Flowering and leaning in at sunrise…

The Gardens have been in a bit of scramble around The Inn*, getting ready for their wedding debut.

On Saturday.

Ya.

This Saturday.

I mean, I think that I have it crazy! In The Gardens case, there are like a bazillion flowers and leaves and stuff trying to coordinate themselves into a colorful display worthy of a certain bride and groom.

And also, like, a hundred and twenty-nine to a hundred and thirty-four guests (Saint Heidi – wedding coordinator extraordinaire – says her magic number of ‘last minute yes-es’ is five, so I’m going with that because she hasn’t steered us wrong (wrongly? (I have no time to check the rightly-ness of that because, you know, I’m planning a wedding)).

So the garden.

Everyone, every single plant, has been busy growing and blooming just as fast as it possibly can. And some of them are dealing with all kinds of setbacks – which I have told them is to be expected during wedding prep, but some are surprised anyway. Like last week when a wind-wHipping thunderstorm showed up and the peonies were so scared they dropped their pants.

Okay, petals.

But they totally freaked out and then we had to pick them all up because no one wants to see peony petals all over the place… mostly because that causes you to start looking around for a nearby naked peony and no one wants to see that.

The other day I took a walk outside pre-pre-pre sunrise, at approximately 3:45 a.m. (because apparently weddings are responsible for about a 96.4 percent sleep loss in the weeks preceding them if you are in any way responsible for planning them. Or if you are getting married. But mostly if you are responsible for planning for them I think).

Anyway, eventually the sun rose.

And its rays touched different parts of the waterside grasses and blooms. Some in proper wedding whites…

Wedding whites

Others in their own brands of pinks and yellows and lavenders and sages…

Pinks and yellows and lavenders and sages in and around the step on which the bride will pause on her way to the aisle…

These gardens have been about ten years in the creating and installing and growing and blooming and being, and I’ve had much help along the way. I’ve puttered and fretted over young apple trees and hydrangeas, yarrows and coryopsis-es.

I’ve tracked a bee or two (or hundreds) around lavender spires…

Spires (and a background bee)

And plucked my share of beetles from roses.

Beetle free… they might be afraid of me by now (that is my garden hope… and dream!)

The big rose bed… also beetle free (well… today anyway)

And now – well, four days from now… my little girl is going to marry the love of her life (and he is going to marry his) surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of plants and flowers that have come together into sort of a botanical flash mob – one that has practiced and practiced, and then practiced some more toward a pretty cool event.

I bet they get all their steps just right.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks for readin’.

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