I’ve been drying a couple of sprigs from the garden in my studio and Burl Ives came to mind this morning! Happy Wednesday!
I’ve been drying a couple of sprigs from the garden in my studio and Burl Ives came to mind this morning! Happy Wednesday!
Happy Tuesday! I’m very excited this week about how my little garden is growing because the climbing roses are finally blooming! I’ve been watching for these small, light pink beauties, and I thought I would share some photos and a little of the story of growing them. My grandmother planted the climbing rose at our farmhouse probably sometime when my mother was young. It’s been blooming next to the fence behind the house and beside the road for as long as I can remember. Even when the house wasn’t in use and the fencerow overgrown, the rose still bloomed. And now, it has spread along much of the fencerow leading to the farmhouse — a testament to perseverance and a yearly joy and reminder of many good times at the farm.
Last year, we spent Memorial Day weekend at the farm, and my Mom and I dug up a few clumps of the rose and piled them into a couple of 5-gallon buckets. If it had thrived for years on the farm with no care at all, I was hoping that my questionable green thumb could make it work in my yard. We brought it home, but didn’t really have time to replant it right away. We combined the clumps into one big black plastic pot with drainage and sat it in a relatively sunny spot in the backyard. We eventually trimmed the longer vines, cut off some of the dead parts, added in some more soil, and let it go again. Only one or two green shoots survived, and I was pretty sure we would have to try again next year.
But, I was wrong! We checked on it through the summer and fall and the rose started putting on new growth. I had picked a spot beside the porch of our storage building that I thought would be nice for the climbing roses, so we moved the pot there to see how it would fair. It kept its green through temperatures in the teens this winter and started growing! We got a small trellis for it to climb and trained the new shoots toward the lattice. Mid-spring, the rose started to put on buds, and I’m excited to say they are in bloom now! I’m waiting until it finishes its blooming season, and we’ll actually put the rose in the ground with a new and larger trellis, hopefully to give it more room to continue climbing. It’s been very special to me to have something in my own garden that my grandmother had in hers for so long, and to enjoy success in this little gardening experiment. I’ll keep you posted on the rose’s next journey into soil and our progress expanding the trellis area. Meanwhile, enjoy some of these glimpses of the first blooms.
This year I’ve planted two “Sara Bernhardt” peonies, and I’m enjoying the first of their blooms. I was expecting more vibrant color, but these first ones are so delicately white and light pink in the morning light!
I’ve been keeping up with my fledgling garden through the front and back lawns this spring, and I snapped this brilliant bloom in the rose bushes this morning. I’m finding that gardening is a delightful exercise in anticipation.
We’ve been so excited to welcome Spring temperatures and weather over the last few weeks! I’ve been hankering to get started with more flower gardening around the house and getting our own little “garden” reclaimed from the elements. So far, we have all enjoyed getting our hands dirty.
I wanted to share a small repurposing story today. Take a look at these gorgeous spring blooms! The tulip bulbs started out in some potted arrangements my mother used last spring for some entertaining. The pots were a combination of various spring blooms, and once they faded, she passed them down to me. We put them — pots and all — in a corner of the backyard and forgot about them through the winter, unsure if the tulips would bloom again. A few weeks ago we noticed some peeks of color over in the west corner. All the bulbs were budding again, including the tulips! I suppose we can thank this unusually cold winter for that blessing. We’ve transplanted all the bulbs to highlight the porch of the storage building we call “the little house,” and we’ve been enjoying them ever since. They will be waning soon, so I wanted to make a record of the repurposed beauties. I hope your day is just as vibrant.
Hello & welcome! I’m Haley Montgomery, and I’m the designer and owner of Small Pond Graphics. I sometimes fancy myself a frog kisser— a documentarian coaxing poignant moments from unexpected places. This blog has evolved from those moments.
The small Pond FIELD GUIDE is part diary, part sketchbook, and part wish list – an archive of ordinary wonders. For years, this space has housed my stories – creative ideas, vintage inspiration, our forays into curious places, and the simple artifacts of quiet of conscious living. Through watercolor, photography, and illustrated tales, these pages uncover the blessing of ordinary days and the wonder found in authentic places and pursuits.
I invite you to open the boxes.
Peek into the drawers.
Rustle through the pages.
I’m honored to have you here.
© Haley Montgomery for Small Pond Graphics.
All rights reserved.
Sharing of photos and images from this site is acceptable, provided that proper crediting links are included. No downloadable content may be distributed without written permission. All art is a gift forward. Please support designers, creators and makers everywhere by respecting copyright ownership of creative property.
NEED A FROG KISSER?
Phone: 662.312.4001
Contact Haley to dive in