Fall and Winter have a stealthy benefit that’s often overlooked. They lend themselves, more than the ebullience and exuberance of Spring and Summer, to a sort of calming melancholia, to meditation and contemplative times. In Autumn and wintertime, the chaos of the world can be lessened and untangled without the palisade thrown up by the warmer seasons interfering with the endeavor.
In part, it’s simply that we are increasingly encouraged by colder and often less amenable weather to stay indoors. Indoors, where the hearth beckons, where our books lie in wait, where our writing tools stay safe from the tempests outside. Indoors, where it’s easy to keep a cup of tea or coffee or cocoa hot and handy while we spend the hours tending to those tasks of repair and renovation that have lain unnoticed when the longer days of sunlight kept pulling us away. The birds flit south and abandon their choir-lofts around the house and the other creatures begin to line their dens and curl up under porches with greater urgency, leaving the airwaves to the less inviting, darker sounds of passing traffic on wet pavement and wind whistling down the fence lines, sounds that urge us to follow our instincts and the local wildlife to seek shelter and keep quiet while the forbidding cold and darkness of the ‘off seasons’ roar through town.
But there’s another great appeal to Fall and Winter, another aspect that captures the gentler and more introspective angles of the imagination, and that is the way that these seasons strip away their frills and wash out any fripperies that might distract us from the most basic parts of our existence. It’s the way this time of year seems to contract not just the length of its daylight hours so that we see things dimly, palely and in lengthening shade and shadows, but even the spectrum of visible color, which becomes thin and subdued in the leanness of winter light. The water recedes from the fruits and flowers and stems of summer’s abundance and leaves them slightly parched and leads them to bend and fall. The slightest breeze, now colder, finds us clutching at our lapels and jamming our raw hands as far into pockets as they can go.
In this beautiful world, with the color rapidly draining out of memory, the stillness of hiding and hibernation weighing us into lassitudinous introversion, and the brisk chill of frost settling around our ears and shoulders like lead, we can at last let go of the impetus to run and shout and do, if only for the joy of rediscovering what waits in the seasons of shadow. We can see the world in a sort of refined simplicity if we let ourselves. We can take these moments of clean-slate clarity to listen to our innermost selves for a bit and sort out what does and doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of our lives. And we can go to sleep knowing that when the glad excesses of Spring and Summer return we will see them through new and more appreciative eyes and perhaps, yes just maybe, even find that in the midst of all that bloom and warmth and celebration we may long for the stringent joys of Fall and Winter once again.
A fond farewell should only end the start
Of what emerged from nothing to become
Much greater than its origins, a home
For all that’s good and gracious in the heart–
What had begun in silence has grown deep
And richer than imagining could guess,
A tapestry of joy and tenderness,
A score of blended notes that time will keep–
Whose voices came together first in this
True confluence of sound and sweet accord
Cannot again move aught but closer toward
Such harmony as, now it’s found, is bliss–
For in love’s benedictory refrain
Awakens what all hearts must sing again.
With gratitude to all at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, Dallas, Texas,
and especially to the choir, for welcoming us so kindly during this past year.
Mornings are glorious, oh yes: last year’s blue morning glories in their full blazing beauty (center, with the infamous garden chandelier needing better candle power to compete with the blue brightness) inspired the planting of not only the blue variety again this year but also these hot beauties flanking it . . .
My friends, Texas gardening is a ceaseless adventure. I sense that Round One of the growth season has already closed and Round Two is beginning. The first batches of blooming goodies have quickly baked to dainty crisps and their leafy greenness gotten rather scrawny and lean looking. Yes, my darlings, it’s gettin’ hot around here.
The pavement and patio concrete have a certain handily dense solar mass that lends itself to emitting mirage-like rays of shimmering hottitude that fry up whatever seems to have escaped the downward dash of the sunlight as it fell burning from the sky in the first place. Hand watering with a hose, even in the cooler parts of the day, is an exercise in futility to a certain extent–you can practically see the spray evaporating as it comes out of the nozzle, and anything with full sun exposure makes me wonder if the roots of the plant in question will in fact be boiled in the water I’m trying to give it. Gives me a different perspective on the old saying about ‘killing with kindness’, to be sure.
