A Garden Party

July 30, 202528 Comments

It started with the dishes. I saw them at Winners/Marshalls back in March and walked past them as the last thing I need is another set of dishes when I already have so many, (and now I have all of my mother’s too.) And since the pandemic I hardly ever entertain anymore….but they were plastic, perfect for the patio and they were so pretty I was envisioning a garden party with the hydrangeas all in bloom, even if we were still dealing with late winter snow storms. The next day I went back and bought them, because Winners is like that – it’s hit or miss, and if you dither whatever you had your eye on is usually gone, scooped up by some more decisive soul. The next week they had two big matching bowls which I thought would be perfect for salad or watermelon. I was sick of winter by then.

Fast forward to summer…..the actual party took over a month to organize because it involved five people with varying schedules of appointments, activities and emergencies. As I alluded to in my last blog about wanting to hold my own book club, just try asking a group of retired people what day is good for them – there are doctors appointments, grandchildren, golf, pickleball, bowling, theatre tickets etc and after we had settled on a date there was a basement flood and a cat requiring emergency dental surgery. As for me – I don’t own a cat and my life isn’t that exciting. Plus the weather had to be good, or at least not raining – it was hard to find a week here in July without rain or heat warnings, so it was impossible to plan too far ahead.

Anyway, eventually it happened, and the hydrangeas were at their peak.

Hydrangeas are no-fuss plants. These are repeat bloomers. They’re pink, but you can get blue ones by adding aluminum sulfate to acidify the soil. If you don’t add enough you get a lilac color, but they’re all nice. The lime green ones have become popular lately, but I prefer some color.

The first monarch I’ve seen in my yard in years! One of the neighbours must have planted some milkweed.

I have five hydrangea bushes but one has not done well this year, maybe because someone pruned it at the wrong time? It’s usually covered with blue flowers due to the neighbours overhanging cedar trees which help to acidify the soil, but this year it decided to be pink. There’s no figuring out plants sometimes – they have a mind of their own. There are many varieties of hydrangeas but most tolerate partial shade.

The day dawned sunny….it looked like a perfect day, if a bit hot and humid. I put all the cushions out.

I enjoy all the decorating party prep as I have so many placemats and tablecloths and things that I have accumulated over the years and never use. I’m too old now to be saving the good dishes and the guests seem to appreciate the extra effort. Everyone likes to be spoiled once in awhile.

Decorating doesn’t have to be expensive – these napkins and lady bugs are from the dollar store. The lady bugs were just for fun, because who doesn’t like ladybugs? These have adhesive backings so you can stick them on things. I stole the idea from a display at the library – ‘Bee a summer reader!’ which had bees stuck all over it. I bought a package of those too for September when the real bees spoil the dining alfresco.

Speaking of dining alfresco I was so excited to finally get to use my Tuscany table! The table was a curbside find during the pandemic which I painted with exterior paint to match American Decor’s chalk paint in Serene Blue. I painted a wooden chair same color, and the week before the party I found two chairs outside the St. Vincent de Paul store when I was donating clothes, and bought those for $5 each. Mismatched chairs are good with a rustic outdoor table like that, and if they’re recycled you don’t mind leaving them outside in the rain. The idea was to take advantage of the lovely southwest breezes under the trees -my deck can get too hot as it faces north and the houses block the breeze.

We had afternoon snacks under the trees and red and white peach sangria (the non-alcoholic kind), a grocery store find which was surprisingly good. I never took any photos of the food because I was so busy I forgot! The snacks were watermelon in one of the big new bowls, some perfectly ripe cherries, and a bag of Fritos, which was a big hit! There’s something about craving salt on a hot summer day, and Fritos taste salty but are not too high in salt. (The medical person in me worries about electrolytes and fluid intake and balanced nutrition.)

The main course was pizza. While I may like to entertain and bake, I do not like to cook that much, and it can be difficult these days with everyone’s food allergies/intolerances and low fat, low cholesterol diets. Not that pizza is hearty healthy but my small town has the world’s best pizza place. They’ve been in business forty years and served authentic wood smoked pizza long before it was even a thing. When they first opened, no one spoke English so what you ordered and what you got were sometimes different, but it’s everyone’s favourite choice, especially since our local Chinese restaurant closed down recently after 40 years. It was excellent too, but the owner couldn’t get anyone to buy it, and none of his kids wanted it. So pizza was the general consensus, however there was major disagreement about what toppings should go on the pizza (see section about trying to get five people to agree), so we ended up with everyone ordering their own baby pizza so they could take the leftovers home. Fine with me, as I do not think ground hamburger belongs on a pizza, and I’m not fussy on pepperoni either.

While we were waiting for the pizza I made them work for their supper…..what, you didn’t think it was going to be all fun and games! One planted the iris bulbs he had thinned out and brought with him (did I mention they were all horticultural society members, so I got some good suggestions as to what to plant around the back deck to replace the dying rose bushes – hydrangeas!) while we ladies went through the rest of the stuff from my mothers house which had been sitting in the garage taking up space for months. Only one item was left after it was all divvied up, a French press coffee maker which I decided to keep myself – no one wants a French press because it’s a pain to clean up the grounds. It’s always nice to give things away to people who want and can use them, and they had helped me out a lot last year when I was cleaning out mom’s house.

I had already set the table inside, as I knew rain was in the forecast, and by then we had lost the sun and it had become quite humid, so we moved inside and enjoyed the A/C for a couple of hours.

I made party favours out of hydrangea soap and stripped paper bags from the dollar store. Adults like to receive goody bags too!

