…which had gotten really weedy on the alley edge. I remembered my goggles — a session at the doc’s getting my cornea perforated (like a lawn aeration) so it would re-adhere (a flying rock had created a bubble or loose spot) —persuades me that I don’t want to go through that again. It was under a local. Those who are antsy about contact lenses need not contemplate the event.
I did however forget to change out of my sandals, and had my feet peppered with highspeed gravel: no glass, however. Which was good. If I weren’t so lazy in the day’s heat I’d have trekked 30 feet back to the house and gotten the toed shoes, but hey, pain is nicer than walking in the heat.
I got to the bottom of the weedpatch that surrounds the forsythia. At least.
Now I should take the wheelbarrow out there and start digging away at that chest-high stack of basalt chips, but the heat, the heat…ugh. We’re building up humidity: it’s on a two-day buildup toward several days of rain.
did we ever identify the shrub on the corner of the house? As you exit the front door, turn left, go to that corner, and there was a shrub with large white blossoms. Some of us thought it might have been a mock orange, others weren’t sure, I asked if it could have been a gardenia, since its scent reminded me of that flower.
We are still not sure what it is. It smells like oranges. Its blooms are white and small as apple blossoms, so it can’t be a gardenia. It smells so nice we’ve not had the heart to cut it down. But it is not the loveliest of bushes.
I haven’t seen it; does Jane have a photo? From your description it’s mock orange, the flowers smell like orange blossoms, the habit particularly on older varieties is rangy to say the least. The newer varieties don’t have the strong orange scent that I remember from the bush that grew under my bedroom window when i was a kid.
We should get a photo when it’s in flower: it does that in spring. Maybe we’ve got one somewhere.
I thought I’d taken a picture, but I guess not….I looked through all of my ShejiCon3 pictures and nothing of the front of the house……
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choisya_ternata
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gardeniaflower.jpg
Joe, I think you MAY have pegged it or come very close, in choisya ternata. Gardenia flowers are much too large, but the small orange-smelling flowers may do it.
And productive of alkaloids, too. 😉
Maybe satinwood? We have a huge hedge of them, full of sweet-scented white flowers followed by red berries:
http://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/1869/orange-jessamine.php
Off topic but wanted to call your attention to it, CJ, is this –Notably the seventh paragraph of her answer. Good question.
Ooop, posted instead of previewed. The whole article was very thought provoking and worth reading, no less so because you’re mentioned again as one of her major influences.
I second Smartcat: what you have, CJ & Jane, is my favorite June flowering (in New England) shrub — Mock Orange. The scent is absolutely delightful, if possible even lovelier than lilacs (and I am a confirmed Lilac Snorker).
I hadn’t known about the older varieties being more scented. Thanks, Smartcat, for explaining why the old bush at my Grandma’s camp (now Aunt & Uncle’s year-round place) is heavenly smelling and what is definitely a Mock Orange bush found here at my place when we moved in doesn’t have a scent at all. Why breed out the best part of the plant?