Roses and Apples
April 7th, 2010
Now, a few days at home in North Carolina, where the pollen is so intense that I seem to be looking through a golden veil. Everyone is mainlining Claritin. The wild wisteria ramples through the pines and white dogwoods peer out from the edges of the woods. With temperatures in the 90’s we’ve gone directly from winter to summer. Much madness abounds because Duke’s basketball team is rocking and rolling.
I have designed a post for pillar roses and just found my favorite Edens to make the climb. Also known as Pierre de Ronsard, Eden is a pink beauty with a peony-type cupped bloom. I have many of them in my garden at Bramasole. I hope you can almost catch the fragrance from this picture:
They climb and bloom to beat the band all summer! Here’s a picture of my pillar rose post, soon to be dripping with flowers:
It’s simply a treated 4 X 4, painted white and capped with a little pyramid of copper. The four arms I found at Home Depot are actually brackets for hanging baskets. When I looked for rose posts in metal, they were very expensive. Mine cost less than forty dollars and I like them better. We are going to set them in concrete this afternoon. Oh, and check that Carolina Blue sky.
My other project on this break from the action is planting apple trees. Mary, our gardener, has made wire surrounds to protect them from the deer who love to munch apple blossoms. Before I left, we planted two crabapples, two peaches, three pears, a white crape myrtle, and two dogwoods. She showed me how to plant them with a big dose of compost tea. In my book tour absence, my heritage apples arrived from Century Farm Orchards in Altamahaw NC. www.centuryfarmorchards.com
David Vernon there helped me select good pollinating varieties resistant to cedar apple rust in our area: Blacktwig, Enterprise, McIntosh, Roxbury Russet, Virginia Beauty, Gravenstein, Grimes Golden, Buckingham, Virginia Winesap, Mollies Delicious. This is a start toward a heritage orchard in a former cornfield. To Ed’s question, “What are we going to do with all those apples?” I don’t yet have an answer but I’ll think of something.
I was happy to find two entries from you this evening. I’ve checked every couple of days and often wondered how you weather all the traveling and appearances. I mean: vacations are fun, but a book tour is work! Anyway I felt badly that you did not have any comments (yet!)so thought I’d let you know that I enjoyed hearing about your travels and plantings. And how much I enjoyed Everyday in Tuscany. This wasn’t a very good day–so thanks for some enjoyment.
Kathleen
PS I wrote to you earlier–I’m the one with six young grandchildren and a daughter who has become a single parent. I also have a son who works for relief agency in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I think the greatest gift a writer can give is an escape–a look at a different world–and a way to view our own worlds with different eyes.
Kathleen Fischer
It’s coincidentally apt that I’d write this to you, but applicable: I’ve always felt that some things we can do in this life to cause us to be remembered well are:
Raise our children to be kind, hard-working people who will make a difference in the world, if only to a few or to one
Write a book or create something beautiful which will touch the lives of others
Plant an orchard.
I’m now working on a new generation of the first item, and I’ve helped create the third. I can sit here at my computer and with that new thing called GoogleEarth, I can identify and look down on the neat rows of pecan trees laid out like checkerboards, hundreds of miles away. It’s a wonderful feeling.
This is the time of year I start getting excited about my roses. May I recommend one of my favourites? You may already be familiar with Zephirine Drouhin – a climbing Bourbon rose. Deep cerise pink in colour, it will run riot over any pillar, pergola or fence. Mine took a couple of years to get to it’s best, but it’s almost thornless and the scent in the early evenings is intoxicating.
I have just read “Every Day in Tuscany” and enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for ALL of your books – every one is special to me. I too enjoy travelling and my sense of other cultures and the way I travel has changed, thanks to you.
I am away on break with my family in Ponte Vedra, Florida. I found in the bookcase (yes… I am very behind on my reading) a copy of your Under The Tuscan Sun. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am almost done…reluctantly… and savoring every word, smell, taste of this wonderful book. So many things about this book struck me, and made me feel compelled to write to you. I was so taken aback when you spoke about your house dreams. I have these dreams ALL the time, in a variety of shapes and forms. My dream research dream tells that “house” dreams are inidicative of self, and searching. Clearly, I am on a serious search:). Undoubtedly you have touched so many people with your stories, and I am no different, but yet somehow, as crazy as this sounds (and I am not as crazy as a loon… just a normal woman with four kids… three of whom are teenage girls… a job… and lots of dreams), I feel like I am supposed to… need to… talk with you. I have lots of questions for you. Realizing of course that LOTS of people want to talk with you, and you don’t know who in the world I am… it is unlikely to happen. That said, if you dream about a woman from Atlanta, Georgia… with lots of questions for you… on a journey that isn’t quite clear… you have my email. If not, I will keep reading your books, and be looking for answers there. Thank you again, for sharing.
