I truly love watching my garden emerge, but even more, I love how my garden is making me grow. I've had a deep longing to have a garden in my life for many years, but I was never sure that I could really be a gardener.  For one, I'm afraid of insects.  For two, though I've kept house plants and window-box plants alive in the past I've never planted anything into the actual earth before, so I was a little bit worried that I might kill everything that I planted. As my garden comes to life I feel an incredible sense of wonder and amazement over my sprouting seeds and I'm so gratified by the robust health of each plant as it opens itself to the light, but this doesn't really surprise me. What surprises me is that I never knew how much caring for a garden would give to me. When I work in the garden, I feel a sense of peace, happiness and raison d'être that is truly precious to me. Its as if these plants are reaching out and nurturing me!

The shot at the top is of the Salvia I planted a few days ago. Its so beautiful! Who knew you could find such a pretty plant at Home Depot?  Anyhow, the plant behind it is Spirea.  It was here when I moved in, but it was being swallowed almost whole by an overgrown ivy plant.  I tried to just cut out the ivy, but the poor plant was near dead.  I thought about what to do for days before I simply cut the whole bush down to the ground. I thought I might be struck down by lightening or something when I did it, but much to my amazement it is coming back so quickly that I can almost see it grow!  whew!

After I read about and saw photos of Monet's nasturtium plants at Giverny I was inspired to plant a bunch of nasturtium seeds around the place, and a few in this pot.  I never actually thought they would sprout, but they are, all over the place.  I moved a few of these to other places around the garden this afternoon.   

This is my hosta.  It is so lovely, like a green flower or something.  You might remember the image of it just emerging from the ground a few weeks ago.  If not, check out the last photo in this post.  

This is the last flower of the season from my Clematis.  The flowers hang down on the plant, so I've been enjoying this view of it all day.   

I'm trying to figure out what this mysterious seedling is.  I planted quite a few seeds in the area where this is sprouting and there are numerous specimens sprouting up.  Potential candidates:  Larkspur, Delphinium Elatum, Bells of Ireland or Penstemon. Or, perhaps its some sort of weed?  Any opinions are most welcome!  I'll be keeping a close eye on these babies!

I have long dreamed of growing Clematis. A few weeks ago I spotted this gorgeous Clematis Alpina 'Blue' at my local garden center. It looked incredibly healthy and ready to burst into a profusion of blooms and vines at any moment.  I carefully wheeled it home in my shopping cart and proceeded to plant it.  It promptly fainted. I tried watering it a few times, only to see it wilt and droop even more. I was so worried about this poor plant, I nearly cried! I went online and did a little reading on the subject.  From what I could tell, I had planted it in some very heavy, poorly drained soil. The poor thing was drowning! Although I was afraid I might hurt the plant even further, the next morning I dug it up for replanting. I created a much larger hole, filled the bottom with small rocks and filled in the hole with a lighter soil (the existing soil seems to be very heavy clay-like soil), then replanted.  Two or three hours later the plant perked up and has since grown many new shoots. I couldn't believe it, but I was (and am) so very happy! The flower buds have grown and one is just about to open up as you can see in the image above.

When I did all of this reading about the ideal growing conditions for Clematis, I saw a lot about how important it is to shade their roots, even though the rest of the plant likes to be in full sun.  I mentioned this to Michelle at Gowanus Nursery and she said that yes you do read a lot about that, but that she had grown many a healthy Clematis in small black pots in the full sun, so I guess its not always true.  I think that this is my favorite thing about gardening:  it is up to each gardener to consider, understand and discover how to nurture each individual plant.  I feel like there is a lot of freedom and beauty in that.  Nonetheless, not wanting to tempt fate, I went ahead and planted this homey and sweet Phlox plant just at the base of my Clematis so that it can provide some shade for its delicate roots.

I recently moved into a new apartment in Brooklyn and it has a garden(!). I felt that there must be a space for me to share my Brooklyn garden on this blog even though its such a completely different world from Sullivan County. After all, its where I'm planning to learn about gardening on a more approachable scale before I start digging in upstate.

I've been an "armchair gardener" for many years now, reading and dreaming about all of the things I would do someday when I had my own little bit of ground to dig around in. There is an incredible place just a few blocks away from here called Gowanus Nursery. They have all of the plants I've been dreaming about for so long, and are also a generous wealth of knowledge and advice! I think I'll be spending a lot of time there this season. I just planted my very first Hellebore (helleborus nigercors) which you can see in the photo above. It has the loveliest green flowers! I planted the Hellebore underneath the existing Viburnum tree, which you can see pictured below. Watching the leaves emerge from the branches of this lovely tree has been one of my favorite morning rituals.

I had been thinking about planting in the forested part of the land at Sullivan House, and I especially wanted to plant a huge variety of Hostas, but unfortunately, Hostas are one of the favorite plants of deer...  I figured I should plant at least one here in Brooklyn.  When I got this Hosta in May (I think this one is called Hosta "Hadspen Blue" but I can't find the tag right now) it was literally a pot with roots in it.  Nothing happening on top, until today! Here is a shot where you can see the plant emerging. When it grows up it will have deep blue-green leaves, so its interesting to see that the buds are so purple.