A “bit of big” gorgeousness in the garden! CLICK TO THE CLEMATIS WEBSITE PAGE where I will continue to update my journaling notes always.
Here is the YouTube video on my Clematis. They are SO gorgeous twice a year.
I learned all about the 3 pruning groups for Clematis in my study and I am SO going to be sure I buy Group 2 as I have now which blooms twice a year. It is very important to know which pruning group Clematis you have growing in your yard. I never knew that before! It makes a big difference on when you prune. They can be identified into a group by when they bloom.
I feel like I can now prune with more purpose than before. I like that both are the same group so I can remember to do them at the same time.
I was reading How we fill our nests this morning by
and, although she has comments turned off to only subscribers so I could not comment to her to share my thoughts, I was deeply moved by the Prince song she shared called “Sometimes it Snows in April.” The title caught my eye at first because it is April and from Perryville to St. Louis and whereever just north of us they had a possible hard freeze this morning. I saw a lot of folks and garden centers covering their flowers to protect them and I was thankful that we were more around 40 degrees this morning than into the 30’s. It caused me to listen carefully to the lyrics. The song is so pleasant and softly moving.From Wikipedia, “The song's narrator recounts memories of Christopher Tracy, Prince's character from Under the Cherry Moon, and how Tracy's death affected the narrator; it also expresses their desire to hopefully rejoin Tracy in heaven.”
Prince himself died in April in 2016, making his own song stand out. Apparently I was living in an internet oblivian-hole that day.
It would make a great funeral song to help those mourning. I love analogies and the lyrics compare death to that of snow in April. I suppose the cold snap in April that I felt this morning as I walked barefoot onto the patio to let the dogs out is a bit of a shocker just like death. The reality is that sometimes snow kills new life just starting to bloom. As I look out into my garden this April day and see that my blooms survived a narrow miss, I get it.
I also think about the reality that the plants do not die, just their blooms. They get an opportunity to keep growing to bloom again next year.
There is another lyric that stands out in this song: “Always cry for love, Never cry for pain.” I am not sure how I feel about that. I think it is wishful thinking that we could always cry for love, but reality that we need to mourn and cry for pain too so that we can get through things. I give myself grace and permission to cry for pain. It’s okay. It’s God’s built in recouperating system for a healthy body.
Cell phone photo here. My view into a part of the gardens is not as glorious as in previous years with my focus on revamping things this year, removing things that are too much work or do not bring me joy, moving plants to better suited places, moving whole beds over a few feet, and changing the artistic vision, but what I see slowly forming is a good inception going in the right direction.
See you soon, and thanks,
Cheryl
So I am now a big fan of clematis. 😍
My grandmother had a couple stunning clematises when I was a kid. ❤️ I had forgotten all about them. You've inspired me to look into adding one for my home in her memory!