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A Lilac, Finally

A Lilac, Finally

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The lilacs in Groton, Massachusetts, hung their heavy heads over Martins Pond Road, and when I would go for runs in those days I would look forward to their company. You didn’t have to sniff each individual flower. The scent was everywhere, part of the general spring exhalation.

I’m not a lilac expert, but I can tell these plants aren’t suited for D.C.’s warm, humid climate. Still, I have a transplanted one my brother gave me a dozen years ago, tucked away in what would seem to be a perfect corner of the yard. Every year I scan it for blossoms; every year I’m disappointed.

Yesterday I tiptoed up to the lilac and searched for flowers. There were the familiar glossy leaves, the sprig of forsythia which somehow started growing at its base. I was almost ready to walk away when I saw at the very tip-top the palest hint of lavender. It was a slender, anemic-looking blossom, but a blossom just the same.

It has a way to go before it looks like this lilac, which I snapped last weekend in Lexington. But it’s a start.

First Flower

First Flower

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I noticed the small bloom late last week, a buttercup yellow flower called winter aconite. Though I’ve spotted crocus and snowdrops in other yards, this was the first one in ours.

But by yesterday, it was gone.

The early flowers are shy, low to the ground, tender of stem.  They are also fleeting, as is all spring beauty.

They are like sculptures made of sand, sunsets made of shifting light and clouds. They remind us to look deeply at first glance.

(No pictures of winter aconite; these crocus will have to do.)

Begonias: The Sequel

Begonias: The Sequel

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Were the begonias reading my blog? If so, not anymore. On Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after I wrote about their bravery and their continued existence, they finally succumbed to the low night temperatures.

I knew their time was up when I wrote about them, am surprised they lasted this long. It’s the life of an annual, as brief as the autumn leaves that I notice are so much more a part of this photograph than they seemed to be when I snapped the shot.

We know what happens next. In a few days or weeks I’ll rip out the old plants and let the soil rest until spring.

A few late roses are clinging to life, but for the most part the growing season is over. The begonias lasted from late May through mid-November —not a bad run.

Brave Begonias

Brave Begonias

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Annuals don’t expect immortality, so I don’t give it to them. When the temperatures dip into the 20s and teens, I let them go gracefully, don’t bring them inside for the winter. I’ve seen enough thin, leggy geraniums to realize when a flower is past its prime.

Which is not to say I don’t care. This time of year I often look outside first thing to see if the begonias have made it another night.

And last night, for one more night, they did.

Outside In

Outside In

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It’s cold enough that the heat came on, and hot air ruffles the leaves of the peace plant. I had to look up the name of this plant. I’ve had a smaller one for years, but never knew what it was. Now that I have a large one (given to us at Dad’s funeral), I feel a greater responsibility to it, am working harder to keep it healthy, to coax its airy white flower — which shoots up, seemingly out of nowhere — in bloom.

In from outside is the cactus, the large fern and — new this year — a hardy, happy thyme plant. (We’ll see how long it’s happy inside.) They join a profusion of cut flowers — bouquets from Suzanne’s arrival — all making the house cheerful.

As flowers fade outdoors they bloom indoors. I’d rather have the profusion of summer, but when that’s not possible this is the next best thing.

True Colors

True Colors

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The hedge is returning to its roots. The pink hues of bud and stem — the colors I notice every spring — are present now in the roses and russets of autumn. In the months between, of course, there’s a lot of green. But the green is fading now and those first colors are reappearing.

Which makes me wonder: What are the hedge’s true colors? The green it wears most of the summer or the pink it dons in spring and fall?

I’m no botanist, but I’m fond of the hedge. I notice its growth and cycles. And if I had to name its true color I would say the one it was born with. Apples, hedges — and people, too — none of us fall too far from the tree.

Autumn Planting

Autumn Planting

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There’s a delicious irony in autumn planting, a slap in the face to fall. All around me leaves are yellowing, dying, flaming out, and here I am plying the soil, ripping out the summer flowers, putting fall ones in their place.

I chose mums and ornamental cabbage, hearty plants that can bear a hard freeze and stff wind. I forgo the pretty pansies with their thin stems and hopeful faces.

Planting in the fall is a vote for life. It’s thumbing my nose at winter, saying (if only to myself) maybe it won’t be as bad this year.

Tangled Harvest

Tangled Harvest

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It’s harvest time on the back deck. The thyme is thriving, the basil is bolting and the cherry tomatoes are tangled up with the climbing rose (which I’m training to clamber up the balusters).

There’s not enough sunlight in the backyard to put tomatoes directly into the ground, so they grow in pots. And the most successful pot-grown tomatoes, I’ve learned, are these little guys. They’re as sweet as candy and taste great in salads or pasta or right from the vine.

The only problem, every year, is that they really get the hang of it in September. There are green tomatoes aplenty on these vines. Will they ripen in time? Some of them, probably. The rest will harden, their stems will shrivel — and then — and only then — I’ll untangle them from the rose.

Drenched Garden

Drenched Garden

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Spongy mulch, dripping ferns, glistening flowers.

The summer garden got a good soaking yesterday, and this morning it is renewed, refreshed, restored.

I’m still thinking about the tropical gardens, though, the orchids and bromeliads, how they draw their sustenance from rainfall cupped and gathered, how they use it to make food.

Plants of the air, plants of the earth — water common to both.

Chicken of the Woods

Chicken of the Woods

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When I spotted it a week ago, I thought it was a flower. So brilliant, so orange. What kind of flower, of course, I had no idea. But I’m an optimistic gardener, also a bit near-sighted, and from a distance it appeared that some brave unknown volunteer had settled down into the clay soil.

On closer inspection, of course, I learned the truth. Not a flower but a fungus. A flower of darkness. A decomposer. Beautiful at its business, thriving on wounded oaks.

A little research and I have the answer — laetiporus, chicken of the woods, so called because it is edible and tastes like … yes, chicken.

I’ll get my chicken from chicken, thank you very much. Beauty I’ll take wherever I can find it.