MinxterBLOOM

Are they coming up daisies all around you? The perfect yellow disc in a fan collar of white petals. i went to a graduation party yesterday for a dear daisy of a young woman.  In her yard are some transplanted daisies from my yard.  In that new garden space, the upturned blossoms are so happy and earnest.

Upsidaisy
Upsa daesy
Upsy-daisy
Oops-a-daisy
Oopsy-daisy
Hoops-a-daisy

What do you say? Oops?  Perfect way to pick up a sleepy toddler.  Whoops a daisy is a bit different. If the milk spills, then Whoops! I think this phrase is the child's mea culpa -- a soft one and a yet a concrete one.  "Daisy" somehow undergirds the metaphor for uh oh.

Words and flowers. Sigh, such perfect partners.

I looked at several sources about oops-whoops a daisy.  Firstly, 

Clough Robinson's The Dialect of Leeds and its Neighbourhood, 1862:

Upsa daesy! a common ejaculation when a child, in play, is assisted in a spring-leap from the ground.

More than one hundred years earlier, Jonathan Swift places this country mouse phrase in a Stella poem:

Come stand away, let me rise... Is there a good fire? - So - up a-dazy.

 

 

Krossa Regal is asserting itself this year. I was given a root hank of this erect, long stem hosta several years ago.  This spring, I am pleased how the leaves stand attention over the wide strip of lirope. 

This link is to an interesting encyclopedic site about all things hosta-ical. George Schmid's devotion to hostas is clear. Check out the two color wheels about the green-through-blue leaf range of garden hosta species. 

This hosta is not typical of gardens although the variety is not rare.  What this means is that you are not likely to find Krossa in a neighborhood hosta exchange.  You can find it at local nurseries but not likely at a big box-o'-plants-plus-hardware retailer. 

Bridgewatergardens is a good hosta source.  Other nice grey-blues that deserve wider adoption include Blue Umbrella and Mouse Ears.  In order of size, Krossa is Papa Bear, Blue Umbrella is Mama Bear and Mouse Ears is the wee little baby bear.  This Creeping Jenny is, naturally, Goldilocks. 

Now, go plant this storybook arrangement.

I so appreciate the many messages to me about my silent blogspace.  I have been tending other gardens.  And, contemplating the loss of this real garden.  Eleanor Perenyi wrote:

I grieved over my lost garden and all that went with it, and I didn’t want, ever again, to be attached to a piece of ground. But it didn’t work out like that. 

She is right. 

However, I expect to be posting again.  The flowers and plants have been well tended.  Thank you for asking.

By the way, Perenyi's book is a desert island book for me: Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden

of Northlands do not do well in Southern climes.  I miss them.  While river birch trees charm me, they are drab compared to the white and paper birch trees of my childhood Montana home.  What to do? Enjoy Gustav Klimt's renderings of these pale-bark trees.

Forest of Beech Trees, circa 1903, byt G. Klimt, Austrian painter and muralist.

A company in England-- Willow Kits --will sell you willow whips and plans.  You can build bowers, tunnels, arches, and teepees that within a year or so will sprout.

Love this idea. I will have to watch for willows on my bike rides.

I once grew sunflowers -- tall and gangly Russian Giant or Mammoth -- and Heavenly Blue morning glories through them.  For two of three children.  The last darling was not yet rooted.  I did love the blue rambling in the yellow. But the thing with morning glory plants are the next generations:  tenacious little sky blue urchins. Not entirely unwelcome, but my goodness, we do love some plants more than others. 

Children, however, can be loved so completely and eachly:  the miracle of love times itself and supercalifragilisticespeallidocious.