While the planters are already past their first peak (in the left-hand shot taken during the roses’ first heyday), more blossoms are coming in readily; the blue-black ornamental sage next to the bell in the center photo are already a big favorite with hummingbirds–you can just see the white blurred silhouette of one in the lower right quadrant of the picture–and the brilliant blue of borage is in full swing . . .
The first burst of the rose blooms has passed and the buds are in place for their second coming after a couple of weeks of being pruned back and nurtured through their little rest period. The boxed herbs and vegetables are very thirsty and rather root-bound, so I shall have to ease their pain by some gentle dividing and see if they can continue to show their heroism in beating the heat. Even in their potted distress, the borage plants are putting out large trusses of those glorious blue, refreshing-flavored starry flowers, so I will hope all the more that a little judicious division or removal to allow them a little loosening of their too-tight pants will make them happy rather than prove an additional challenge.
Zinnias make fun little hideaway homes for local bug-dom, but katydids seem to prefer something with more windows, and the dragonfly always goes straight for the penthouse so he can survey all of the lesser insects down below . . .
I know that the garden creatures are happy. Besides having me to chew on, the insects have all sorts of plants, not least of all those greens that are heat-stressed and have their defenses down. Some of the little bugs are still shy, like the one just barely peering out of the peachy zinnia above. Most of them are quite happy to be a bit more brazen, though. My little green friend came to the window and hung out with me the other night quite willingly–or was it just staring and spying on me? The prize for showiness this week goes, though, to the handsome Carmine Darter (correct me if I mis-identify) dragonfly that calmly came and posed on my little homemade tomato cage so long that I could come out of the house and get up close and macro-personal with him.
Whatever else happens in my little playground here, the main development will likely be somewhat delayed by the depredations of my intended full-yard rehab and my entirely predictably inevitable mistakes and faux pas. And, of course, getting overheated. For the time being, I am enjoying the begonias, the silverbeet, the sweet potato vine, and the cyclamen; the marigolds, the basil, and the blue sage.
For now, all is color and joy . . . and there is undoubtedly much more to come . . .
This coming week I get to have consultations for bids on redoing our yard landscape! As I’ve plotted the Q&A lists extensively over time, I have been more and more recollecting my mother’s gardening style and values, and beyond that, returning to her father’s–Gramps’s. Their influences remain deeply embedded in my own ethos of gardening, to be sure.
I won’t be able to strictly replicate either of their styles or efforts, nor should I, since neither the climate and conditions of my current home nor my own personal imprint would make it useful or meaningful to do so. But what was truly valued by both of them in the general sense was upheld in their methods and the lovely and personal and hospitable outcomes of both because it was about combining the sensible and practical with the sort of building and design that would enable them to do more of the tasks of gardening that they each enjoyed, and fewer of those that they didn’t. In short, they were both ‘sustainable’ garden advocates long before there was such a popular trend, and they still both chose plants and arrangements and additions to the yard that suited their sentiments and likes.For Gramps, of course, there was a strong influence of frugality that came from being first an immigrant (and even before that, presumably, from being raised by typically scrupulous Norwegian savers) and then a hard-working General Motors employee (he worked on the crew that produced the first amphibious vehicles). After all of that he was an independent farmer, mainly of sheep, and then also a longtime carpenter and home builder. He was never in any get-rich business, and he appreciated old-fashioned things and earthy things, so it wasn’t a stretch for him to look with his carpenter’s eye and see in his shed the makings of all sorts of fine pasture fencing, outbuildings, picnic tables, benches and more.
Gramps's compost bins, quite beautiful in their own right and certainly very practical, as well as the models for Mom's own bins later . . . and, perhaps, mine yet to come . . .
