Busy, Busy

It's mulching season. Actually, it may be past mulching season, though I suppose it's still mulching season somewhere, especially if you still have mulch to spread. 

Speaking of that, as I walk through the neighborhood, I spy much mulch. There are piles of it in driveways, waiting to be shoveled and carted to the backyard, and bags of it strategically placed under trees or beside garden beds. 

I've decided that having an array of mulch bags deposited around the property is the perfect way to look busy. It's proof positive that mulching may occur in the future if it hasn't already. 

When we first moved to this tidy suburban neighborhood, I had a thing about mulch. It seemed the epitome of uptight lawn care. But through the years I've come to understand its value: the moisture it keeps in, the weeds it keeps out. If nothing else, it lets neighbors know we care. 

Flower Shopping

A trip to a garden shop yesterday put me much in mind of spring. Though it's cloudy and rainy today, yesterday it was warm and sunny, and the shop had everything, it seemed, except the one plant I was looking for.

That would be a climbing rose. This old-fashioned beauty is no longer in favor, it seems. All eyes are on the knockout rose, its flashy second (or third?) cousin. 

Knockouts are beautiful, and easier to grow than most other varieties, but long ago I fell in love with climbers and am stuck with the attraction now. In a few weeks I'll post a photo that will explain why. For now, though, a picture of some magenta phlox I spied on a walk the other day. They're perfect enough to be in a garden shop themselves.

Profusion

The climate is mild, the sea breezes are gentle and the plants are flourishing here on Madeira. 

Calla lilies grow wild. Geraniums run riot. Birds of paradise add color and whimsy. 

To walk along a path or sidewalk here is to feast the eyes on bright pinks and purples, to revel in profusion.

Spring Cleaning

I never put the garden to bed last fall, so last weekend I opened the chickenwire enclosure used to keep the deer at bay and waded into the tangle of old growth. There were the tall stalks of zinnias and dried coneflower heads. There were the long stems of Siberian iris and the hollow-core canes of day lilies. 

This can be a melancholy task to perform in autumn, less a harvest than a confiscation. But done in late winter, when green shoots are already pushing up from the soil, it's a hopeful and much-needed clearing, a spring cleaning. 

As I pulled and tugged and gathered, a familiar scent tickled my nostrils. It was mint: the plant is already growing. I picked a few tiny sprigs to have in my iced tea.

Can summer be far behind?

(The garden in early July.)

Table for Four

When I drove there Saturday in the pouring rain, it seemed as if the place was an extension of Washington's Rock Creek Park. And in a way it is. Hillwood, the home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, is perched on a hilltop in the Forest Hills section of northwest D.C. It might as well be in England or France, though, with the formal gardens and the extensive collection of European art, furnishings and tapestries. 

By the time my friend and I finished lunch, the rain had stopped, the sky was blue and the just-dowsed hyacinths scented the walk we took around the garden. Inside the house were treasures from Post's collection, including Faberge eggs and a large collection of Russian art. 

And then there was this breakfast room. Post's table was always set for four, even if she dined alone. It's a big waste of plates and silverware, of course, but I kind of like the idea. 

Brave Buds

When life is limited, as it continues to be these days, I look for small changes. Walking routes are one of them. So I left the neighborhood, turned right instead of heading straight, and trudged along a busy four-lane road.

This took me past a nursery with plants I always admire, plants that look as pretty in winter as they do in summer, one with berries and one a yellowed evergreen.

How lovely the winter garden can be: how various the textures, how lively the stems. It's as if we see the plants for what they truly are, the skeletons and the souls of them. 

In January, spent grasses nod their heads, brave buds raise their chins. All are waiting, waiting. If you listen carefully, you can hear them exhale.

Inside Again

The house this morning has the feel of Noah’s ark two days into the 40. Only it’s not animals seeking refuge this morning; it’s plants.

As temperatures plunged into the 20s, we brought in the ferns and the spider plant and the cactus. They are hunkered down here where temps are in the upper 60s, heading for a high of 70 once the furnace moves to its daytime setting. Because some of the plants are so large they must be moved in on little dollies, they will stay inside now till spring.

The moving of the plants is one of those autumnal rites of passage I try to put off as long as possible. Turning on the heat in the house is another one. On both accounts we’ve made it to November, which I can hardly complain about.

