Every summer I look forward to heading over to Otter Lake in Ontario for a few days of vacation with my family, especially my three nephews. Snorkeling for lost fishing lures, eating spaghetti sandwiches, and playing poker with imaginary money are only three things on our annual Must Do list. The other is paddling over to a truly amazing marsh in my kayak to see natural water gardening at its finest. This year there were literally thousands of white water lilies in this fairly large...
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There are weeds and there are flowers, and we are usually quite adamant about which is which. But in some cases, like that of the bull thistle, a weed, I feel the argument should be made that it is a wonderful flower in all the important ways.First, there are its hot brilliant purple blooms which are just bursting from the hedge where I missed seeing it as a weed earlier this summer. ...
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Every once in a while the garden reveals a completely new and unexpected thing. This week I came into the garden with my morning coffee and I found a cicada sunning himself beside the jasmine. I had never seen one before, and only knew what it was because I had a tablecloth from Provence where the cigale, as it is known there, decorates each corner...now one was decorating my porch. It was not beautiful in an obvious way. ...
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