His idea of plantings began with the practical as well, so if there was any space at all there was always a beautiful kitchen garden with corn, raspberries, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, rhubarb, and all of that sort of loveliness, and between that and his fishing trips and raising lamb there was a lot of good eating. But beyond raising fine fruit and vegetables on his property, furnished with rich home-cooked compost from his lovely row of hand-built bins, Gramps did have a graceful nature-inspired aesthetic sensibility, capitalizing on the canopy of majestic Douglas-firs and filling in with the native understory treasury of dogwood and trilliums (the source, of course, of Mom’s first ones), azaleas and rhododendrons, ferns and primroses and bleeding hearts and yellow and fuchsia-colored wild violets. For a person who gruffly eschewed frivolity in the main, he had a mighty tender, bleeding heart of his own when it came to the beauty he saw in nature, and he capitalized on that very well in his garden.
His daughter learned from it, and being more overtly sentimental, added yet another layer of appreciation for those marvels and jewels of the natural world that she could nurture to their fullest expression in her own garden and yard, wherever she lived. She adopted her father’s practical and often laborious attentions to getting the most out of the existing landscape and quickly put her own imprint on it and enriched it over time to the degree that her yard was always rightfully an enviable small park for visitors’ delight. By the time I finished college and then spent three years working near to and therefore boarding with my grandparents, thanks to the ridiculously affordable living there–then finished grad school and started working near my parents’ place and moved back to take advantage of the ridiculously affordable living there (anybody sense a theme? I blame the genetic link to Gramps’s frugality)–I had a much greater appreciation myself for both what it took to create and maintain such glorious properties and how much respecting nature’s own local inclinations would be a value-added approach to healthy, sustainable, logical, creative and gorgeous design.I had the bonus, while living at my parents’ again, of not only the privacy and flexibility afforded me by their frequent travel for his work, but the opportunity to practice my own incipient garden design skills both while following Mom around and learning the names and natures of things and while taking things into my own hands whenever they went out of town for any length of time. First of all, having learned a couple of useful things about how to treat some of their plants, I practiced my sculptural pruning skills on them, opening up the lacy umbrella of a laceleaf maple, making faux bonsai out of some of their smaller evergreens, and limbing up tree trunks to clean and open up the space for all of the pretty understory things Mom had brought in as starts from relatives’ gardens, from her trading with friends, and from various nursery expeditions over the years. It was during this time that I especially fell in love with trees. The craggy Garry oaks native to that area are a fairly uncommon yet extraordinarily lovely and impressive variety and I nurtured a seedling or two myself along the way in hopes that sometime long after I’m dead they too will be magnificent and grand old trees sheltering their homes and their denizens like the massive ones already in town.Here in Texas, it’s the two stately post oaks and that lithe red oak in back that endeared our home to us at first notice, along with our two splendid Bradford pear trees. There’s quite the community of sweet oak seedlings sprouting in their shade, and I hope very much that I can manage (with lots of help and advice from the local experts, of course) to relocate a number of them to foster a natural-style mini-grove in a back quadrant of our property over the many years to come. That will help create a fitting foundation for the whole wild, native and well-adapted collection of plants intended to fan out from all of that into the rest of the property. Fun times ahead!
In addition, I love to incorporate some traditionally indoor materials into my gardens so they feel a little more like an extension of the house and invite leisurely visits. I’m thinking of things like the burnished brass chandelier you’ve seen tiny glimpses of in previous garden photos, a little cozy kitchen-style seating on the patio, and a bench or chairs for shaded stopping on the front porch as guests arrive for a gathering. But although I see lots of lovely yard swings around town and love them, I never see people sitting in them–it’s almost always too terribly hot and often very bug-pestered here–so there won’t likely be an investment of money and labor to create a swing like the arbor swing (above) that I designed and my brother-in-law built with my semi-able assistance, to surprise Mom with a little long-fostered-wish fulfillment, while she and Dad were off on one of their longer expeditions.
Still, I do want our yard to invite exploration and to be particularly attractive from all angles inside our air-conditioned house, year round. So many possible ways to accomplish that, that I am excited to see what I can learn and be inspired by, even from a first conversation with each of the landscapers who will visit here this week. I suspect I’ll need to be getting out all of the tools I have, and then some, and it’ll take a bit of a while to get the whole project well and truly underway. I know I’m a little rusty at some of this, having lived with tiny yards for quite some time before buying this house, and will have to relearn much and discover many new things in my new climate. But oh, how invigorating to begin!