But I will add a wistful note, a plea to the weather gods. It's nothing personal, nothing against the plants themselves. But I hope it won’t be long before they can be outside again.

Hand Outstretched

I returned to an autumn landscape: acorns underfoot, leaf litter, the late-summer growth of the climbing rose. I love this second bloom, have written about it before, will always be touched by it.

Today I see the fall roses as a valentine to summer, a hand outstretched with a bouquet.

Here, take this, goes the caption. Take these poesies with you into the next season, the one of chill winds and scant foliage. Let them remind you that spring will come again.

Reading and Weeding

The reading and weeding I did yesterday seem worthy of a post. The reading was for class, a chapter called Biology and Ideology. It was about Social Darwinism, eugenics, the values with which science can be laden, the ways science can be used. 

I take notes as I read, because it helps me concentrate and remember. Reading a chapter takes a while, then, as I jot down the main points and attempt to digest them. 

Which meant that I was ready for the weeding when it came. I was ready to swing my arms and pull out great fists full of stilt grass, toss it over the chicken wire fence. The motion freed my limbs, loosened my brain.

Wouldn't it be nice if every day held a perfect combination of mental and physical work? I'm not saying mine did yesterday. But it was close. 

(No picture of weeds handy; here's a shot snapped on the way to class.)

Growing Family

At my house, the longest day passed in a blur of baby giggles, burgers and corn on the cob. Not the most elegant Father's Day repast, but one suited to young families.

These days are golden, and when the last toy is collected and stuffed into the diaper bag, and the cars disappear down the street, I'm left marveling, as I always do, at how our family has grown.

It will always be miraculous to me, which is, I suppose, how it should be.

(The elephant ear family is growing, too.) 

Japanese Garden

As May gallops to a close, I'm immersing myself once again in the calm oasis of Portland's Japanese garden. Yes, it's 2,800 miles away now, but I have it right up here in my noggin, sloshing around with today's to-do list and other trivia.

It wasn't difficult to take decent photos at the garden. Everywhere I pointed my phone camera was a beautifully framed shot. From artfully raked gravel plots to gently cascading waterfalls. 

That's because, in a Japanese garden, beauty is cultivated most of all. 

Where We Are Now

The president has just declared a national state of emergency, the schools have closed and grocery store shelves are empty of staples and cleaning supplies. So it might seem a strange time to give my spider plant some TLC. But that's what I've been doing the last hour.

The poor thing has been suffering from scale for years, but it's been at the office, and even though a colleague with a green thumb gave me his favorite scale-eradication solution recipe, I've had no chance to use it ... until now.

But now the plants are home with me, along with a monitor, laptop, backup disc and the folders and files I think I might need the next few weeks. Now is a good time to concoct the oily, sudsy solution and wipe off each leaf and stem. I love this plant, have had it for years. I want it to live!

It's a micro effort in a macro-scary world. It's where we are now.

(The spider plant in an ironic setting, since my office is not where I am now.)

Pruning the Rose

Pruning the rose is one of the more zen-like gardening tasks. While it may seem daunting at first, once you've found the rhythm — deadheading the spent blooms, tracing each shoot to its origin, discovering the essential order of the plant — it becomes as engrossing as any occupation I know of.

It's not mindless but mindful. It requires that we study each stem, follow it through a tangle of thorns and the green gardening wire I use to lash errant branches to their railings. It's almost like entering the plant, learning its secrets, understanding it enough to diminish it, knowing that in making it less we ultimately make it more.

Gardening mirrors life in many ways — but pruning the rose mirrors it more than mowing, say, or weeding. Because in life must we often need to shed the extraneous, to find the essential and amplify it, to train first ourselves and then our children, to guide and shepherd. And that means meeting things first on their own terms.  In gardening, as in life, it's important to pay attention.

Feeling Tropical

... And why not, with these in the front yard.?

The elephant ears (colocasia) started as tubers in June, but they're as tall as I am now and show no signs of stopping. I snapped a picture of them over the weekend.

Elephant ears salute the sun, wave in the breeze and shade weeds (I'm hoping enough to kill a few).

Rain and dew pool on their soft leaves. They give the front yard a primeval look, which matches the ferns.

While I'd rather have an English cottage garden, it's hard to argue with success.