Carole–there’s much more about houses and dream houses in the books that follow. More questions? Ask? saluti–Frances
Got your latest book in the mail and finished it in just a few days. Now I want more………Lucky me I am going to Tuscany in only two weeks
, and then Venezia to meet good friends.
Good luck with your book tour, and let me know if you get too many apples. I’ll come over to make apple pies with you.
Frances (may I call you Frances? Your books have made you seem like such a close friend for the last 10 years),
I feel for your pollen situation. It’s no better here in the VA Beach area. Some of my neighbors wash their cars every day — it’s a wonderful area for people watching.
We are inundated with pollen from our Cherry and Apple trees, but they are beautiful!
Congratulations on “Every Day in Tuscany”. I have just finished reading it and, as usual, you bring Cortona and its people to life for your readers.
I have been blessed with a summer visit in Firenze and I loved Cortona… The art, the people, the views!
Ah La vita è bella.
Congratulazioni ancora,
Joseph
Dear Ms. Mayes,
My question doesn’t have anything to do with the blog entry above. It is about your book “Under the Tuscan Sun”. I’m posting it here because according to the information on the Contact page it is the preferable way to address to you.
I am reading and deeply enjoying your book, it’s a very interesting and relaxing reading. I’d like to understand it to the fullest that’s why I am here with my question. The following phrase from the chapter entitled “A Long Table under the Trees” is quite a mystery to me. Here it is:
“They love it but it’s downhill now in comparison to the four armoires from that nutty contessa.” Could you please clarify the reference to me?
Best regards,
Juz
St. Petersburg, Russia.
Juz–I can’t find that sentence. And twelve years after, I don’t remember the context. Page? Best, Frances
Frances,
thank you very much for answering!
Fortunately, I can send you a link to the excerpt that has this phrase. Here it is: http://www.salon.com/april97/wanderlust/passages970415.html
It is in the third paragraph from the bottom (the one that starts with “When they arrive it will be the soft, slow Tuscan twilight..”
Sorry for bothering you with this, there are two reasons why I am so insistent: first,I am just plain interested; second, a Russian Forum of Interpreters holds regular translation seminars whose participants are given a text for translation. As you might have already guessed, the last seminar offered a bit from “under the Tuscan Sun”. Not surprisingly, the “nutty contessa” caused quite a discussion but no one was sure what stood behind it (or should I say “her”?
) Most people think it bears some historical reference in it, but we really don’t know.
So if you could clarify it, you’d relieve the mind of so many people!
With affection,
Juz.
Frances,
This is something I never do, but I feel so inspired to write and tell you how much I am enjoying your new book. I have been to Cortona five times now and am headed back in May, so I am finding your words particularly enjoyable.
I am an artist that creates mixed media assemblage work with found objects and paint and have done a few workshops at the Oasi over the years. It is not at all difficult to fall in love with the place. Your descriptions bring it all to life in delicious ways.
I am particularly excited about the fact that my husband, friends and I happen to be staying at Paola and Lupos (I have a friend in Cortona that knows them and recommended their place). We planned this quite some time ago so it was great to read about them in your book.
I am from the Philadelphia area and do not see that on your tour schedule, unfortunately.
Cheers to your beautiful life and a wonderful new book.
-Karen Cole
Karen–you’re staying in a lucky place. Get Lapo to show you how to make pecorino! Have a blast–Frances
Hello Frances, Don and I enjoyed meeting you yesterday in Boston! And, we love Tuscany!
Don wanted to be sure we pointed you to Mary Jane Cryan who gave us our first personal introduction to Etruria. She is macryan@alice.it and her website is http://www.elegantetruria.com/.
Enjoy your travels. I look forward to reading your new book! Sherry
HiFrances,
I’ve been looking at your blog since Thursday expecting someone to reply to your two entries. No one has, so I will! I was happy to read about your trip and your planting! I think people assume you are on the road and aren’t checking in. The pictures of the roses and the poles are great. I’m going to find a place to order the roses.
