Did you think I couldn't see you?

When I was in grammar school (that's what we called elementary school), I grew accustomed to having a snake around.  My brother had a Southern hognose snake named Pancake.  He lived in a cage (which I now realize was not in the creature's best interest) for at least a couple of years before he was set free.  I won't go into the lengths my parents went to in order to feed this snake, but it involved frequent trips to a lake at night with a flashlight.

Anyway, my brother and his friend Richard (who is now my go-to snake information person) were constantly playing with snakes.  In our yard, we had mostly ring neck, garter and green snakes.  I'm not talking about a lot of them, but I would see a snake on occasion.  Of course, we took Pancake out and played with him.  Once, someone (probably Richard) brought over a rather large king snake, and I remember bravely wrapping the snake around my neck to show off in front of my friends.  I secretly didn't like the feel of it, but I wanted them to think I was brave.

The only thing I didn't like was when a snake was hanging overhead.  This happened to me once.  Not that green snakes ever got very big, but I was in my hideout in a big stand of privet, when one came dangling down next to me.  I screamed and ran out as fast as I could.  I never went into that hideout again.  When my brother laughed, I accused him of putting the snake in there.  He denies it to this day.

 I think it was three years ago that a guy I'd hired to neaten up the vines in my tunnel arbor let out a blood-curdling yell.  I came running.  The young man pointed to a very long rat snake lying camouflaged in the vines just a few inches from where he was clipping.

For days, I watched the snake.  Sometimes, he would curl up.  Other times, he would be stretched out in the tangle of vines.  One day, I looked up thinking, "Wow.  This snake has grown to about 12 feet long." Then, I realized that there were two of them.  I don't know what they were doing, but it did look like one super-long snake.  At one point, I went out, and there was only one snake, but he was hanging down, which sort of gave me a bit of a start.  He must have dropped to the ground after that.  I didn't see him anymore.

I have a strict no-kill snake policy around here.  I've only once in 39 years come upon a copperhead, and I admit that gave me a scare.  I took the dogs and put them in the house and ran back with my camera.  By that time, he had moved off the driveway and disappeared.

This year, I've seen one king snake and an extremely long rat snake.  The dogs were barking at the latter.  He was so long that he wouldn't fit in the frame of my camera from a reasonable distance.  He was also pretending to be a rattlesnake.  I looked on in amazement as his tail vibrated and made a hissing sound.  I put my camera on movie mode and watched as he finally slithered away.  My friend Richard later i.d.'ed the snake and explained the rattling.

Okay.  I have many snake stories (like the time I was in my kitchen and saw a stick on the dining room floor.  Then, the stick moved.  That one ended up coiled around the top of a copper bucket under the hunt board).

Here's the last one, I promise.  My beautiful, elegant mother-in-law was visiting one May.  It was a lovely Saturday morning, and we were all sitting out on the music room terrace, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee.  All of a sudden, I saw the head of a snake coming up from a hole in the stone that had been cut out to plant trumpet vine.  Then, came the body.  He was long, and to my horror, was headed right for my mother-in-law's feet.  I couldn't breathe.  If I said something, she might have a heart attack.  If I didn't, and if the snake slithered across her quilted silk bedroom shoes, she might have a heart attack.  I was too frozen to do anything but watch.  The snake, not making a sound, came within inches of her feet.  My husband, thank goodness, didn't look down.  The snake crossed the entire length of the terrace and disappeared into some liriope along the side of the house.

I've gotten careless of late and forget to look up when I walk under the 40 foot long trumpet vine arbor. As I said, I don't believe in killing harmless snakes, but I admit I get a chill when I look down (or up) and see one slithering along or curled up under a bush.  I'm not like Richard, who still picks them up and plays with them for a bit before letting them go.  I just walk in the other direction as fast as I can.

Did you think I couldn't see you?

When I was in grammar school (that's what we called elementary school), I grew accustomed to having a snake around.  My brother had a Southern hognose snake named Pancake.  He lived in a cage (which I now realize was not in the creature's best interest) for at least a couple of years before he was set free.  I won't go into the lengths my parents went to in order to feed this snake, but it involved frequent trips to a lake at night with a flashlight.

