It has been too long...

Apologies to anyone who actually reads this spaced out rambling of a blog, I know I have been lacking in posts for a while now. The final weeks of any final project in an Architecture program are hectic, filled with 18-20 hour days, and sometimes strings of days without sleep. (I think the personal record for this semester goes to a good friend of mine who worked the full last week on her project with 6 hours sleep, across 4 days) Drawings must be spectacular, models well crafted, and this is no easy feat. In the studio, we deal with tempers and egos flaring to an alarming level, meltdowns of every shape and size, our cigarette addictions doubling in size, trash building up like small foul-smelling mountains, lack of home-cooked (or sometimes cooked at all) meals. All this leads to pinning our completed work up on a wall, dressing as neatly as possible, shaving the weeks of stubble from our faces, applying a thick coat of foundation under our eyes so as not to look like a raccoon, and presenting. An architecture jury goes like this: 1. You present your project, hoping against hope you remember why you made and drew everything up on the wall and all the while wondering where the semi-articulate speech uttering from your lips is actually coming from, as your brain is probably the consistency of tapioca after the last week. 2. Upon completing the presentation portion of the jury, a panel of distinguished visitors, who have never seen your work before, tell you why you are a complete waste of space, or how awesome you are, but most likely a blend of 60% bad, 40% good. 3. You sit down, and try to remain awake (this hardly ever happens) for your fellow classmates turn. 4-9 hours later, you pin down your work, almost literally throw it on your desk, and leave. Now here is the strange part...even though you haven't slept in a month, the fact that it is over and done with creates a new gust of lucidity, and nearly everyone in the class is chattering about which local dive bar to invade, drinking and talking long into the night about how awful or great the semester was. I know this whole systems seems horrid, but it actually is quite invigorating. It takes a passion for what you are doing to cope with this, especially considering that the average salary for an architect is somewhere around 40,000 after 5-7 years in the field, and entry level is a mere 25-30,000. I love my classmates, and enjoy each semester of learning....but sometimes I really just want to dig in the dirt..

So herein lies the point of this post. I have had lots of pretties blooming and growing, and when I have the chance in the mornings, or whenever I happen to be home, I snap a couple pictures, meaning to post them on here. Now I get my chance. This is a load of pictures, some roses, some daylilies, and various other things. These range back over the past month, and some back to February, as I finally found my iris pictures. So enjoy, and let me know what you think:

The Cleome is really taking off!

Capitane Dyell de Granville

"Forever in Time" from the Nethertons' at Peace on Earth Gardens

again, with mealycup sage and sweet potato vine (which is taking over!)

An older variety of daylily from my mother's yard.

Not sure on the variety, but its so lovely.

looking to the oldest pergola, with Mrs. B.R. Cant climbing up and over.

I am finally getting my hydrangeas to turn, they were SO pink last year from the alkalinity.

Leveson Gower and Vincent Gosdiff

My first thripless bloom in Anna Olivier

Anna, and two of my three hounds. 

Mrs. B.R. Cant. This bloom was nodding down in my path, and just begged me to take a picture.

Abraham Darby flopping over the adjacent fence, along which grows a passionflower vine.

and again, isn't he handsome?

This variety of passionflower (maypop as we call them) smells just like fresh laundry to me. Very clean and very beautiful.

I believe this to be "always joy" but I am not sure, as it got misplaced in another clump.

My first Paul Neyron bloom! Nearly 4 inches across at the height of bloom, and smells to me like lemons and tea. 

The aforementioned mystery day lily.

My sweet girl, Cinnamon. (I did not choose the name, she was adopted)

Heirlooms from my grandmother. She loved iris, and even though they tell me most iris won't grow here, these apparently did not listen. These bloomed in February, and I thought I had lost the pictures. 

So now that the Spring semester is over, I have 1.5 weeks to devote to the garden. Boy have I missed it, and it shows. Apparently the camphor trees in my yard are trying to kill me, as every seed they produced has been viable, and I now have to spend the next two days ripping those damn little trees out of every bed, crack in the sidewalk, and anywhere else they fell. Here I thought oak trees were bad. HA! Absolutely no contest. The upside is, I got a gift certificate for ARE on my 30th that I still need to use, and I now get to put my spring/summer rose order together. There are upsides to everything.

Sorry for the epic length of the post, I have missed writing and I felt the need to catch up. 

Ciao,

Ken