Browsed by
Category: flowers

Seize the Day

Seize the Day

Comments 0 Comment

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough
And stands along the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide

Now, of my threescore years and ten
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
A.E. Housman

I kept thinking of these words yesterday, of how beauty is bounded by time, how all things precious are. And so this seasonal ritual is not just spectacle, not just renewal, it is reminder.

The blossoms are fleeting; they, like us, will come and go. But we’re here, and they’re here.

There’s nothing left to do but seize the day.

Blossoms for the People

Blossoms for the People

Comments 2 comments

I used to wait for the perfect photograph, hold my camera steady until a split-second unobstructed view. But on today’s early morning stroll around the Tidal Basin, I didn’t mind including people in the picture. It was the people I noticed most.

The joy on their faces, not a sour look in the bunch. These are cherry blossom devotees, early risers,  up before 6 to be downtown before 7.  Joggers, bikers, picnickers, photographers — all here for one reason, to get their fill of beauty.

Here’s what they saw:

Daffodils

Daffodils

Comments 0 Comment

I discovered them last year and have imagined them many times since. Not exactly Wordsworth’s daffodils, but close. They have the same careless profusion, the same grace and glee. They come to a world stripped of color; they are the opening salvo of spring.

Even knowing they were there, I was still surprised by their number and color, by the way they’ve threaded themselves through the woods.

And I wasn’t the only one. There were other walkers on the path, nodding, pointing, savoring their glory.

I almost took another picture. But I’d taken several last year. So this year’s pilgrimage was just to look, to imagine, to store them up like sunshine and good times. To keep them in mind as the poet did, for a “vacant” or “pensive mood.”

And that’s where they are now, and where they’ll stay.

Wind, Flake, Flower

Wind, Flake, Flower

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday, the soul of March. Brisk breeze, clouds dark and low, occasional sun, and every so often a flake or two of snow in the sky. 

Cold enough for winter, bright enough for spring. The snowdrops along the path hung their heads, stayed close to the ground. It was cold even for them.

In a few weeks we’ll have cherry blossoms, daffodils, red bud trees. But not yet. There is a thinness to the light, a hesitancy in the air. The great drama is still playing out.

Will winter win, or spring?

Violets, Again

Violets, Again

Comments 0 Comment

Violets are part of my emotional-horticultural heritage. My mother has
always loved them and her mother, my namesake, always
loved them, too. I have very few of my grandmother’s possessions, but I
do have her violet-patterned cup and saucer set, and I treasure
it.

In a way, the violet is a strange flower to claim. Many consider it a weed. It’s mowed down as often as it’s cultivated.

But even without the family tradition, I would like this flower. Maybe it’s the color combination, the vividness of
the purple, the way it’s grounded by the green. Or maybe it’s the way it
clusters with its own, as if waiting to be gathered into a bouquet. In
the general boisterousness that is spring, the violet is shy and
unassuming; it doesn’t ask for much.

 For that reason, it’s an easy flower to love.

(Happy Birthday, Mom!)

New Normal

New Normal

Comments 1 comment

I noticed these green shoots more than a week ago. They may have peeked through in late December. The ground has been easy to peek through, after all. A few cold blustery days but warmer than usual for the most part.

Yesterday was mild and foggy, today more of the same. Meanwhile, in other parts of the state, temperatures rose into the 70s this weekend.

The heather is blooming, soon the witch hazel will, too. And from the looks of it, the daffodils will be early this year.

It’s not so much early spring as lack of winter. It’s the new normal.

Roses in December

Roses in December

Comments 2 comments

It was almost 70 degrees yesterday as I made my way along New Jersey Avenue to the Capitol. A small wind was whiffling the pansies, stirring the purples and yellows and the dark green leaves.  I moseyed down a section of tree-lined street that reminds me of Paris, with the U.S. Capitol winking through what’s left of the leaves.

The broad plaza of the East Front entrance was filled with shirt-sleeved tourists snapping photos, but noon light drained color from the scene. I turned left down East Capitol, passing the Library and the Folger and a bookstore I always intend to visit but never do. Roses were still blooming, tumbling along fence posts and garden gates. In the air, the smell of new-mown grass.

Everyone was out in the warm weather — dog-walkers and nannies pushing prams and office workers on a lunchtime jog.  There’s a park where I usually turn around, and today I strode right through the middle of it. I never knew what it was called until I checked a map after my stroll. It’s Lincoln Park — and not at all like its Chicago counterpart — but now I’ll never forget the name.

Late Rose

Late Rose

Comments 0 Comment

Frost has nipped the begonias, colored the maples, brought a dignified end to the tomato and basil plants. But it has not yet conquered the knockout roses in our front yard.

They have continued to bloom red and pink, their colors out of place with subtle autumn russets and gold, their freshness unexpected and sublime.

To see them still waving in the breeze is to believe that all will be well, that winter will pass and spring will come again.

Witch Hazel

Witch Hazel

Comments 0 Comment

Halfway through October, our witch hazel is the most colorful tree in the garden.  I never think of it as an autumn showpiece — it’s best in late winter, blooming in the snow. Yet this year I notice that it’s mellowing to a muted, green-veined yellow that is the soul of the season — when the season is seen as a gentle winding down rather than a last, flaming hurrah.

Though witch hazel leaves begin as squiggly yellow flowers, they end as bigger, plate-like foliage and then, sometimes, there is a second flowering, an autumn bloom. After reading about this today I tiptoed out into our dark backyard to see if I could find evidence of it.

There is some debate about whether the witch hazel is a shrub or a tree, but our specimen is most definitely the latter. Tall, straight-limbed, arching, generous. Even in the dark I felt its presence. And reaching up to touch the limbs I felt along the stem and found the beginnings of those same squiggly flowers that are the harbingers of spring. Perhaps to bloom soon, perhaps in a few months. Or perhaps, it doesn’t matter.

The point is: the flowers will come again.

Tiny Hopeful Garden

Tiny Hopeful Garden

Comments 0 Comment

I pass it on the way to work sometime. A dingy little corner at 2nd and D. It’s on the northeast side, next to the homeless shelter and across the street from the tunnel. There’s no more than five or six feet of soil between the sidewalk and the building.

Earlier this season I noticed a few green shoots. Not weeds exactly.  They were more intentional.

As the weeks wore on, I watched the plants grow up and out, the stems thicken , small yellow flowers form. Throughout the hot, dusty summer, they stayed alive. Not flourishing exactly, but not dying, either.

Today I walked past them. The flowers are turning to fruit, curved and healthy. I’m no master gardener, but I think we have a pumpkin patch here. A spot of color in a block of gray. A tiny hopeful garden.