Maybe I should buy myself a big tall red conical hat (possibly made of concrete). Because I am not exactly the most useful object, not the most decorative, nor even perhaps the most whimsically amusing, in a garden. But I give it my best from time to time, really I do. And generally, the earth is pretty forgiving and responsive to my fumbling efforts.
The wildflowers hereabouts have continued to delight, with waves of Showy Evening Primrose bordering the roadsides and ditches, and Vervain spiking up out of the meadows . . .
For once, I paid attention to the promises of today’s rain; it’s not been terribly impressive thus far, but it has rained a teeny bit, so it was good to get things a little better in order out there and ready for some watering the day before the rain arrived. Not that I didn’t water it all thoroughly myself, at the end of my stint, since even if the plants hadn’t been so thirsty after all of my brash ministrations on a toasty afternoon, I needed a bit of rinsing too. Besides turning into a human saltwater fountain and being bespeckled by the colorful bite-marks of a seething mass of varied insect pests, I also collected plenty of bits and bobs of garden detritus in my hair, a nice thorough coating of fresh brown dirt all down the front of my clothes (with special emphasis on my mud-capped knees), and the handsome assortment of plant stains reaching up to my elbows, not to mention the weird black stain my cheap metal watchband makes on my wrist when its gets all slippery with sweat. I considered just turning the garden hose on myself full blast but opted for the slightly less neighbor-frightening method of going indoors and showering, after all. They’d suffered enough if they’d just seen me transforming myself into a living blob of nature-gone-bad while gardening.
A sweet mockingbird sat surveying the front yard from the mailbox, but dashed off long before I came closer to tuck some sturdy, spiny agaves around its base . . .
Meanwhile, I did enjoy discovering that besides the blizzards of unlovable bugs gone rampaging on the heels of a warm winter, there are the lovely sorts as well: I was almost constantly surrounded by clouds of butterflies that were attracted to the plants I was tending and the nice little drinking fountains I was making with my sprinkler for them. It was as though the flowers woke up and took wing around me. The birds around here are certainly loving the feast of fresh insects, so at least I can tolerate the biting brats if I know that they may soon, in their turn, be Cardinal Chow. Which reminds me, I’ve heard tell that the hummingbirds are back in town, so the feeders should go back up today. How quickly things change in Spring!
Less than two months of time, and what a difference on the patio and in the yard!
Both the ornamental and the edible is swiftly springing up, and thankfully, many of the latter sort of plants are very much the former too. Along with their other benefits of beauty and entertainment and insect-control, the birds have evidently gotten involved in the garden design work around here, planting a number of sunflowers in serendipitously amusing and even rather unexpectedly apropos spots. I’ll leave them all in place and see what seem to be propitious locations for next year’s crop of sunflowers. Meanwhile, I’ve got lots of other things beginning to come fully into bloom that need deadheading and trimming and fertilizing and watering.
The dainty blooms on the capiscum plants promise sweet bell peppers to come, and the little wild rose is smiling broadly . . .
The roses have–not too surprisingly, given the kindly weather–been great show-offs already this season. The little old-fashioned straggler that I dug up from its hidden spot by the back fence last fall and tucked into a pail is thriving and throwing off a fair number of its small but deeply velvety dark red blooms. The coral colored rose that I moved to a more visible place in the raised bed by the patio has probably already fired up close to a hundred of its bold blossoms, bringing its own dazzling light to the little ‘courtyard’ enclosed by the house’s wings.
The detonation of the roses in bright sunlight is impressive even if only from two plants . . . but should I add more, I wonder, when they're all so lovely? Hmmm . . .
That holly tree that I intended to kill, or at least cruelly constrain (someone planted it much too close to the house’s foundation for either’s good) was stripped to its trunk not much more than a year ago but is not only covered with those charmingly soft new leaves that have their pointy edges but no bite yet but is simply a mass of bloom as well, and now that I’ve seen how adored it is by the bees I know I won’t kill the tree but will just keep it as a sort of vertical bonsai, pruning it vigorously but leaving it to stand as a bee haven, a vine post–I loved having my cobalt-blue morning glory glowing from it last summer and have planted that and other colors this year–and a berry farm for birds and winter decor.
