Abbondanza – Italian for abundance
A mild winter and a warm wet spring has set the garden awash in flowers and foliage beyond all expectation. Every day, another dozen flowers bloom for the first time – each morning is a new vision of color and texture, a subtle shift from the day before. And the scent! Wild honey locust in the woods mingle their heavy sweet fragrance with the climbing roses scrambling along the fence, with subtler notes from the iris and cranesbills. Birds, butterflies, dragonflies, and bees of all stripes hover and swoop through the garden. Here are some photos of the garden in the past few days. Enjoy!
For a wonderful essay and photos on abundance in the garden, visit Catherine O’Meara’s post “First Person, Present” in her blog The Daily Round.
Anyone who has a library and a garden wants for nothing. Cicero
composerinthegarden 
The garden looks great.
Thanks, Paul!
The root in abbondanza and abundance is the Latin noun unda, which meant ‘wave’ and before that ‘water’, so an abbondanza is literally ‘an overflowing’. Looks like that’s what you experienced.
Steve, thanks for visiting and commenting – “an overflowing” is definitely the descriptor here. And thanks for the parsing of abbondanza!
What a gorgeous garden! 🙂
Thanks, Tracy!
Beautiful! My yard isn’t quite as abundant. Early Spring, but coolish temps. It is fun to see what’s new everyday. Love my morning walks with my coffee.
Your yard is wonderful – I could get lost! Such gorgeous roses…they don’t grow well in my garden. The only one I enjoy is a pale pink shrub rose which is fully in bloom now; weeks ahead of schedule. (I planned a garden party in early June for the blooms. What usually blooms then is blooming now – go figure.)
Love the Lambs’ Ear. I had 2 long-standing perennials that didn’t like our mild winter and didn’t come up – Lambs’ Ear and Foxglove. 😦
Thanks for sharing the slideshow – it brightened my day!
Thank you, Paula. Roses don’t do as well in this garden as they did in my previous one that had a warmer microclimate. Several roses are Griffith Buck roses, which are winter hardy to Zone 4; the others are hardy shrub types; all are grown on their own roots and come back even if knocked back over winter. With this past winter being so mile, my roses are early by 2 weeks as well – all bets are off this year!
So true!
Such an abundance of colour and beauty. Abbondanza is such a lovely title.
Thank you, Chris – “abbondanza” is often the first word that comes into my mind on a morning walk through the garden 🙂
The roses here in Italy just now are so beautiful. When I walk past my friend’s garden in the afternoon the fragrance washes over me. I wish it would last forever.
Italy is a wonderful place for roses; they do a lot of rose breeding and trials. I have always wanted to go to Ninfa south of Rome to see the climbing roses cascading through the ruins 🙂
Outstanding color, photos, and (of course) garden. Glad you got the chives in the mix this time. 😉
Thank you, Frank! I thought of you when I included the chives 🙂
Wonderful! I can almost smell the fragrance.
Wonder what Cicero would have said about the Internet? 🙂
Thanks, Johna! Now that is an interesting question! I would like to believe that he would join in the fray and contribute his wisdom, but then, his speeches did get him in a lot of trouble!
I love the creative profusion visible in some of these shots that seems “natural”, almost wild—clearly, not an English, much less French, garden 😉
That’s a wonderful compliment, Vlad, and exactly my intention as a gardener. I’m a big believer in the guiding hand rather than the controlling hand – a favorite garden book is “A Gentle Plea for Chaos” by Mirabel Osler. Many thanks for your comment!
Lynn. Your garden pictures are stunning. I had no idea that an Iris had been named after Beverly Sills. Nice! I love all of the pics of your irises, especially. You have a most enviable garden. ET
Thanks, Eleanor! I sometimes buy plants because they have a name with a musical connection – I got lucky with Beverly Sills as it is both beautiful AND vigorous! I’m still waiting for pics of your garden 🙂
Lovely pics from a beautiful setting! By the way, enjoyed your latest musical creation as well — almost haunting!
Graham, thanks for visiting and commenting! Glad you liked “Breath” – I thought you might. 🙂
What beauty surrounds you. I can see you walking along, drinking in the sights and scents of it all.
Thanks, Joss. It is a great treasure and I spend every minute I can in the garden 🙂
Oh I would love to come and sit in The Chair your garden is so inviting. I have the Vellchienblu sp? purple rose I didn’t realize it will get so big, this post is both beautiful and informative thank you.
Carol, the view from The Chair is the best in the garden – I look forward to sitting in it each evening. Veilchenblau is a wonderful rose, gets about 15-20′ but drapes itself gracefully – mine is about 6 years old. It only blooms once a year but what a bloom!
Your garden is so beautiful. I would love to have seat, and just enjoy the scents, sounds, and beautiful sights. 🙂
Thanks, Robin – it is a great place to be, especially in the early morning.
I certainly did enjoy the photos, the shots of the herb garden were so inviting, I can imagine walking around there, stopping here and there to touch or smell or simply stare. Right I’m off to check the link you gave 🙂
Claire, thanks for stopping by and commenting. And you described exactly how I move through the garden in the morning, “stopping to touch and sniff or simply stare.” One of the great pleasures of having a garden 🙂
Oh, such beauty and such wonderful photos! The quote from Cicero sums it up…except for music, of course, and 4-legged buddies and the love of a longtime companion…what an excellent way to enhance a day when I celebrate Spirit’s guidance, in-dwelling, and flow in my life and throughout the earth…thank you so much for sharing your many gifts with us and thank you, too, for the link to my post…joy to you!
Catherine, thank you as always for your wonderful comments! And it was my pleasure to link to your post; your words were far more eloquent than mine in capturing that feeling of the garden at this time in the season.
You have a beautiful garden, Lynn. I love the close-ups and the intimate shots as well.
Kerry, thank you so much. I often think of my garden planting style as “photogenic gardening” – I plant lots of background plants to “set the scene” not unlike creating backdrops for a portrait studio – if I can’t get a good portrait, I rethink the planting. So, the camera is in a way my most important gardening tool 🙂