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Category: flowers

Eye Candy

Eye Candy

Walking through an Eastside Portland neighborhood yesterday, I saw roses and rhododendron, lavender and wisteria, poppies and fuchsia. I saw tall fir trees tipped with new green growth. 

I didn’t actually dig into the soil, but from the profusion of bloom, it appears that most anything will grow here except maybe cactus. I’m not much of a gardener, but with inspiration like this I think I could become more of one. What struck me as I strolled was the pleasure these flowers bring to the eye. Looking at them felt elemental, as if I was taking sustenance from the stems, leaves and blossoms. 

Margaret’s Garden

Margaret’s Garden

Years ago, there was an iris and day lily farm a few miles from here. Gardeners would flock to the farm this time of year to enjoy the blossoms and perhaps buy a few bulbs, which would be delivered weeks later in a brown paper bag. 

Margaret Thomas was the gardener. She was a relic of the old days, of small farms and neighborliness. She lived in a green house with a picturesque shed out back, half falling down. Artists would set up their easels in her garden and paint the iris with the ruined shed in the background. 

Our Siberian iris come from Margaret, and though they share the garden with their showier cousins, they are the ones that catch my eye every spring, their delicate beauty I seek when winter’s done. 

As for Margaret’s garden, it’s now a subdivision: Iris Hills. 

Weed Whisperer

Weed Whisperer

It’s the golden season for weeding, a precious period before the arrival of stilt grass and the more noxious undergrowth, when I can (and do) plop myself down and gently remove the crabgrass, wild strawberries and dandelions from the periwinkle and forget-me-nots.   

Weeding at close range can be a meditative occupation. It feels less like banishing what I don’t want and more like welcoming what I do. It is garden shaping rather than green demolition. And it’s a chance to be part of the landscape, one with the clematis and creeping jenny and bleeding heart.

Before long the tenacious troublemakers will move in, the invasive grasses that seem bent on making the world their own and require a full-scale assault to stop them. But until they do, just call me the weed whisperer.

Shimmering

Shimmering

Over the weekend, there were walks without clock-watching, walks through every cul-de-sac in Folkstone, starting off slowly and gathering speed only when the body felt ready. 

Walks with frequent pauses, not for breath but for beauty. 

The azaleas were shimmering … and I couldn’t resist. 

Petal Storm

Petal Storm

A wild wind blew in from the west yesterday, bending the bamboo and sending Kwanzan cherry petals flying over grass and street. 

It was a veritable petal storm, as the wind continued through the night and into today, sending overnight temperatures below freezing and forcing us to bring in the few plants we’d set outside. 

I’m telling myself that it’s only a temporary retreat. Spring is on the march this Earth Day, and it will persevere in the end.  Until then, I’m watching the petals as they fly. At least they’re not snowflakes. 

Planting Seeds

Planting Seeds

As the great trees have fallen, the yard has grown brighter, able to support sun-loving plants.  Shade still rules the back of the lot, but it’s a more open place than it was ten years ago. 

Zinnias are old-fashioned flowers that like the sun.  They, like the recently transplanted knock-out rose, are the silver lining in the oaks’ demise. You can sow zinnia seeds directly in the soil when the ground is ready in spring. Which means I ventured out over the weekend, when the garden was moist and tangled in weeds, to start what I hope is a small crop of zinnias. 

Planting, like painting, is mostly about preparation. In this case, the preparation was weeding: ripping wild strawberry and mint from the flower bed; pulling the weed du jour, a tall, gangly stem topped with a baby’s breath-like white flower; and digging up wild onions and dandelions.  

Once I’d made room, I shook the seeds — the chaff, really, because that’s all it seemed — into my palm. How insignificant, barely more than pocket lint or specks of dirt with dust attached. But I spread them evenly and covered them with a light blanket of top soil. 

Surely planting seeds is the ultimate act of faith. If these wee, floaty things produce flowers I will be the most surprised one of all.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Redbuds!

Redbuds!

Every year I obsess over a new type of spring bloom. This year, it’s the redbud tree. I’ve admired them forever, of course. On the long drives to Kentucky I would see wild ones blooming in the mountains, sometimes whole swatches of them coloring the hillsides.

Unlike the delicate cherries of early spring, the redbud is vibrant, bold — an azalea-hued plant that doesn’t wait till late April to show its bright color. 

I’ve photographed several of them lately and covet one for the yard. I have just the spot for it. 

Impressionistic View

Impressionistic View

Most days I have little choice about which walk I take. I have 30 or so spare minutes, and I sandwich in a stroll between meetings and deadlines, taking the most expedient route — the one out my front door, down the main drag in the neighborhood and back.

But yesterday, I had a little more time, so I picked a paved path that runs along the Fairfax County Parkway because it afforded the best view of blooming Bradford Pear and Redbud trees. I’d been seeing white petals blowing in the breeze like so many springtime snowflakes, and I figured if I was going to see the pears, I’d better do it soon.

The parkway path provided a broad-stroke, Impressionistic view of spring, the kind seen from a distance. It made me feel as if I had traveled far, when actually I was only a few miles from home.

An Excellent Trade

An Excellent Trade

Every year in early spring I try to organize the two climbing rose bushes that clamber over the pergola on the deck. So yesterday, I ventured forth with clippers and gardening gloves and a ladder to snip off the deadwood and re-attach boughs with twisty green gardening wire.  

A new task this year was freeing the detritus that collects under the tangle of limbs. This meant holding up the thorny wood with one hand while sweeping the gunk out with another, all while balanced on a ladder.

By the time I was done, I had leaf bits in my hair, black smudges on my face and pricked fingers and thumbs (the gardening gloves can only do so much). I was, in short, a mess. But the rose … it was looking pretty good. Maybe it’s just where I am now, but I consider this an excellent trade. 

(The rose at the beginning of its blooming period last year.) 

Celebrating Crocus

Celebrating Crocus

This morning, a celebration of crocus, of the all the new ones that have sprung up in the yard this year, apparently dormant for several years but making their appearance now thanks to time and warmed earth.

There are clumps of crocus by the street, around the tree and amidst the laurel in the front garden. They are pale lavender, rich purple and creamy white.

Though I think of crocus as shy flowers, in company they project a bright and jaunty beauty, a kind of brazen, “let’s do it” approach that makes me admire them for their bravery.