Hydrangea, Newport, RI, 2024
When I was a young girl, my family would spend several weeks in the summer at my Grandmother Grace’s farm in Knoxville, Iowa. I have such pleasant memories of those summers.
Grandma worked a 60-acre farm alone since my grandfather had died before I was born. After we’d arrive, she’d pick fixings for a salad from her garden and make her famous chicken and homemade noodles. After dinner, my brothers and I would run outside and catch lightening bugs in a jar and watch them illuminate over and over again.
On Sundays, we’d go to town after church and visit with one relative or another and that was my first introduction to hydrangeas. My parents and the relatives would linger for hours drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and reminiscing. Soon, I’d be bored and sit on the large covered front porch reading and see abundant blue, pink and purple extravagant blooms on hydrangeas shrubs lining the front of neighbors’ houses up and down the street. That image of these old-fashioned flowers is forever imprinted in my brain.
For years, I tried to grow hydrangeas in my front yard, but the sun and weather in Glendale were not conducive to them so I finally gave up. When I came to Rhode Island this summer, I was amazed by how many blossoming hydrangeas bushes were everywhere. This year due to mild spring weather with no late frost, the bushes are loaded with colorful blooms at literally every third to fourth house block. It’s hydrangea heaven!
Now … on to the elephants. Who thought you could view a herd of 100 life-sized Asian elephants on Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island? “The Great Elephant Migration” is a global fundraising project and public art exhibit to inspire humans to share space with wildlife. Two hundred Indian indigenous artisans crafted these elephants from Lantana camara (one of the world’s most invasive weeds) and they are now featured at the Rough Point Mansion, the ocean-side former residence of Doris Duke; the Breaker’s Mansion; and Salve Regina University.
After the exhibition closes in Newport in early September, the elephant herd will travel to New York City, Miami, Blackfeet Nation, Montana and Los Angeles.
If you’re lucky enough to see washed up colonies, look but don’t touch and keep pets away too. Velella feed by stinging plankton with barb-tipped cells contained within their tentacles. The venom is considered harmless to human beings, but beachcombers are cautioned not to touch any jelly-like animals found on shore, as some may react more strongly to the venom than others.
Trinity Church was completed in 1726 and has been beautifully restored. This Episcopalian church has box pews of various shapes and sizes. I’ve never seen this setup before but learned they originally were built to keep parishioners warm during the winter before the building was heated. Duby and I sit in box 99 which is where his grandmother and parents once sat. A striking feature is the triple-tiered chalice-shaped pulpit that soars in front of the altar. The church is surrounded by a cemetery; some of the gravestones go back 300 years.
orest. A big loss for the Gardens. Luckily, there are 1,000 plus more Oaks still standing in the 165 acre garden.