White flowers extend day into night with wisps of light and pools of brightness attracting moonbeams, perfuming the air.

Gertrude Jekyll’s garden had clouds of white gypsophila –

Vita Sackville-West created an entire white garden that makes it difficult to call another one to mind.  If you have been to Sissinghurst you know what I mean.

Vita planned that her white garden would be planted in the winter of 1949-50 – she called it the “pale garden that I am now planting under the first flakes of snow.”

Her garden survives today to the delight of a steady stream of visitors, admirers, and die-hard gardeners.  Gardens like Sissinghurst make all gardeners hopeful  – it makes them aspire to the next level, plant by plant, blister by blister, year by year.

Vita said, “Still no gardener would be a gardener if he did not live in hope.”

While I do not have a white garden, I do have a number of plants that represent the family of all things blanc – and in varied shades of white, something like the Benjamin Moore paint chart of “whites.”

After the crocus, hellebores, lily of the valley, muscari, leucojum, tulips and others have gone, a summer cycle comes around.  The cycle that I am a witness to – a time that I can enjoy, visit in the early mornings and late afternoons when the light is so photogenic – even for an amateur with a Canon digital.  Must say, I am enjoying a new Leica too.

I look forward to the Oriental lilies and their intoxicating fragrance.  I look forward to more white flowers in my garden, I aspire to make it better  – I have hope – but in the meantime, I will simply enjoy it!

June 26, 2009