Annual Report: The Year of The Vortex Part Two: The East
The eastern side of The Acres from County Road 25 to The Bog is also a wet zone. At least once or twice during the spring and summer, I can't even mow part of this area as it approaches The Bog--way too wet. Splashy wet when you walk wet. I'm sure that in one summer if I decided to become the ultimate hermit and quit mowing, The Abode would be swallowed by the Bog. Hmmmm. Just one summer . . . Ah well, God it would seem has a different assignment for me--more students to torture.
Anyway, my greatest paranoia in this area was that the witch hazel would be a victim of the Vortex. (I worried, too, about the hardy hibiscus. How hardy are they really?) The witch hazel hasn't bloomed, yet; in fact, it hasn't shown much growth, but I have my dreams for it. I'm waiting for an early spring outbreak of yellow. Who won the winter battle, you ask? Witch hazel one; Vortex zero. Yep, it came back--still no blooms, but where's there's life, there's hope. Next spring, perhaps?
Several trees of various sizes grace this area. And their age seems to have little impact on their height. A white paper birch that has been around for years is barely over a foot tall--if that. If I live to be a hundred--perish the thought--it will probably still be a foot tall. At least, maybe by then it will turn white. Two river birch reside here as well. One is, at least, twenty feet tall and the other three. The taller one already has its winter brown papery look--lovely. The smaller one--looks like a stick. Two willows live here also. One I just planted this summer so it is understandably small. The other is impressive. Fifty feet tall, slender and lithe like most willows. Loves the wet, I'm sure. In the summer when the wind is blowing, it sways and the leaves have a silvery flickering sheen. Beautiful. I promise. Is it possible to watch a tree dance in the breeze or cavort to the blast of a summer storm and feel serenity? Yes.
Bloom wise, there are three distinct flowery times down east. In May, a delicate pink flowering almond begins the show. Next to it is a flowering plum--small, but full of delicate white blooms that enhance the deep purple of the tree's leaves. The Master Designer knows how to blend His colors. Late in May, the thicket near The Bog turns pink--a curtain of everlasting sweet pea, planted by someone's Gardening Angels before I even arrived--beautify the area. The deep green of their leaves adds to the display. And they last into late July! Phase two begins in late June. An ever expanding row of orange daylilies spring to life in front of the thicket impervious to the competition. And at the same time the red swamp milkweed enters the picture. They should continue to spread too. Deep pink, red--nice combination as well, eh? Phase three? In early August--and still going strong are the hibiscus--five or six of them (I've lost count). White with maroon centers, pink, deep red. Four or five feet tall--playing in the Morrow County breeze. A delightful way to end the summer. And hardy hibiscus they are--everyone of them ignored the Vortex; and they are even more immense this summer than they were last.
And there are three lovelies that have yet to bloom here on the eastern edge of The Acres: a still growing hawthorn (white in late April when its time comes), a tiny Rose of Sharon to help the hibiscus in August, and two more orange daylily for more June color. {And there's a pot bunker bed over here as well, but that's for another story.)
All in all, The Vortex, frigid, wet, wild was completely ignored. Take that FAS.
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