An Afternoon of Flora

 Last week in Charleston we had a beautiful afternoon full of flora: just the way I like my spring afternoons!  Dad suggested we drive to Mount Pleasant to go to Boone Hall Plantation.  I realized it may be the only plantation house in the entire Lowcountry that I've never visited.  

It was fun!  The property boasts a live oak that is allegedly 600 years old.  Imagine that!  The house is quite new, by our standards--built in the 1930s, it isn't even a centarian.  We all enjoyed the tractor tour of the farmland! But my favorite part was, unsurprisingly, the formal gardens. 

Serpentine walls inspired by Thomas Jefferson's design work in Virginia. 

Textures (may I please just take a nap in that fennel?).  

Massive, gorgeous kale!

Perfect mounds of lobularia. 

Roses, my newest minor obsession.  I wasn't able to get any ordered this year (something to do with running back and forth to Charleston all the time).  Maybe next year. 

This rose had a gorgeous spicy-sweet scent.  She's a lovely climber.  I need trellises!

My Dad walked like a trouper all over the house, gardens, and part of the grounds, but eventually settled down onto a bench to rest, and I decided to call it Time To Go. The chemo has made him a little more tired than usual, although he never complains about it.  Did I mention that my previous post about the PET scan was wrong?  The one where I said his liver tumors are behaving themselves? WRONG.  

Actually, there's no cancer in his liver at all right now.  

The original tumor in his lung, which was 4cm in January, has shrunk to about 1/4 of that size.  

Spring is so very beautiful this year.