This Should Not Be

It has been nice this year now that our bookgroup is meeting in person again after long months (almost 2 years actually) of covid zoom calls. This year we've been able to meet at each others' homes the way we used to. And now that the weather is nice, I'm enjoying seeing the gardens at everyone's place and checking them out.

(Of course .  . . envy.)

We met in June at one home that just stunned me. Her garden, like all of ours, is a square of walled courtyard with pea gravel and stone paths. It's nicely designed and mature. 

It has an open view of the Sandia mountains to the south, which I didn't actually capture in my photos -- the mountains are the focal point from any spot in her garden and I never got a clear shot of that, just a few ridges to the east being teased by fluffy clouds.

What amazed me beyond the glorious mountain view and the mature, settled serenity of her garden was that nothing in it should be. 

First off, she has a graceful crape myrtle tree, with delicate pink flowers that were just gone by. It's an old one, that had obviously been there for decades of Santa Fe winters that sometimes hit 10 below (and in 2011 got to 22 below during one disastrous stretch). Crape myrtles do not survive below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. They don't grow here. Hers was beautiful.

Secondly, absolutely everything in her garden was in bloom all at once. How does that even happen? Butterflybush plants don't bloom until mid or late summer. This was still June.

Her delicate red flowered pineleaf penstemon was flowering (mine went by three weeks ago). Big yellow torch lilies - kniphofia - were in full bloom (mine don't even have a spike forming). Giant pink hollyhocks show off their towers of flowers (mine have some buds at this stage, there's hope). How can this all be in full open flower all at once?

And there were roses in full bloom, of course there were.

Have you ever seen a purple smokebush this fluffy and flowery? I grew one in Connecticut and had to sacrifice the flowers in order to cut it to shape. Without pruning it got to be a wild rangy monster. Here the flowers are not sacrificed and the shape is lovely. This should not be.

Nothing in this garden should be. 

Even our hostess, older than I am, with limited mobility and a string of major surgeries and drug regimens to cope with, amazed me. She gardens this place herself. I'm younger and have no medical issues and I poop out after repotting a petunia and moving a couple containers around.

The book discussion was great, the patio where we sat to talk was covered and shaded, the late afternoon air was pleasant. The distant view was New Mexico enchanting. 

But I could not shake the sense of unreality that a garden like this even exists, with plants that should not be here, tended alone by an elderly infirm gardener, and with its flowery adornments on exhibit all at one time. Wow.