I’ve finished Everyday in Tuscany–and I’m planning to listen to it again when I drive to see my 93-year old mother at the end of May. It’s always better when I’m alone in the car and on a long trip. But I enjoyed my first listen immensely.
My own life, right now, is so filled with angst and worry (I’m the one with the daughter with six children who is in school and we are supporting her–the job market in education is really limited at this point and I’m afraid we have sacrificed for nothing), I really appreciated your reminder that life is beautiful–and essentially what you make of it.
So I spent the day planting herbs in my garden instead of going to a 9-year olds’ baseball tournament–and I feel like all is right in the world, well , sort of.
Thanks for reminding me that life is beautiful–especially if I choose to look at it that way.
I hope you are working on that memoir of growing up in the South–and if you build the village in North Carolina, be sure to let me know!
Kathleen Fischer
Hi Frances,
I’ve tried to repond to your last entries twice and don’t seem to be able to post anything. I’ll try again.
I just wanted to thank you for Everyday in Tuscany, I enjoyed it immensely. Also, I appreciate your emphasis on enjoying life–at this time in my life I need a reminder! (I’m the woman with a divorced daughter with six children. We are supporting her while she is in school. She will graduate in May and jobs in education are hard to find.
So I appreciate the escape that your new book offered. Hope you are writing the memoirs of growing up in the south!
Thanks, Kathleen Fischer
It sounds so lovely!! I just planted an Eden rose to climb the front of our house, I had one before and it is delicious. We planted three apples, two cherries, two pears and one almond last Fall, they are putting out leaves which makes me deeply happy. I wish we were getting more rain this Spring, but the green mist on the trees still brings me joy. I love your new book. I have read each of your books multiple times, it like going back to talk to an old friend, thank you.
Susan–I just arrived in Tuscany and my Edens are laden with buds. It’s Pierre de Ronsard here, named after the poet. Thanks for writing–Frances
Hello Frances
I am writing from the other side of the world, namely New Zealand. It is 8 o’clock in the evening and have just ordered your new book and the bringing tuscany home book for my upcoming birthday. I just wanted to thank you for your books about your home and tuscany and the pleasure that i have had reading them. I emigrated to new zealand in 1990 from the netherlands and although at times i miss my family i would not want to live anywhere else then in Nelson, new zealand. It is a dream of mine that next time I am visiting home I also will have the time to visit tuscany. Again thanks for your books and am looking forward to reading your new one.
Magda
Magda–How good that you found your ideal spot! Frances
Hi from Germany…Grazie, grazie, grazie for “Every Day in Tuscany.” I just picked it up today and shall now put down all books and get right into it! I just know it is gonna put me in overdrive and shall be on the road to Cenaia this Summer!!!!
Best regards…Jerry Richter
I just am on page 266 pf Everu Day In Tuscany. Thank you for once again writing of your experiences and love for Italy. I have read and cherish all of your books. After reading Under The Tuscan Sun I insisted that when my husband, daughter and I went 5 years ago on a trip that we stop in overnight so I could see Cortona. I fell in love with Italy and especially Cortona! We went back and rented a villa two years after that and invited family to come and stay. Needless to say they are all hooked now. Last summer my husband and I went back again to Cortona and stayed in an apartment in town for three months. We are back in Bend, Oregon now waiting to sell our house so we can afford a small apartment over there, not in Cortona as that is out of our affordability range, but somewhere close. Thank you so much for your lovely writings which enable me to stay close to Italy while not actually being able to be therre yet. Yvonne
Dear Frances Mayes,
Your books have given me pleasure and inspiration over the years.Reading about your desrciption of Saint Benedict, I thought you might be interested to hear that north of the Alps there are paintings that show that the saint was not always loved by his brethren.In Seitenstetten, a monastery and private school in Lower Austria (Austria), there are paintings showing the monks trying to poison the saint. However, a raven ate the bread destined for Benedict, so he came to no harm. Legend has it that Benedetto was not only loved but also feared because of the strict rules he imposed on the monks.
My children attended the convent school run by Benedictian monks and they, like all the students took their oral school-leaving exams (Matura in Austria) in a Baroque room with paintings of St Benedict on the walls.
What this depiction of Benedict as rather harsh and stricts shows about the Austrian attitude doesn’t bear thinking but the church and monastery are really worth visiting (a fantastic library, still without electricity, as it would be too dangerous to the invaluable books, among them the smallest Bible in the world).The school is very good, still teaching Latin (compulsory) and the students can choose between French and Ancient Greek.