Apparently, the birds and butterflies, not to mention the bees, are going to have a grand dance around the holly tree Maypole this year . . .
The herb-and-vegetable planters are well underway, and there’s not only plenty of borage leaf, despite the marauding munching bugs who try to turn them to lace, for a nice tisane long before they will be tall enough to bloom. The marigolds have opened their brilliant eyes to have a look around, and the carrots and beets are shooting upward (and, I hope, downward). The parsley and other, daintier herbs will have to fight their way up through the jungle a little more slowly, perhaps, but should be strong enough by the time they do that they will outlast the root veg and the annual flowers.
Packed with, very likely, too much, these planters are still cheerfully chipping in to do their flaming floral part . . .
The peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos and red cabbages are all quite happy and healthy looking right now, and as long as the garden pests can’t get ahead of the birds and me, there may be a nice little bit of produce before too long. In the meantime, it’s sweet just to look at the plants and measure their growth by the day, if not by the hour. One of the perpetual delights of gardening, of course, is the unplanned element that invites itself into the flowerbeds and borders. I was elated to find, among the dozens of baby oak and elm tree sprouts volunteering on the property (and many of which I will transplant, when they’re big enough, to other parts of the yard), a seedling which I quickly identified as a mulberry tree. This, too, will have to relocate eventually, but I thank the bird or squirrel that kindly donated it, as it will also become a great wildlife feeder on the back-forty one day. In the right-hand photo, it is balanced on the left by a seedling soapberry that I’ve been nursing along for just such a purpose, and together they frame a wonderful volunteer that apparently forgot it was supposed to be a tender annual plant, a brilliant orange Gerbera daisy from last year.
Gifts from the garden to the gardener: a mulberry seedling, a wintered-over annual flower, and lively green growth galore . . .
Along with the Survivor Daisy there are hints of the wildflower seed I threw nearby beginning to assert themselves. The first tiny cosmos has peeped out from the pathway, and there are promising leaves and stems among the sunflowers and cosmos that say we’ll soon enough be seeing nasturtiums, corn (sweet and ornamental), blanketflower and Echinacea and a whole host of other charmers. If you want to know more specifics of what we’re, ahem, expecting, check back to my plant-list post.
Grandpa Gerber Daisy, meet little Miss Cosmos . . .
I was certainly not confining my attentions to the back yard, and am pleased to say that both the surprises given to me by the garden and the things I’ve done myself and with goodness aforethought out front are also paying off in lovely dividends. The area in front of my beloved’s office window was particularly shabby and is not so easy to suss out, as it’s victimized by bad drainage because of the contours and conditions of our property and also is quite heavily shaded by one of our big beautiful post oaks out there. So if you set these characteristics up in combination with naturally hot and over-dry Texan weather, there are what might charitably be called Conflicts of Interest. I’m experimenting, to say the least. But I’m getting a fair return at the moment and will enjoy it while I can. Among the humorous and pleasant surprises I would count that of having celery in bloom there. Yes, celery. I had a very ancient bottle of culinary celery seed sitting in my kitchen for so long that I was quite sure it had no flavor left at all, but being a thrifty mad scientist, I tossed the contents out in the front flowerbed and behold, a year later I have flowering celery. If it’s biennial like some of its cousins, who knows what next year may bring!
Outside the office window, hope is arising in its green and tenacious way . . .
Between the front walkway and the porch, the flowerbed is cut into yet another poorly drained (but sunnier) spot and is too narrow for its own good. But I’m getting a number of things, mostly perennial, to pop up there and even had a happy re-visitation from last year’s annual sweet potato vine (the fluorescent-green leafed sort) that will probably now give me yet another year of excellent fill-in wherever I haven’t yet solved the bed’s Issues. I’ve tucked in a few herbs besides the front door rosemary that’s thriving–far more than expected–and am working to have a broad mix of textures and colors and seasonal change-ups that I hope will continue to mature and fill in the naked spots until any non-flowery weeds will just feel unwelcome to even visit.