Anyway, my brother and his friend Richard (who is now my go-to snake information person) were constantly playing with snakes.  In our yard, we had mostly ring neck, garter and green snakes.  I'm not talking about a lot of them, but I would see a snake on occasion.  Of course, we took Pancake out and played with him.  Once, someone (probably Richard) brought over a rather large king snake, and I remember bravely wrapping the snake around my neck to show off in front of my friends.  I secretly didn't like the feel of it, but I wanted them to think I was brave.

The only thing I didn't like was when a snake was hanging overhead.  This happened to me once.  Not that green snakes ever got very big, but I was in my hideout in a big stand of privet, when one came dangling down next to me.  I screamed and ran out as fast as I could.  I never went into that hideout again.  When my brother laughed, I accused him of putting the snake in there.  He denies it to this day.

 I think it was three years ago that a guy I'd hired to neaten up the vines in my tunnel arbor let out a blood-curdling yell.  I came running.  The young man pointed to a very long rat snake lying camouflaged in the vines just a few inches from where he was clipping.

For days, I watched the snake.  Sometimes, he would curl up.  Other times, he would be stretched out in the tangle of vines.  One day, I looked up thinking, "Wow.  This snake has grown to about 12 feet long." Then, I realized that there were two of them.  I don't know what they were doing, but it did look like one super-long snake.  At one point, I went out, and there was only one snake, but he was hanging down, which sort of gave me a bit of a start.  He must have dropped to the ground after that.  I didn't see him anymore.

I have a strict no-kill snake policy around here.  I've only once in 39 years come upon a copperhead, and I admit that gave me a scare.  I took the dogs and put them in the house and ran back with my camera.  By that time, he had moved off the driveway and disappeared.

This year, I've seen one king snake and an extremely long rat snake.  The dogs were barking at the latter.  He was so long that he wouldn't fit in the frame of my camera from a reasonable distance.  He was also pretending to be a rattlesnake.  I looked on in amazement as his tail vibrated and made a hissing sound.  I put my camera on movie mode and watched as he finally slithered away.  My friend Richard later i.d.'ed the snake and explained the rattling.

Okay.  I have many snake stories (like the time I was in my kitchen and saw a stick on the dining room floor.  Then, the stick moved.  That one ended up coiled around the top of a copper bucket under the hunt board).

Here's the last one, I promise.  My beautiful, elegant mother-in-law was visiting one May.  It was a lovely Saturday morning, and we were all sitting out on the music room terrace, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee.  All of a sudden, I saw the head of a snake coming up from a hole in the stone that had been cut out to plant trumpet vine.  Then, came the body.  He was long, and to my horror, was headed right for my mother-in-law's feet.  I couldn't breathe.  If I said something, she might have a heart attack.  If I didn't, and if the snake slithered across her quilted silk bedroom shoes, she might have a heart attack.  I was too frozen to do anything but watch.  The snake, not making a sound, came within inches of her feet.  My husband, thank goodness, didn't look down.  The snake crossed the entire length of the terrace and disappeared into some liriope along the side of the house.

I've gotten careless of late and forget to look up when I walk under the 40 foot long trumpet vine arbor. As I said, I don't believe in killing harmless snakes, but I admit I get a chill when I look down (or up) and see one slithering along or curled up under a bush.  I'm not like Richard, who still picks them up and plays with them for a bit before letting them go.  I just walk in the other direction as fast as I can.

An orchard again some day

When I was growing up, we lived on either five (or was it six?) acres in the small town of Palmetto, Georgia.  Our house had been built before the Civil War, allegedly in 1852.  Mother always said the bricks had been made in the front yard.  I don't know if that's true, but when I became an adult, I discovered a memoir that had been written by the woman who lived in our house before my parents bought it in 1941.  Her father, a lawyer, died young, and when she was twelve years old, her mother had to move back to Atlanta to go to work, as the family had lost everything during the Depression.

She wrote:  "Our house was built of hand-packed brick; the paneled doors and woodwork were solid walnut; the doorknobs were white china.  The inside brick walls were sixteen inches thick, covered with white plaster, their foundations several feet below ground.  In 1905 my grandparents had bought the house from a doctor and added a dining room and kitchen of weatherboard."

