An unusually hot spring
It was 80 degrees yesterday and the magnolias all burst into bloom.
We’re taken by surprise.
Japan 2011: Tsukubai
The tsukubai in my garden
Tsukubai, stone water basins, are an important element in the gardens leading to a Tea house. In Japan we saw them in most every garden. They are used to rinse ones hands before entering the tea house.
What’s interesting to me are the shapes and design of each basin. Also of note is the way they are settled in the landscape. I have a Tsukubai in my garden and I’m studying how to plant around the basin and where to place the various stones.
Many of the Tsukubai in these pictures have moss growing on them, which is very picturesque, but for tea you would have a very clean basin.
Planting spring bulbs
Fall is a most wonderful time and one gets quite excited about planting bulbs for spring. I have visions of my front lawn carpeted with bright blue scillia and early flowering crocus so this fall I ordered lots of bulbs to plant. It is most distressing when they arrive to realize you have ordered hundreds of tiny corms that need individual planting, one-by-one.
Seiko came up for the weekend and it took the two us at least the morning to dig the bulbs.
But what Sei Shonagon would call “things later regretted” is to go to the mail box a week later and find a box FULL of twenty five more bulbs to plant.
Come back later this spring and I’m sure the crocus, scillia, frittalaria, muscari, allium, chionodoxa and leucojum will all be found under her category of “things that make you feel cheerful”.