Picking Up Sticks

Is there a less glamorous but more necessary lawn task than the picking up of sticks?

It must happen before mowing, of course, but preferably sooner than that. Around here, it needs to be done every day or so, at least in the spring when strong winds rattle the oaks and do as much pruning as shears or clippers.

With every bending down and picking up, I fell myself that I'm building up a pile of kindling for a bonfire some day. Or at the very least enough to stuff a can of yard waste for the recycling pick-up next week.

Most of all, I tell myself that these are nothing, mere toothpicks, the balsa wood of yard flotsam. The big trees they came from, they're still standing. And that's what matters most.

Kubota Garden

It's where Seattle goes on a sunny day ... or at least it felt that way last Sunday. There were lovers and families and dog walkers. The elderly in wheel chairs and walkers. Cameras with tripods, their earnest photographers snapping shots of engaged couples and even a bride.

Kubota Gardens is an oasis of green in the midst of the city. Even a city as green as Seattle, one nestled between water and mountains, needs the relaxation potential of an urban park. Kubota satisfies all the senses: the splash of water, the aroma of autumn leaves — and everywhere, flaming foliage, artful arrangements of flower and leaf and grass.

This time of year, Kubota is a riot of reds, oranges and yellows, as the Japanese maple, euonymus and  gingko flare up in their rich tones.

I did a lot of people watching on Sunday, a lot of strolling and stopping, a lot of deep breathing. It was just the respite I needed before a hectic week.

In from the Cold

The ferns came in 10 days ago,  the cactus mid-week, and one big pot of begonias a few nights ago. The plants that bloomed and thrived for almost six months on the deck are now huddled by the fireplace or hogging the light of the two small basement windows.

And it's good that they are, because over the weekend came a killing frost, a hard freeze that nipped the dogwood leaves left on the tree, shriveling them overnight. The begonias still standing on Saturday morning took a a graceful bow as the day progressed and by Sunday morning had folded and fallen.

If autumn is a gentle reminder of our own fragility, a hard freeze is mortality's slap in the face. So, even though I've been expecting it, even though it's overdue, this shift of seasons leaves me vaguely melancholy. No wonder we plan feasts for these dark hours, one day for gratitude, another to celebrate the light and our hope in its return.

Dutch Wave

The headline caught my eye yesterday. "An inspiring green space in the concrete jungle." Could it be the High Line? And yes, it was.

Gardening columnist Adrian Higgins wrote about the verdancy of New York City's linear park, its stunning perennials and the way the wildlings (I love that word) mimic the flowers and weeds that flourished on the abandoned train line before it became an urban rooftop garden.

Higgins focuses on the plants themselves and the style of their plantings, as well as the man behind the beauty. Landscape designer Piet Oudolf is a leader of the "Dutch Wave" school of gardening, which is heavy on perennials and herbs and pollinators.

It's nice to have a name for the pleasing combination of shaggy grasses and delicate flowers. Not that I will try to create it at home but so I can roll it around in my mind as I stroll, recreating the walks I've taken on the High Line, a place where plants and people come together so admirably.

(The perennials in my garden are not Dutch Wave.)

Flowery Bower

Early on in my almost three decades (gulp) in this house, I tried to plant an English cottage garden. I'd seen the photos in catalogs and they struck my fancy. I liked the informality, the abundance, the palette.

So with the ardor of a novice gardener I ordered peonies, daisies, astilbe and climbing roses. I hacked my way into the clay soil, added lime and peat moss and gave those plant babies a chance. I watered and mulched and fussed.

The peony produced one flower (with the requisite ants) but never thrived. The astilbes barely lasted a summer. I learned quickly that I needed coneflowers rather than daisies.

But the climbing roses were a different matter entirely. The climbing roses "took."

So now I have a flowery bower, courtesy of an English cottage rose.

Outside Office

Working on the deck for a change, breeze blowing, crows cawing, Copper (newly shorn and feeling frisky) resting near my feet.

It's clouded up here, and there's enough moisture in the air to make me sleepy, even at 10 a.m.

After almost three months of working inside an overly air-conditioned building, it's good to work with the sun over my shoulder and bird song in the air.

And good too, to lift my eyes from the screen and page to admire the day lilies and cone flowers, the begonias and the pot of campanula.

It's summertime and the working (outside) is easy.