Though the tulips are long gone from the planters, there are all sorts of new things coming in and many possibilities yet to sprout . . .
Along with the porch-side plantings there is also another shady stretch, this one less plagued by poor drainage but still overshadowed by one of our big flowering pear trees, so that too is getting an experimental blend of trial-and-error plantings to withstand the vagaries of seemingly opposing growth needs. One of the particular pleasures of yesterday was finding a Bonus Plant tucked into the pot like some sort of vegetal conjoined twin with one of the agaves I laid in yesterday, so now I have this vigorous ‘baby’ to choose a good home for as well. These specific agaves are a variety (Agave parryi) I’ve long admired for their good looks and was thrilled simply to locate, let alone in a size I could afford, but doubly so on learning that they are supposed to be relatively hardy plants–and then on top of all that, I got a big, handsome extra among them. Surely the garden gods were smiling on me yesterday. Or at least the garden gnomes.
Last year's Beautyberry has burst into full bright green leaf, the New Zealand Flax is spiking up its burgundy spears, and the variegated leaves of their companion flax lily lights up the shade with its fine stripes. And where will bonus baby Spike go to live? Stay tuned . . .
Aside from things like my having been chewed upon ungraciously by a bunch of skeeters and having very indelicate and unladylike rivers of sweat inundate my poor little eyebulbs, the inside of my glasses lenses, and every single item of clothing upon my personage, an afternoon of gardening like today’s is a very welcome thing. I finally got after some of the weedier segments of the flowerbeds, planted some of my sprouted babies, moved a plant or two, and did some watering, and by golly, the place looks a tad more presentable.
In honor of that, herewith: a little Texiana and a Garden Fairy for your delectation and/or amusement. Tomorrow, perhaps, a batch of garden update photos. Just to prove I did something, don’t’cha know.
Once Upon a Time in Texas: the Genesis of Big Hair & the Ten Gallon Hat . . .
One of the rituals of fending off the dregs of winter’s chill is to linger in the hothouses and aisles of flower shops and every place that stocks us up with ideas and plants as we rejuvenate the landscape for the year. A splash of heated color draws the eye; the flash and gleam of leaves caught in each little draft pulls us in, from some pale-margined broad-leafed plant off to some lacy other. The faint sound of their fluttering evokes both sylvan breeze and birdsong and reminds us, beyond those, of springs and fountains drawn to life as winter thaws.
Perhaps the most evocative and pleasing sense that spring and summer lie in wait somewhere not far at all: perfume–the heady redolence that wafts from hyacinths and jasmine blooms, from sweet Viola odorata, from each little honeyed heart that says that life will soon return to earth. One of my favorites for sheer intensity and unstained loveliness of scent is Lily of the Valley–those clean, brilliant bells that cloister in the moss and keep their meditative calm a little secret ’til I’m close enough to catch their drift and see their whiteness glinting in the green. It may be, too, that breathing that intensity of air when these petite white satin blooms nod in the breeze calls up an atavistic searching in my blood. I start to hear that most beloved of Swedish songs (forgive me, my Norwegian forebears–but we were still ‘run’ by our cousins the Swedes until we parted ways in the early 20th century) resonating somewhere in the distance of earth’s slow axial turn, tolling in a sweetly sorrowful voice the tale of the grieving Lily King. Spring is like that–pierced with the lingering poignancy of winter’s deadly grip, but with an insistent, gorgeous urge to let earth be reborn; no matter the loss, the sorrow and the bygone things, to carry forward with what perfumed sweetness it can find.
The Romantic Nationalism that has periodically gripped the music world and produced such pleasures as David Wikander’s exquisite melody for poet Gustav Fröding’s Kung Liljekonvalje is that way too: longing for the old, but wanting something new raised up in it, like the rebirth that comes with spring. Sorrow and joy can mingle then, glowing with possibility and pain, with hesitation and with hope.
