Water Feature

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Wisdom, Writing

I spent most of this day in my green sanctuary. Away from the world. Hiding out. Holing up by choice. This, the day after the thirty-four guilty counts convicted as felon you-know-who. I weeded. I watered. I fertilized. I scrubbed more green algae from the dahlia fountain. I recycled. I re-planted. I watched birds—goldfinch, sparrows, the flicker—cheep and bounce and hop…

 
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End of the Season…

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Gardening, Home, Musings, Neighborhood

There is a spectacularly bright full moon out there on this chilly, late November night. Yesterday, I cut the final dahlias blooms of the season. They were looking a little ragged after a few nights of just-around-freezing temperatures and cold wind. Then I tackled the plants with my new, awesome Felco secateurs—they made swift work of stems and stalks

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The Last Bouquet?

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Gardening, Musings, Neighborhood, Writing

There was a frost last week in and around the Northeast Portland neighborhood where we live, a couple of miles up the hill from the Columbia River. But somehow the dahlias survived here in our micro-climate that only got to a low of 33 degrees F. I walked by other gardens where their dahlia leaves are now blackened, their unspent blooms still knobby and unopened on their stems…

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