Study Curtains--The Final Product

The New Curtains
Here they are!--the finished curtains, achieved by my mother with blood, sweat, and tears. Or the seamstressy version thereof.

Here they are on the double windows to the east.

New curtains on the east windows

And here they are on the door and south window.

New curtains on the door and south window

I think they look pretty frickin awesome. I think the blue really works with the orangey-tan walls, and the brown keeps their exuberance within reasonable limits.

Nice, no?

While on Mom-related themes, Mom had inquired about the identities of a few of our plants, so I thought I'd post them here.

Plant ID for Mom
First there is this hardy red amaryllis (Hippeastrum x johnsonii). They're a bit hard to find in the nursery trade, though I believe the Southern Bulb folks have them, and also Austin's Natural Gardener. Better still is to cozy up to someone who has a bunch of these in their yard and see if they'll give you a few. However, you don't often see them in suburbs--you find them in little old towns with lots of old houses and old plantings.

Hardy red amaryllis (Hippeastrum x johnsonii)

She also liked the looks of 'Belinda's Dream,' which has a modern rose's shape with an antique's vigor and attractive bush form. BD i s one of Matt's favorites, too, though he recently told me that his very favorite is 'Duchesse de Brabant.' Just like Teddy Roosevelt.

Belinda's Dream

Linden, Cordia, and other Garden News
In non-curtain-related news, our little baby cordia (Cordia boissieri) is blooming its first blooms. It was a jittery little thing in the evening breeze, and wouldn't sit still to take a proper picture.

Cordia boissieri

The linden (Tilia sp.) we bought from Medina Gardens in the fall is making a shapely looking little sapling. I learned all sorts of fascinating things about lindens the other day (courtesy of wikipedia). I had no idea they were so rich in folklore and history. And they can live over a millenium! That is an advanced level of awesomeness--the kind of awesomeness I usually associate with oaks and baldcypresses and sequoias. Lindens (also known as basswoods here in the US and "limes" in the UK--no relation to the citrus) have a number of medicinal uses, make great honey, are a versatile wood, make good musical instruments, make good charcoal, are the national symbols of several east European countries, were sacred to pre-Christian Germanic peoples, and figure in Wagner, Ovid, Homer, Horace, Virgil, and Pliny. A 900-year-old specimen in Germany was supposedly planted by the Empress Cunigunde.

Tilia sp.

Also, our 'Fourth of July' roses are blooming vigorously, which is very pleasing. As usual, my camera--which is great at green--can't quite capture the deep crimson of the real thing.

'Fourth of July' roses

And it's not just the FoJ that's blooming. Actually, all the roses are in bloom, with 3 exceptions: 'Lichterloh,' which is just starting to look as though it may choose life, 'Buff Beauty,' which has been oddly standoffish since it was planted, and 'Ferdinand Pichard,' which suffered some major RoundUp damage last year. RU damage in roses, interestingly, doesn't always show up right away--you often see it the following spring, when new leaves are trying to emerge. They get this scrawny witchy look to the new leaves and the flowers are spoiled. I dumped a bunch of compost on FP in compensation, but he's still looking pretty miserable. I'm sure he'll pull through, but right now he'd hating life.

'Ferdinand Pichard' with severe RoundUp damage

FP aside, and if we ignore the existence of pollen, it's a glorious time of year--temperate weather, actual rain, green in the median strips, and flowers everywhere in the garden.