Warmest regards
Brigitte Ableidinger
P.S. I find it refreshing when you write how difficult you find the Italian language.People keep telling me it’s so easy but I think it’s beautiful but tricky.One of my “favourite” mistakes is ordering pesce instead of pesca.
I was so excited to hear today on Minnesota Public Radio you would be discussing your new book in Woodbury, MN. I have savored your writing over the years and would have been thrilled to meet you.
Ironically, the days you are to appear in Minnesota my husband and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversay in Italy. In Cortona, on those exact two days.
I will miss meeting you in Minnesota but will enjoy your lovely village. Enjoy our, hopefully, beautiful Minnesota spring weather and I hope to meet you sometime in the future!
Sincerely,
Shannon Meierhofer
Shannon–I adored seeing the lilacs in Minneapolis! Hope you’re enjoying your trip. Frances
Frances, I’ve been reading your books for years, and as others have noted, you do seem like an old friend. Your writing style is wonderful, and your ability to draw your readers into your experiences is a great gift. This afternoon, sitting on my little side patio, I finished “Every Day in Tuscany.”
I laughed when I read you were able to listen sometimes to the comments people made as they stood at the gate of Bramasole. Several years ago, I made that pilgrimage with my family, and my 80 year old mother noticed a window open. She wanted to shout up (she’s a fan too), but we wouldn’t let her. We didn’t think you could hear. Oh well.
Thanks for introducing us to so many things we busy travelors often miss. Now, when I lead tours to Italy, Cortona is one of the stops. Seeing Fra Angelico’s Annunciation takes my breath away. So does eating in the little trattoria off the square that takes no credit cards. See you in the piazza, summer of 2011!
My dear friend,
It seems at once both comforting and foreign to address you as such, because we have never met and most likely never will. The warmth of your words touches me in a way that no one ever has. The depth of your passion has been inspirational. I have written many letters to you over the years and have never sent them in fear of being “just” another fan in awe. I guess I need to accept that is just what I am and I must thank
you for your gift.
My long story short, is that I discovered Italy 5 years ago and fell in love as you did. Later that same year I had the 2nd of what would be to date, 6 heart surgeries. That surgery, a triple by-pass, sent me into a deep depression. While my body slowly healed, my soul withered. I was pining for the warmth of Italy as well as my lost youth and vitality. I sat waiting for death. I had a copy of “Under the Tuscan Sun” that I had been meaning to read for years and now that I was pining for Italy, it seemed like the time was right to read it. That book, more than any medicine, lifted my heart and soul. I began to recover. It gave me hope. I have since read and held close to my heart, everything you have written. What I came away with was a rebirth of my already strong love for my gardens, and the realization that even in my 50’s, with a loving wife of different views and two nearly grown daughters, that not only could I dream, I could still do. Yes I had a bad heart, but I have been lucky enough or blessed enough to recover to nearly normal capacity. Each and every time.
You and I share common bond for history. I’ve never seen a ruin that did not beckon me to feel its history. Or museum that I could not meander in for hours. There was a part of me in my youth that had always wanted to be an archaeologist. As my strength came back, I thought, why not? I have been to Italy a few times since ‘05 and in a special trip in, 2008, I quietly toasted you and Ed. It was the first night of an archaeological dig I participated on in Rome itself (at the Villa Vignacce). (If you’re gonna dig, dig where your passion is!!!) The experience was sublime and one that I will repeat.
While the economics of building my own Italian dream is not totally impossible, the time, at least at this stage of my life is impossible. Rather than succumb to realization that I could not make a home there, I set out to bring Italy here to NY. My garden would do you proud… I find the scent of lemon blossoms intoxicating (almost as much as the limoncello I make from my Sorrento lemons) I find great peace in getting lost in the garden, both spiritually and mentally, nurturing those plants that need help, catching the scent of each bloom. Surely god created basil so that I could roll it my hands to savor the smell and later to send my soul far, far away. Drifts of rosemary, jasmine and lavender sit nestled amongst the nespole, fig and olive trees and send me to a more peaceful place. It’s amazing what will fit into my own limonaia (a greenhouse that measures 8.5 x 11 feet) My own touch of Tuscan paradise on Long Island.
As I said earlier, you have been an inspiration and a dear, dear friend if only in my mind.
There have been 4 more surgeries since this all began… some have been tough physicaly, some emotionally. I have your words to heal my mind, body and soul. And I have Italy itself, calling me back as often as I can go. Your gift to the world… your gift to me, is appreciated more than I can ever express in this letter. Know that you are giving the world a living legacy to what is right about one small section of the world and that the human part of humanity and kindness live on. May god bless you, Ed and all your family.