As I still had lettuce growing (third crop) I made a big mandarin salad in the pretty big bowl, layering the three kinds of lettuce (Romaine, red leaf and ?) with the raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and mandarin orange slices, so the fruit didn’t all sink to the bottom. Served with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. (That was the nutrition course – it’s important to have a nutrition course.)

I like to thrift shop and had found a set of four light blue plates and an assortment of blue glasses a few years ago, which coordinated perfectly with the new hydrangea plates.

They could be used as salad plates, but we used them for dessert and moved outside to the deck table this time. The rain had held off and although humid there was a delightful evening breeze. We had key lime pie and coffee and talked until it got dark and the fireflies came out. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many fireflies in the back yard, but then I don’t usually sit out after dark due to the mosquitos. It was quite magical, and reminds me of that song, what I call the firefly song.

After they left, and I was cleaning up, I realized I hadn’t taken any pictures of the food so I snapped a photo of the bowl of wilted lettuce! I could have left the dishes until the next day but I was wide awake so I went to bed all talked out but with a clean kitchen. The next day I got an email thanking me for the party and how much they had all enjoyed it. They must have as they stayed 8 hours (2-10pm) but that’s the way it is with old friends – time flies in good company.

The Blue Garden

July 18, 201938 Comments

Although the white garden at Britain’s Sissinghurst Castle may be famous, I have always wanted a blue garden. Although there is a certain romantic appeal to a vista of pale white flowers glowing in the moonlight, white simply does not make a statement to me. I need color in my garden – pinks and purples and blues, perhaps a dash of yellow or red. White is an accent color, seen only in a few daisies which came up from last years toss of a wildflower mix into a back corner. My grandmother had a white snowball bush, and my mother had white spirea bushes along the front of the house – I cared for neither. I did like the white apple blossoms on the crab-apple trees in our old orchard, tinged with a blush of pink and heady with fragrance, but their show was brief, one glorious week in spring. No, it is color I crave and blue is my favorite color. Although my garden is predominantly pink and purple (see last years The Color Purple and the upcoming Rose Cottage), my attempts at introducing blue into my garden have not been very successful. Blue flowers may be a rarity in nature for a reason.

These are delphiniums from a Nova Scotia vacation so long ago that I’ve forgotten the name of the small sleepy town where we stayed, other than there was nothing to do after supper so we toured the local botanical garden. Certainly I was not into gardening back then, but the image of delphiniums against a picket fence was striking enough to warrant a picture, although my memory of the rest of the place is vague – I think there were roses past their prime?

And this is my one solitary blue delphinium, which bloomed one year and was never seen again, nor were it’s pink and purple cousins. The same thing happened with the lupines.

A neighbor of my mother’s had a beautiful display of delphiniums a few years ago, five feet tall and waving look-at-me, but he is a wonderful gardener. I suppose I can’t expect a scene out of Downton Abbey, if I don’t put much effort into it.

Then there was the blue rose, which came up a pale lavender/lilac at best. What a marketing scheme that nursery tag was, a scrawny thing, it bloomed for a few seasons, producing exactly one rose every year. I was so annoyed with it, that this year I tore it out when I was removing the dead Rose of Sharon beside it which hadn’t survived the winter.

Those pretty blue lobelia flowers in garden baskets look nice for a month or two at most, but do not survive the heat and neglect of July/August. I’ve given up on them too.

I love the first sign of Siberian Squill in early spring, especially vibrant with the contrasting yellow of daffodils.

There is a large swath of them growing wild along the river road and another neighbor has a lovely patch in her backyard, but I have never been able to find them in a nursery. Maybe next year I will remember to ask if I can dig some up. It’s another invasive species I wish would invade my back yard.

Blue Hydrangeas are always lovely, but how many bags of aluminum sulfate have I bought trying to get them to go true blue. I’ve had some some success with this bush near the side arbor, but only because the neighbor’s overhanging cedars make the ground naturally acidic. Last year it was covered with blooms, this year there isn’t a single one and yet all the other bushes have plenty. How do they decide which one is going to take a vacation?

Last week I dumped some more AlSo4 on the rest, hoping all the forecast rain would wash it magically into the soil, and had some success. At least they weren’t all lilac.

I had some luck with forget-me-nots this year, which a fellow gardener shared, somehow it hurts less when things don’t survive if they are free. Of the donated bunches I planted last spring, one came up at the front of the house, and two small patches on the side bed. This year I transplanted some more, hoping they will become invasive. They reseed themselves once past blooming.

My Heavenly Blue morning glories are the good old dependables, except one year when they didn’t come up at all. They are hardy souls and thrive on neglect once they get started, growing a foot a day in late summer. I blogged about them here – link – A Glorious September Morning.

Blue Morning Glories

This year I planted them in front of two recycled trellises, hoping they will be more contained so I don’t have to spend three hours tearing them off the neighbor’s fences in the fall.

Morning Glorious

I’m planning on checking out a blue clematis the next time I visit a nursery, but it must be blooming, so there are no surprises like the one I planted last fall which turned out a dark purple not the vibrant Jackmani I was expecting. All future flowers must show their true colors before they are purchased!

A few years ago a local garden tour brochure described one of the entries as the Blue Garden. I was so excited to see it – and so disappointed to find there were no blue flowers at all, except blue planters, painted rocks and bits of blue ceramic garden kitsch. I have a limited tolerance for most garden kitsch, no cutesy signs, rusty iron figures or painted trolls are allowed on my castle grounds. However I would like a cobalt blue garden cat to preside over my garden like Linda discovered at Walking Writing Wit and Whimsy. It would provide the blue color I desire, a dose of whimsy and it wouldn’t need watering. Forget the blue flowers, better to get a cat!

Have I missed any blue flowers? What is your favorite blue flower?

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Tag: hydrangeas

A Garden Party

The Blue Garden