Inspiration to fend off whelmed.

Last week this family spent our Spring Break at Wing and Wing, my parents home on the Cheasepeake. My parents have an unequivocally beautiful, comfortable homeplace. I have left feeling something I will preferably call "inspired", as coming home has given me a bit of energy  that seems to be rooted in trying to make my own home more habitable.... but I have decided to focus that bit of energy in a specific, as the general can easily change "inspired" into "overwhelmed". The inspiration from Wing and Wing could alight most anywhere, as the interiors, creativity, food, sport are all so. But to avoid overwhelmed must choose...that specific is the gardens. I am industrious at making gardens, worse at maintaining them. ( Glum expression). But Wing and Wing has acquired, under my parents care, extensive and lovely gardens and one can't help but wish you had trees blooming so abundantly, boxwood so precisely interwoven and cascades of roses draping off an adorable chicken house. I have none of these things, but I have glimmers of the possible, which is why the day after our homecoming, I spent the lion share of daytime in one of my gardens. Youngest helped move weeds to the compost, stalks to the burn pile and provide entertainment.

The Inspiration:

Wing and Wing

The knot garden, with the chicken house behind, the cove beyond.

Morning in the garden. The trees are a-bloomin'!

The large, deep porch spreads along the entire back of the house, and leads to the pool, back gardens and dock.

The subject of focus:

What we call the "Anniversary Garden" at Cowfeathers. It is mainly a perennial bed. Beyond is our own ocean (of corn stubble). We have a pool (small, green, plastic, full of muddy duck water) beyond the adorable outbuilding (crumbling tractor shed, now being prepared to house pigs). The Anniversary garden features tulips and grape hyacinths( the ones not eaten by the healthy, prehistoric sized moles)at the end of March, beginning of April, and is accesible by avoiding piles of dog poop in the yard (Julia hasn't learned to go "away") or, through the mudroom- only for the truly brave.
And, it is currently fairly weed-free with trimmed box. Ah. Inspiration.