A Figgy Embrace for GGW Picture This Contest

The theme for this month's Gardening Gone Wild photo contest is Awakening - something that's already happening in Austin and coming soon to more Northern gardens, long under snow.

Thalia the Muse of Comedy influences many of my posts and today I'll let her rule my photos, too - this photo of my Celeste Fig Tree waking up amused me because it seems to be stretching and reaching out and declaring, "Embrace Spring!"Happy Spring to all of you!

Ponds and Poetry

Uncontrolled water in the home garden can be a disaster - water confined and channeled through a water feature can be wonderful. If you're in the mood to see wonderful water features, you're in luck - it's almost time for the annual Austin Pond Society Tour, that special weekend when some of the members invite you into their gardens, demonstrating how Nature and Technology can work together to bring water, sound, plant life and animal life into your own back yard. That's our birdbath full of bluejays in the photo - if just a simple birdbath can get this much action, imagine what a pond could do!

For 2007, the event spans two days and features 30 locations - including a couple that will be open on Saturday night. Mark your calendars for Saturday and Sunday, July 14th and 15th, 2007. Wristbands are available at the Wildflower Center, Emerald Gardens and Hill Country Water Gardens, and can also be purchased online. You can also get them the day of the tour, but buying ahead can save you a couple of bucks.

Pond Tour Information on the APS website

The Pond Society kindly linked to my posts about last year's tour. We made it to almost all of the Saturday locations - mainly in-town ponds, loaded with ideas for urban and suburban gardeners - but I didn't have the camera with me that day. On Sunday I took photos at some unusual ponds in more rural settings out to the NW of Austin. If you're interested, here are links:

Liberty Hill 2006 One , Liberty Hill 2006 Two, Liberty Hill 2006 Three,

Leander 2006 and the Night Tour

The Pond Society site also has links to photo galleries from several previous tours.

Carolyn at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago is trying to get a garden muse day going on the first of each month, much as Carol of May Dreams has encouraged us to post flower photos for Garden Blogger Bloom Day on the 15th.

There's also a 'Green Thumb Sunday', a monthly 'Festival of the Trees', and even a 'Wordless Wednesday' going around. My first reaction was that things are getting awfully organized and scheduled in the garden blogging world. I'm starting to feel like an Austin Slacker version of Huckleberry Finn, suspicious that the Widow Douglas is trying to 'sivilize' me and think I'll slope off for the river.

But the idea kind of grew on me, so what the heck - here's a poem for Garden Muse Day. When one of the Muses whispers in my ear, it's seldom Calliope guiding me to epic poetry, or Melpomene leading me to write tragedy. No - the Muse that usually shows up is Thalia, inspiring comedy. Maybe she also inspired me to plant 'Thalia' narcissus, seen in this March photo.

The following rhyme is a few years old. A lot of my garden verse has been set to music with more than a dozen of the songs comprising an in-progress musical comedy copyrighted as Roots in Austin. I've made some of the songs into videos for YouTube - they're linked at left in the sidebar. More videos are in the works, but this little snippet of doggerel doesn't seem to have a musical future - it's slight, and cute, and nerdy in a horticultural way:

CALLA
A long time ago from a silvered movie screen
Came words made immortal by a cinematic queen:
“The calla lilies are in bloom,” said Hepburn in a trance;
At seventeen I knew that I must own these lovely plants.

In Northern lands I nurtured them, rejoicing at one flower.
My rhizomes cellar-dwellers were through winter’s chilling hours.
To Texans they’re less precious - here they’ll live with no protection,
Yet still are waxy, delicate, a chlorophyll confection.

The spathe emerges from the soil; the spadix is concealed.
Soon luminous white, or pearly pink, or yellow is revealed.
Some ask for Zantedeschia, preferring Latin words,

Too many calla flowers? Never! The concept is absurd.

Written by Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Garden Muse Day