In the future, I'll tell more about this woman and about the gardens of her homeplace, which was also mine.  After some searching, I found her in Atlanta, in my same Zip Code.  She sold me some of her books.  Now, I wish I'd bought every one, as I've lent them out over the years.  I only have one copy left.

But, what does this have to do with the above picture?  I took this photograph on a garden tour a few years ago.  I don't know the owners, but this is a wonderful garden, with paths to roam through the woods, a big, flat lawn for touch football, a vegetable garden and (above) an orchard.

As you can see, this area was roped off for the tour, but it looked very inviting.  My daddy planted an apple orchard at our homeplace.   There was no intriguing path like the one above, but the trees were in rows, and in the spring, little bluets came up in the grass.  You reached the orchard by way of a path between my mother's rose garden and an impenetrable hedge of super thorny Cherokee roses that surrounded our clotheslines.  I really preferred the golden delicious tree that was in the vegetable garden, which had been laid out and planted by the former owners.  But, I also liked the red June apples Daddy planted, whatever they were.  Most of the other trees were "horse" apples that mother dried and made fried pies from during the winter.  In late summer, though, she would make fresh apple cobbler, which made our kitchen smell so good.

Anyway, I'd love to have an apple orchard again.  I like the one pictured above, and I am bowled over by the idea of a walled "ancient"orchard that garden designer, author and popular blogger Tara Dillard did for a client.  But, I'd be satisfied with a simple one like Daddy's, where the thrill of picking the apples and plunking them in a big basket to take to Mother lingers in my memory as if it were yesterday.

An orchard again some day

When I was growing up, we lived on either five (or was it six?) acres in the small town of Palmetto, Georgia.  Our house had been built before the Civil War, allegedly in 1852.  Mother always said the bricks had been made in the front yard.  I don't know if that's true, but when I became an adult, I discovered a memoir that had been written by the woman who lived in our house before my parents bought it in 1941.  Her father, a lawyer, died young, and when she was twelve years old, her mother had to move back to Atlanta to go to work, as the family had lost everything during the Depression.

She wrote:  "Our house was built of hand-packed brick; the paneled doors and woodwork were solid walnut; the doorknobs were white china.  The inside brick walls were sixteen inches thick, covered with white plaster, their foundations several feet below ground.  In 1905 my grandparents had bought the house from a doctor and added a dining room and kitchen of weatherboard."

In the future, I'll tell more about this woman and about the gardens of her homeplace, which was also mine.  After some searching, I found her in Atlanta, in my same Zip Code.  She sold me some of her books.  Now, I wish I'd bought every one, as I've lent them out over the years.  I only have one copy left.

But, what does this have to do with the above picture?  I took this photograph on a garden tour a few years ago.  I don't know the owners, but this is a wonderful garden, with paths to roam through the woods, a big, flat lawn for touch football, a vegetable garden and (above) an orchard.

As you can see, this area was roped off for the tour, but it looked very inviting.  My daddy planted an apple orchard at our homeplace.   There was no intriguing path like the one above, but the trees were in rows, and in the spring, little bluets came up in the grass.  You reached the orchard by way of a path between my mother's rose garden and an impenetrable hedge of super thorny Cherokee roses that surrounded our clotheslines.  I really preferred the golden delicious tree that was in the vegetable garden, which had been laid out and planted by the former owners.  But, I also liked the red June apples Daddy planted, whatever they were.  Most of the other trees were "horse" apples that mother dried and made fried pies from during the winter.  In late summer, though, she would make fresh apple cobbler, which made our kitchen smell so good.

Anyway, I'd love to have an apple orchard again.  I like the one pictured above, and I am bowled over by the idea of a walled "ancient"orchard that garden designer, author and popular blogger Tara Dillard did for a client.  But, I'd be satisfied with a simple one like Daddy's, where the thrill of picking the apples and plunking them in a big basket to take to Mother lingers in my memory as if it were yesterday.

Has this ever happened to you?

I will never know what this flower is (unless someone out there recognizes it) or where it came from.   I'm thinking that it is some member of the mallow family.  It's not a hollyhock, although it has some of the same characteristics.