The text is sorrowful but evocative, I think, of the intensely bittersweet beauty of the Lily of the Valley; it isn’t hard to see how this must have captured the dark imaginings of many a Northerner in a Romantic frame of mind. I’ve included a translation of my own, meant not as a literal one but rather an attempt to understand something more of the character of the tale and perhaps, indeed, how it grew out of dreaming over the bowing bells of a tiny blooming thing, searching in its ice-white blossoms for promises of better and brighter things.
Kung Liljekonvalje King Lily of the Valley
Kung Liljekonvalje av dungen King Lily-of-the-Valley’s in the green-wood, Kung Liljekonvalje är vit som snö King Lily-of-the-Valley, who is white as snow, Nu sörjer unga kungen The young king now mourning his maiden, Prinsessan liljekonvalje mö Princess Lily-of-the-Valley, in woe
Kung liljekonvalje han sänker King Lily-of-the-Valley now lowers Sitt sorgsna huvud så tungt och vekt His heavy head so burdened with grief Och silverhjälmen blanker And on his silver helm gleams the sunset, I sommerskymningen blekt Pale dusk that can bring no relief
Kring bårens spindelvävar Round her cold bier the cobwebs are woven, Från rökelsekaren med blomsterstoft And hang from censers flow’r-filled & spent, En virak sakta svävar Their frankincense drifting down slowly, All skogen är full av doft The forest all filled with the scent
Från björkens gungande krona From birches’ swaying crowns to their bases, Från vindens vaggande gröna hus From winds that rock the green-wood’s home Små sorgevisor tona Small tunes, songs of sadness and mourning All skogen är uppfylld av sus Fill all of the woods as they roam
Det susar ett bud genom dälden And rustle as wind through the glen; find Om kungssorg bland viskande blad The King all cloaked in whispering leaves I skogens vida välden As full sorrow falls on the wood-world, Från liljekonvaljernas huvudstad The whole of the Valley still grieves . . .
At times, time should just stop. Hold its breath, keep confidence with every secretive thing because some little happening occurs, a tiny treasured thing appears, as small as dust in air perhaps but so perfect in its lack of discipline as to be solace beyond words, a wonder like a young child’s hair lit by a momentary ray of sunlight to become more beautiful than all the votive flames that ever lit the night, like a killdeer’s evening call fluting out from where it hides in the tall grass.
. . . an hour in which enforced quiet time in a waiting room is transformed into time for invention in the sketchbook . . .
Let the treasury of life be honored by our awed obeisance, however brief, as we take our meditative pause to contemplate those little motes of sweetness that make up, in total, something so ethereal and grand–the sharp, resinous perfume rising from a path through piny woods on a sun-baked day; that bright mercurial flash of a school of tiny fry all turning in the shoals at once, glinting; an amorous bird showing off its vocal flashiness from a leafy grove across the way . . .
. . . a piece of rustic dark bread with butter melting into it . . . .
May we never forget to stop, if only for that little moment, to absorb the pleasurable surprise of living in the midst of millions of small miracles each night and every day, even if they’re often lost to us as too minute to catch our notice. The air we breathe is redolent with them–each step we take can draw us further into that precise great incident of wonder that should startle every heart into eternal admiration.
Since several people have asked, I’m posting a list today. No, it’s not one of those house-fixing lists I mentioned full of projects. But related, in a way, as it constitutes my contract of To-Do fun with my yard, garden, flower beds, and planter pots. It’s my seed and plant list–what I’ve put in thus far, and some of what I intend to add, the latter being primarily a larger batch of the listed Wildflower Sowing Mix. It’s my own blend, by the way, concocted from reading up on and observing what is native and/or simply adapts well in our part of the landscape. Starred (*) items are known natives or very long established growers here in north Texas, and items marked with two plus signs (++) are ones I’m emphasizing in placement or quantity because they’re particular favorites of mine.
For the Front Yard Flower Beds:
Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisirynchium)* ++ I’ve long been attracted to the tiny-orchid flowers of this miniature lovely, and was thrilled to discover the plant is native here. A surprise bonus when moving to a place that has a generally less easy climate than my place of origin in the Pacific Northwest.
