I know you've all been holding your breath waiting for this. We've been two weekends out at the Rancho* now, and here's how things are coming: when we arrived we found vast numbers of sweet-scented, pale lavender wood hyacinths, and deep purple irises. The poppies, big red and white ones, were about to pop, which they did last weekend. I expect when I get out there this Friday, great yellow clouds of lady's mantle will have opened. There were also some wonderful low white flowers that the rabbits usually eat; for some reason the rabbits didn't care this year, and we got to watch them bloom. What did get eaten, roots and all, was the butterfly weed I planted against the garage last year. But the columbine beside it, a strange maroon-and-gold one, is thriving. The other things that look great are my hollyhocks. They're bigger than usual, and not nearly as moth-eaten. I can only conclude that whatever fungus has been in the soil had a hard time with whatever micro-climate conditions prevailed this winter.

I've been moving things and planting like mad. I planted all the herbs together and closer to the kitchen than they were last year, the better for my housemates, who are the cooks whuile I'm the gardener, to find them. I moved the verbena, which gets tall, to the back and tried to get all the dusty miller in one spot to give it a critical mass. I put in lupine, bee balm, campanula, lantana, red yarrow, dicentra, new little poppies, morning glories, and delphiniums. After I take up the wood hyacinths I'll put in my nasturtiums -- one of my favorite plants for its leaves, its flowers, and its overall delicacy; but what a rotten name, right?

If I figure out how, I'll post a photo of the garden here. Otherwise, you'll have to take my word for it.


*For those of you new to this blog, Rancho Obsesso is the rented summer house I share with friends on the North Fork of Long Island. It's been 14 years, in 7 different houses, some of them on LI, some in the Hudson Valley; this is our 5th year in this one. The North Fork is emphatically Not The Hamptons -- that's the South Fork. "Rancho Obsesso" is a title we got from one of our guests the first summer, when he wandered down from his bedroom on a beautiful sunny morning and found us all in various spots on the property -- on the porch, under the trees, by the pond -- hunched over our laptops.