One June day almost twenty years ago, I ventured into the lower yard, which had never really been landscaped, and here was this charming flower.  It stood about four feet tall, came up from a basal rosette on the ground, and going up the stalk were white flowers with red centers.  This photograph was taken after its prime, but you can get an idea of what it looked like.

I was thrilled and had every intention of gathering seeds, once the blooms were over.  I even fantasized about introducing the flower for cottage gardens.  First, though, I had to go out of town on a scouting trip for A Gardener's Diary (to Wisconsin; I have a story about that, as well, involving a ghost; will get to that at a later date).

When I returned home a week later,  I rushed down to see if the seeds were starting to dry.  But wait.  Where was the flower stalk?  And the basal rosette of leaves?  The whole area, after having been neglected for probably 10 years, was neat as a pin.

What happened?  For the first time ever, my husband had bought a weed eater.  Here we were, with four acres of strangling wisteria, privet choking out the creek bottom, pokeweed rising up everywhere and a thousand scrubby sweet gums becoming too tall to pull up.  They were all intact.  Nothing else had been done on the whole property.  Just this patch where the flower had grown.  I frantically looked for any part of the stalk.  But no, for the first time ever, my husband had actually picked up the debris left behind.  The flower was gone forever.

Recently, I've hit another spate of things like this happening.  Probably 25 years ago, lightening hit a tree up at the little house (stripped it like a candy cane).  The tree eventually fell, leaving a six foot tall trunk that looked like petrified driftwood.  Every year, I thought how perfect it would be for a Carolina jasmine.

So, this year, Karen Villano dug up part of her vine and gave it to me.  I brought it home and went up immediately to plant it.  What?  Was I hallucinating?  The tree trunk was gone.  Not there.  I went over and saw it had been chopped down, literally to the ground.  How could this be, after all these years, on the very day I had the perfect vine for it?  A yard helper had brought a friend along who must have craved a workout with an axe.  I'm sure they both thought they had done me a great favor.

Okay.  Allow me just one more story (even though this type of thing has happened to me many, many times).  I came home from church on Sunday to check on some guys who were fixing the brick porch at the little house.  I almost fainted.  Gone were three 15 foot tall hollies.  They weren't my favorites, but they had been there forever and had provided definition to the corner as you come into the parking lot.

And, what else was missing?  More hollies and further down the hill two giant elaeagnus plants that I used for church greenery.  They were the only two on the property without bad thorns, and their foliage was actually quite attractive.  Any of the others could have been cut, and I wouldn't have cared.

The culprit was a teenager who accompanied the workmen.  I looked around at all the privet and wisteria, and yet again, the poke weed - all standing in good form.  There were a million chores I would have had him do if I'd known.

None of this is tragic, but it does happen a lot.  I'm not too upset about anything really, but I can't ever forgive my late husband for cutting down that flower.  I don't think he ever used the weed eater again.  It just sat there and rusted.

Has this ever happened to you?

I will never know what this flower is (unless someone out there recognizes it) or where it came from.   I'm thinking that it is some member of the mallow family.  It's not a hollyhock, although it has some of the same characteristics.

One June day almost twenty years ago, I ventured into the lower yard, which had never really been landscaped, and here was this charming flower.  It stood about four feet tall, came up from a basal rosette on the ground, and going up the stalk were white flowers with red centers.  This photograph was taken after its prime, but you can get an idea of what it looked like.

I was thrilled and had every intention of gathering seeds, once the blooms were over.  I even fantasized about introducing the flower for cottage gardens.  First, though, I had to go out of town on a scouting trip for A Gardener's Diary (to Wisconsin; I have a story about that, as well, involving a ghost; will get to that at a later date).

When I returned home a week later,  I rushed down to see if the seeds were starting to dry.  But wait.  Where was the flower stalk?  And the basal rosette of leaves?  The whole area, after having been neglected for probably 10 years, was neat as a pin.