Dear Rick, Thanks for your wonderful letter. I deeply appreciate being included in your thoughts and life. Your spirit and bravery shine forth strongly. Enjoy that garden every day! I just returned to Italy where it’s still early spring. My peonies are extravagantly blooming for our arrival and the wild apples are blooming. Hope you get back to Italia soon! Tanti saluti–Frances
Please let Ms. Mayes know that both my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed her latest book, “Everyday in Tuscany”. We never get tired of her prose—beautiful and always elegant.
Because of authors like her, and primarily her, we are planning a visit to Tuscany & Umbria in June. My wife and I were so amazed by the uncanny inclusion of specific places and sights, Ms. Mayes writes about, that we are going to visit. We loved her accounts of her grandson, and his enrichment through Italian daily life. Plus, I was very interested in her Signorelli trail—an artist who also fascinates me.
I had a question about Fonterutoli (one of our hoped for side visits), which she said was Monticino, but we find in Chianti—?
We will be in Cortona (June 18) and are especially anxious to find the shops, etc. mentioned. If we walk the Localita Torreone, we will be sure to stop and say wonderful, truthful things about the Mayes’s under their windows. Wish we could be there in August for the Sun Festival—I am a musician. Kudos to the Mayes’s for bringing the festival to life.
Please, thank her for sharing all their adventures with us all. Sorry there was some trouble, over the past 20 years.
David and Marianne Jones
P.S.: I just saw the pr about the cruise Ms. Mayes will be a guest lecturer. It looks incredible. We had looked at the same route two years ago before we decided on our upcoming trip.
Ciao David, Fonterutoli is near Montalcino, still not far from the Chianti area. Check the Festival website for this year’s program. There’s one big surprise: Sting! Playing Schumann. Best, Frances
Painting pictures with words. That is the best description I can think of when I read your books. “Every Day in Tuscany” was not just a joy but an adventure to a land that I love and wish to visit one day with my wife. You and Ed have given me hours of pleasure and some very good recipes as well. You can evoke some pretty interesting emotions through your writing and it is as if I can feel the heat of the Tuscan summer as I read. Please never stop writing these wonderful and dare I say, personal memoires of your life with your family and friends in Bramasole. You inspire us all who read your fantastic books. Thanks for the latest and we all look forward to the next.
Sincerely
Ron Brown
My dear Frances,
You are a wonderful talented woman who loves people and life and appreciates every little thing -we should all learn from you!
Your books have been a very good and dear friend to me and I have read them a thousand times!
A couple of wks ago I was in London and tried to find your latest book but without success, but I am determined to get it and nothing will stop me!
I would love to give you back some of the joy you gave me with your wonderful books by sending you one of my handmade jewelry.Please contact me in order to tell me in which address I should send it.
Thank you for the wonderful books you are writing.
Sincerely
Marion
Thanks you, Marion, I’m in Italy now so maybe we should be back in touch in early fall. Frances
I am in the middle of reading Every Day in Tuscany, and can not believe the connection I feel! I have been to Italy twice. The first trip we stayed in a little ground floor appartment in Fonterutoli. This last time we stayed just outside Cortona at another ground floor appartment Il Poggio del Sole. Your descriptions of the people and places bring everything back to life for me.
Tuscany is where my soul sings, and is the only place I could live out side the US. I know why you love your home there.
Thank you for sharing your experiances and memories, they have made mine even brighter.
Ciao Sandy–Il Poggio del Sole! Those are our friends–and neighbors near our mountain house. Ivan is a fantastic cook–hope you got to sample his blackberry crostata. His recipe is in Every Day in Tuscany. I’m going to see them today. Thanks for writing–Frances
hi there! I posted a comment on a previous post– about how your approach to food is so refreshing and non-compulsive. I recommend my recovery clients read your work!
here’s a video where I read from A Tavola…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beG9cL-6mWU
thank you for bringing JOY and FOOD together in such a beautiful way.
Lauren
Lauren, thanks for sending the link. Bring your clients to Tuscany! Good luck with your work–Frances
So glad I found your blog and that you have written another book. I love all your previous books – they make me feel like I am back in Italy, basking in the warmth of the climate, the people and the food in that beautiful country. Can’t wait to read “Every Day in Tuscany.”
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