Chives, Garlic (Allium tuberosum)
Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)* ++
Garlic (Allium sativum) I don’t cook with a whole lot of garlic since marrying a Supertaster, but since they’re beautiful plants, I figure I’ll get what little garlic I need for cooking and have the garden attraction besides.
Lavender (Lavendula angustifolia)
Nasturtium(Tropaeolum ‘Milkmaid’)
I have to admit I enjoy plants whose babies I can recognize early and so chart their progress a little more accurately. Nasturtiums are a very easy one to spot . . .
Spreading Petunia (Petunia x hybrida ‘Purple Wave’)
Texas Bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis)* ++ Seriously, how could I not put in any of this classic when I’ve moved to Texas? Not to mention that I’m a sucker for blue flowers. And things that will self-perpetuate once established.
Herbs (Planted front, back, indoors and out)
Basil, Sweet (Ocimum basilicum)
Borage (Borago Officinalis) ++ A rather magical herb, in my estimation, with its refreshingly cucumber-like flavor and exquisite bright blue flowers.
Chives, Onion (Allium schoenoprasum)
Marigold (Tagetes)
Parsley (Petroselinum hortense)
Curled
Italian Flat-Leaf @ John: I’ll try to have it fully in leaf when you show up here!
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) ++ I have one healthy plant going, and since it seems to thrive in this yard and I love the plant and its culinary qualities, I have a feeling it will get siblings eventually.
Vegetables (Mostly integrated into the flower beds, for fun)
Beetroot (Beta vulgaris ‘Tall Top Early Wonder’)
Kale (Brassica oleracea ‘Dwarf Blue Curled Vates’)
Bright blue like that of this Salvia gives such pizzazz to the garden . . .
Blueberry(Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Biloxi’) ++ You may recall that I really dislike eating blueberries–but I know the birds and creatures will like them if I leave them, and I think the plants are beautiful!
Irresistible little blooms on the blueberry . . .
Clematis(Clematis, var.) I’ve put in several varieties, and the first leaves are beginning to appear, so I think I had better give those little green pretties something to climb up soon or risk their meandering in the underbrush.
Peering out from under oak leaf-mold and purple tradescantia that's already shown its first bloom of the season, the clematis leaves are beginning to crawl forward . . .
Columbine (Aquilegia ‘Origami Mix’)
Corkscrew Rush (Juncus effusus ‘Spiralis’)
Eastern Redbud(Cercis canadensis) The first of our little city give-away adoptees appears to have survived the winter, but won’t yet show its bud growth.
Fig Tree (Ficus carica ‘Brown Turkey’) I found a sturdy fig tree rooted in a three-gallon pot for four dollars. How could I refuse? Even if it turns out to be only semi-productive (though I’m told they grow well enough here), the leaf will be a nice variant in the yard.
Forsythia (Forsythia x intermedia) A good shot of early color is always welcome.
Horsetail Reed(Equisetum hyemale) Strangely for a place that verges on drought, the yard here has one or two water-collecting spots! So wet-footed plants should do fine.
I find it strange that there is a place--ANYWHERE in this north Texas garden--that can stay wet for so long, but it's a handy spot to put water-tolerant plants like the Corkscrew and Horsetail reeds, after all . . .
Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantina)
Mexican Plum(Prunus mexicana)
The Mexican Plum tree just planted this last fall has wasted no time in putting out dainty little white flowers . . .
New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax) Going for a bit of large-scale drama, here. (You can see the NZ flax’s big burgundy swords in front of the wet growing bed above.)
Red Cabbage(Brassica oleracea var. capitata f. rubra)
When it's on sale, why not use the bedding plant! And I got a half-flat of red cabbage babies, so they went out front for their ornament as well as in hopes of good eating . . .
Soapberry (Sapindus saponaria)
Even the six inch tall Soapberry tree seedling from last year is swelling into bud . . .
Tulips (Tulipa spp.) Of a white unnamed variety; oh, yes, I did succumb. I put just a dozen in my front porch planters. Half of them were soldas orange, but buying a generic handful of bulbs, one gets what one gets, no? And white tulips are beautiful too, so I shan’t complain.
A splash of orange might have been showier, but there's no classic like an elegant white flower . . .
Art-Colored Glasses 