What happened?  For the first time ever, my husband had bought a weed eater.  Here we were, with four acres of strangling wisteria, privet choking out the creek bottom, pokeweed rising up everywhere and a thousand scrubby sweet gums becoming too tall to pull up.  They were all intact.  Nothing else had been done on the whole property.  Just this patch where the flower had grown.  I frantically looked for any part of the stalk.  But no, for the first time ever, my husband had actually picked up the debris left behind.  The flower was gone forever.

Recently, I've hit another spate of things like this happening.  Probably 25 years ago, lightening hit a tree up at the little house (stripped it like a candy cane).  The tree eventually fell, leaving a six foot tall trunk that looked like petrified driftwood.  Every year, I thought how perfect it would be for a Carolina jasmine.

So, this year, Karen Villano dug up part of her vine and gave it to me.  I brought it home and went up immediately to plant it.  What?  Was I hallucinating?  The tree trunk was gone.  Not there.  I went over and saw it had been chopped down, literally to the ground.  How could this be, after all these years, on the very day I had the perfect vine for it?  A yard helper had brought a friend along who must have craved a workout with an axe.  I'm sure they both thought they had done me a great favor.

Okay.  Allow me just one more story (even though this type of thing has happened to me many, many times).  I came home from church on Sunday to check on some guys who were fixing the brick porch at the little house.  I almost fainted.  Gone were three 15 foot tall hollies.  They weren't my favorites, but they had been there forever and had provided definition to the corner as you come into the parking lot.

And, what else was missing?  More hollies and further down the hill two giant elaeagnus plants that I used for church greenery.  They were the only two on the property without bad thorns, and their foliage was actually quite attractive.  Any of the others could have been cut, and I wouldn't have cared.

The culprit was a teenager who accompanied the workmen.  I looked around at all the privet and wisteria, and yet again, the poke weed - all standing in good form.  There were a million chores I would have had him do if I'd known.

None of this is tragic, but it does happen a lot.  I'm not too upset about anything really, but I can't ever forgive my late husband for cutting down that flower.  I don't think he ever used the weed eater again.  It just sat there and rusted.

500 and counting

Choosing a photograph from Harriet Kirkpatrick's yard took me about as long as it did to choose a name for one of my children.  When there are 500 hydrangeas in numerous garden rooms around a charming house on a big corner lot, it's nearly impossible.  Every place you look, it's breathtaking.

So, I eschewed the photos of the fabulous 'Annabelle' display in the front yard and passed up views of the sea of white and pink and blue and purple macrophyllas that fill the side yard and the large area between the back porch and a former playhouse.  I finally settled on the above "room", just inside a gate that leads to the adjacent street (where there is a long bank covered with 'Nikko Blue' mopheads).  I also had nice shots of others that spill over an antique iron fence that came from Harriet's father's house in Cairo, Ga., where she grew up.

Harriet has had hydrangea fever for a long time.  When she met the late Penny McHenry, who founded the American Hydrangea Society and whose garden was called Hydrangea Heaven, Harriet became a disciple.

Harriet figures she has about 50 different varieties.  Some blooms are as big as a soccer ball.  The colors  go from deepest purple to light pink, lavender, mauve, pure white and all shades of blue.  When I admired a light pink one she had in front, Harriet pointed out that those same flowers were blue last year.  You never know, she says, and it varies from year to year.

Harriet is well-known in Atlanta garden circles and has done some garden design for friends.  I remember seeing some wonderful containers she put together years ago with a mix of herbs and flowers.  She also volunteers her time in the garden of an Atlanta hospital.

I'm trying to find a macrophylla that will stay white (I can't grow the 'Annabelle' types, because the deer mow them down; for some odd reason they haven't ever bothered the big leaf ones - knock on wood).  Harriet thinks 'Queen of Pearls' will do the trick, and is layering one for me.  In the meantime, I'm going to start building up the soil in the areas where hydrangeas would grow.  Seeing Harriet's magical garden makes you want every hydrangea in the world.

There is one slight disadvantage to having so many beautiful flowers.  The hydrangeas planted along the street have proved to be too tempting to passersby. Once, someone stripped an entire plant, Harriet says.  When I was there, she pointed out where a hydrangea thief just the night before had helped themselves.  There are so many flowers, though, it is hard to see that any are missing.