green. Imagine a blue sky day. New leaves on trees. Picnics.
One has a new view of the Watchtower stronghold, too. It is so weird. What is In there? Bibles? For all the people who are not allowed into heaven?
Very unprepossessing in this picture, but a series of granite steps overlooking the East River is a wonderful, raked amphitheatre for the Brooklyn audience to behold Manhattan, across the water.
The best part for us, was our proximity to water. The thick-moving, powerfully-flowing water of the East 'River', pale brown, reacting to tide and tributaries pouring runoff from the rest of the state into the sea.
I have always loved this working waterway. When it has been cleaned up, I will miss some of the dereliction.
Between the park and the BQE, demolition and reconstruction continue.
And from above, near the Promenade, it appeared that this abandoned, sunken park might be part of the makeover.
What would the Roeblings - father and son - think if they could see their bridge (completed in 1883) now? What would George Washington have thought, in 1776, retreating with his troops to Manhattan? He who could not have imagined the Brooklyn Bridge, let alone an iPod?
A long way to go until it is green, but a helluvan improvement over the inaccessible wharves of before.
The park has a lot of rules. I can predict that we'll break at least one of them. What is a picnic without bubbles?
Close...
Closer...
Growing behind the townhouse of good friends Dan and Nancy on St Luke's Place in the West Village, is what might be my favourite plant in New York City.
Blogger is having some issues: you might notice that some pictures are missing from posts. Apparently they are working to resolve it.*
Credits:
Earth Hour last night, before and after.
Thanks to a gimlet-eyed Anonymous commenter on my blog, who had read my confident post at Shelterpop about Winter Flowers, I made a call to the clients for whom I designed this terrace garden in Tribeca last year. The purpose: may I please come and see what has survived on your terrace; in particular, the Edgeworthia papyrifera?
We three stepped onto the terrace and there it was. In full bloom, scent flung all about it like sunshine in the cold wind.
I had last left it looking like this, in November:
And when I bought it in September, it was a lushly-rounded shrub with elongated leaves, below. Will it bloom again, asked Stephen and Ilse. No, I said, apologetically, this is it, meaning, Just in spring.
Lest you think it was all perfect and happy, regard the collection of sticks planted nearby (the middle sticks with dead leaves, the sticks on the left are alive - Hydrangea 'Tardiva', and the dry grassy things are alive: Japanese ribbon grass):
Not quite the same as it looked in late November...Camellia 'Winter's Snowman'. Ironically, on paper, hardier. "Cold hardy to -23'C". But this specimen succumbed to the wind, while another was more protected against a western wall , beside some Fargesia rufa, a small clumping bamboo (still green and lush). That one lost one branch where snow had lain around it in a drift for weeks. I should never have planted this camellia in the teeth of the wind.
More good news, but not unexpected: this hardy Corylopsis spicata, a winter hazel, in full bloom. This part of the terrace receives just a couple of hours of sun near midday.
Below, here it is last November:
Yesterday.
And the other winter hazel, Corylopsis pauciflora.
Viburnum tomentosum "Mohawk" had just opened - a little earlier than I had anticipated, but there are hundreds of tightly closed green buds on the branches - and was spicily fragrant. I wonder how they fared in last night's zub-freezing temperatures...
And at the shadier end, the Magnolia stellata was in bud.
Lest you think it will all be over in a rush, there are two other viburnums to stagger the season of bloom, hopefully lasting through May, then comes the fringe tree (Chionanthis virginicus), three species of hydrangeas, the Franklinia alatamaha (September flowers - 'discovered' on the Alatamaha River) and then hopefully the surviving camellia.
Pic: Vincent Mounier
The Callery pears on Atlantic Avenue, near Damascus Bakery and outside the Cook's Companion (why do I always think that place belongs in a mall in Connecticut?).
Window box on Baltic between Smith and Court. There is always something interesting going on in this miniature garden.
$3 daffodils at the Key Food on Atlantic.
A parrot and his human mate sharing peanuts outside the Long Island College Hospital...
...and the Bergen Street subway station, summed up.
I think I'll make garlic soup tonight. Roger Verge has a fabulous recipe in his out-of-print* (so baffling, as it is a masterpiece) Entertaining in the French Style. Sumptuous photography, beautifully laid tables, flowers, delicious drinks in lovely glassware, full menus. I read it as an old teenager when I thought nothing of making 8 course meals, and little flashes of light from its pages remain with me still.
Long ago an astrologer told me some things (I had a singing crisis with the Whoop, and wanted to know whether I should just throw in the towel). He said that I would reach - somehow - a world-wide audience. This was meant as a sort of comfort. At the time he thought it might be through singing and cd's, but he said it could be via anything creative, somehow disseminated widely. He mentioned photography.
