It's Alive!

Tomorrow the meadow will take the first steps - which is, I should note, a very difficult and somewhat alarming thing for a plot of land to do - tomorrow morning. Actually, it will really become more of a heath than a meadow, but I suppose a heath can be considered a meadow of a sort. And, like all proper heaths, it will be sporting a variety of heathers, that is Calluna vulgaris, in the flavors of 'Spring Cream', 'County Wicklow', 'Tib', 'Dark Beauty', 'Corbett's Red', 'Else Frye', 'Robert Chapman', and 'Mrs R.H. Gray.' Unlike some of the more common heaths, this one will also be planted with a small quantity of - surprise as it may be - heath. Specifically Erica carnea 'December Red', 'Myretown Ruby', and 'Pink Spangles', as well as Erica darleyensis 'Ghost Hills.'

forestfarm not only took care of me price-wise (saving me much money), they also included the 'Dark Beauty' as well as a second each of 'County Wicklow' and 'Tib' - for which I need to let them know, as the plants have been great, the packaging is the best I've come across (and I used to package non-plant things professionally many moons ago), and the service is also excellent.

The plants will go into the ground in a spiral pattern, which, in the absence of the garden hose we used to lay out the pattern, will look relatively random and natural. Of course, we ordered 11 plants and the pattern calls for twelve (either the center or the very next position is to be occupied by a decent sized rock), so I'm not clear on how we'll work in the extra three heathers. After looking at them - and they're all beautiful, healthy specimens - I might rearrange from my planned pattern. We'll probably set them out next to the rock & stake marking the spot, and then shuffle them until satisfied. Likely that a bunch of the marker rocks will remain in the area, as will the native plants that were scheming to turn the green and pleasant grass into a meadow all on their own initiative.

Will also be planting a katsura - Cercidiphyllum japonicum. It's fairly sizable already, with a decent branching structure. My original plan was to use it to replace the willow that was struggling at the upper edge of Chestnut Grove, but I might put it a little further from the house. I do want it somewhat nearby the porch, as a "feature" of the tree is that, in autumn, the leaves smell like caramel or, by some report, like cotton candy.

Book Thirty-Two

Book #32: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

I'll actually be working through this book in a discussion group at Barnes & Noble University, but I couldn't wait that long after I received it.

Read the whole thing in one sitting. Good stuff, looking forward to the re-read when the class starts up.

Without talking about the book, per se, I'd like to take a quick second to address the "It's not really like American Gods" and "It's more like {insert other book name here}" kind of comments. It is certainly not, word for word, the same as any other of his books, or of any other books of which I am aware of. It is certainly not of the exact tone and timbre, of the exact hue and saturation, as any other book. It is, however, remarkably evident that it is done in the style of Neil Gaiman, which, considering he is the author, is a Good Thing. Apparently, the quality of authors and of books is such these days that one comes to expect formulaic sequels and series. Those can be quite fun, but one must not forget that there are at least a handful of authors producing excellent, unrelated work - or, at the least, pieces that may have bumped into each other once or twice, perhaps in a dark alley, but just as nearly as likely as in a white marble amphitheater with a silvery reflecting pool and the soft sounds of a fountain or waterfall or three.

Cross-posted to 50bookchallenge and me own journal