Delightful Spots In our April Garden

Early in the morning, when the light is fresh and special, I like to walk around the garden. I make believe that it has trails along the garden to hideout corners where a surprise awaits me. I make believe the trails are stretching and winding around the flowers for miles. On one bright morning I took the camera and looked closely at my favorite flowers. At the far end of the garden a Red Abutilion is raging.
I enjoy the flowers, but my To Do List is growing:
Prune the vines around the Red Abutilion, before it is too late.
Fertilize the Citrus fruit dwarf trees.
Plant more vegtables.
Make the new red stepping stones even with the soil.
Buy some Sulfur to cure the diseased Peach. Poor Peach, a fungus attacked it and the leaves are curled.

I walk back on the trail leading to the grape vine arbour. Behind the swing a glorious new Peony.



The corner under the kitchen window is my cottage garden. Under a low trellis a delicate Clematis is trying to climb up.




I once read an article about a garden with 6000 Clematis plants. I wish I had only 600 clematis climbing all around the fences. Have a look at the one behind the pink abutilion.


The tiny red garden pencil add some notes to the Garden To Do List:
Find the special name for every Clematis in the garden.
Do not forget to plant the new impressive red Clematis.
Fertilize! Fertilize everywhere.

I climbed slowly the four steps back to the veranda. For a moment I turned back to the garden and saw the apple trees just starting to have some green leaves and flower buds.

Peony

When I first came to live in Palo Alto, about 20 years ago, I observed next to a house on Middlefield Rd, a magnificent, huge white flowers blooming on a small unimpressive low tree. Since then every year, at the end of February, I pass by the tree and watch for its flowers. Years ago when I first saw the flowers I learnt their name: “White Peonies.”
I soon tried to plant peonies in my garden. I planted a tree peony and four peony bushes. The tree and the bushes are success. The Peony tree, every year in March, decorate itself with about thirty large purple flowers, an astonishing sight. But the pleasure from the crown of the flowers is annually ruined by rain. Whether it is a year full of rain or a drought year, the next day after the peony’s buds open, the sky are open and a splash of water wrinkle and damage the silk petals of my peony tree.
This year the peony’s flowers stood firmly and were not ruined as you see in the photo above. Slowly they fade and the petals drop around the tree. Every year I wait for these few days of splendor and magnificence.
There are many garden books, history books, old medicine books, legends, articles and fiction literature about the Peony flower. If I was not so involved in a few hobbies I would take upon myself to create a bibliography about the Peony.

I looked up Peony in AskOxford.com and here a quatation from the dictionary: "herbaceous or shrubby plant cultivated for its showy flowers.
— ORIGIN Greek paionia, from Paion, the physician of the gods."

"

Clematis Armandii

Walking through Palo Alto streets, I smelt an intense, sweet fragrance. It came from a tall fence covered with white flowers. I felt that I, too, should have the beautiful white vine with the deep green foliage on the fence in my garden. I did not know the name, but one day, about two years ago,I was visiting Filoli Gardens and there I saw the vine for sale. One was not enough for me and I bought two. I planted them, one next to the north fence and one next to the south fence. While planting them I forgot to pay attention for the name, but now while keeping records of the life of my garden in a diary I searched and found the name "Clematis Armandii."
Clematis Armandii is named to honor the Vincentian priest Jean Pierre Armand David. He was also an avid Zoologist and Botanist. On a mission to China he collected hundreds of specimens of the many groups in the natural world. Many of the specimens were first discovered by him and many specimens were named after him. He is best known for discovering the giant Panda.
Read more about Armand David in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_David
and in
http://www.vincentians.org.au/Studies/ScottBDavid.pdf
I found out that the author George Bishop created a book about David Armand "Travels in Imperial China: The Exploration and Discoveries of Pere David.
I published the blog, called my sister Ora and we both looked at the photos while chatting. The conversation quickly sailed far away from the Clematis Armandii's photo. While we spoke about this and that, the photo displayed on the screen and we both suddenly noticed that the flowers have different numbers of petals. "Have a look at the left corner of the photo and you can see flowers with four, five and six petals." we both exclaimed.
There is few interesting facts about petals in wikipedia, under "Petal".
While searching the net, for "flowers with different numbers of petals," I found out that on many plants the number of petals is a Fibonacci number.
"Oh," I sighed deeply, "long ago I did study about Fibonacci numbers but today I do not think I can give you a lecture about the subject."
Still it is intriguing. I am planning to start reading about the subject at the site "Flower Pattern and Fibonacci Numbers
http://www.popmath.org.uk/rpamaths/rpamages/sunflower.html

Today, April 3, 2010 the flowers are gone. I can't take closeup photos of the flowers with 4, 5, 6, petals. Four and six are not Fibonacci numbers.
I'll have to wait for next year.