Sunday Stroll-July 20, 2008

Welcome to my garden, for a Sunday Stroll on an extremely hot, muggy July day. The best thing going on in my yard right now is happening in my tall garden (aka the "crazy" garden). Several years ago I read a wonderful book about Monet's garden at Giverney, and was inspired to try to copy that, though of course on a much smaller scale. Monet's garden was actually an experiment in light, and how light was reflected in nature. This was the subject that obsessed him in his painting, and if you've seen much of his work you'll remember all the canvasses he did of water lilies, with the reflections off the water. In the Chicago Art Institute there is a whole wall of canvasses where he painted a haystack at different times of the day, to see how the light changed. His garden was planted purposefully to allow him to experiment like this. He loved tall plants, because he could sit down among them, and look up through them at the sunlight flooding through at various times of the day, or various seasons, and quickly put down paint to capture that ephemeral quality of light.

I am not the painter in the family; I leave that to my husband and my second son, though neither chooses the outdoors for his subject matter. But I do like to sit on the little bench at the back of my tall garden and see how the light is treating my flowers that tower above me. Everything back there is at least shoulder high when I'm standing. Sitting, it becomes a beautiful little haven. At least, until the mosquitoes find me!

Here's the pumpkin update. They've almost doubled in size this week! I can see that the gardener has homed in on about four he thinks might work for competition. Again, the leaves on the vines are about waiste high.

This last one is the biggest by far.

Thanks for strolling with me! To see more strollers, head over to The Quiet Country House.