mountain laurel – kalmia latifolia, sarah

Today, I began the process of replacing the two shrubs burned by the winter freeze, and planting the annuals, herbs and eggplant in the pots, in the rock-garden.

All the pics in the slideshow are flowers from the backyard. I took out the micro lens and mounted the D800e on the Manfrotto and shot the flowers.

On the side of the house – pic on the right – in the glazed pot, I planted a Kalmia Latifolia; in the tall, beige, clay-finish pot is Verbena; (Behind the tall pot and protruding through the slats are Iris and peony leaves.) in the ginger-jar is a second Kalmia; and in the black, plastic pots are Hosta and a Japanese Iris. I bought two Kalmias, because the flowers look like salt-water anemones found on a corral reef. (It’s the Kalmia blossoms in the second-to-last pic in the slideshow.) Also, I’m hoping that the laurel will make it through next winter. I raised the glazed pot and the ginger-jar onto iron stands and now these pots look huge. (They are huge, but resting on the bricks and the cement and looking down on them, they lost their bigness. Elevated on wrought-iron tripods, they’ve become large garden fixtures.)

The big, blue marble next to the glazed pot is a ceramic sphere that I bought on June 30, 2001 in Oakville as a remembrance. Jo’ had died that morning – Saturday, June 30 – and that afternoon I drove over to the greenhouse, up the street from their Arkendo house, and bought the ornament as a marker to always remind me of the day.