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Category: flowers

Catkins!

Catkins!

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The oak catkins are back, draping and dropping, falling from trees onto car, lawn and deck. They’re graceful and gritty, ornery and ornamental. They make my eyes water and my sinuses swell.

These male flowers release pollen to the wind, pollen that finds its way to the female oak flowers to make acorns — and eventually new oak trees. But catkins find many detours from their appointed rounds. They hitch a ride on the soles of shoes, worm their way into houses where they burrow into carpets, slide into corners, and get stuck on the shaggy coats of one old doggie I know.

Years ago, during a catkin-heavy spring, my middle daughter, Claire, decided to start a catkin-removal business. She asked our neighbors if they’d like their driveways swept free of the things, and most of them said yes. Claire did a brisk business. She worked hard for hours, pulling her little wagon up and down the street and loading the catkins there after she’d swept them up.

I’ll never forget her trudging home in the late afternoon, full of smiles. She had a few dollars in her pocket, our neighbor’s driveways were pristine — and she’d brought all the catkins home … to our yard.

Respite in the Garden

Respite in the Garden

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Weeds don’t care about viruses. They grow just as robustly during a pandemic as they do any other time. So yesterday I waded into the garden to pull out wild strawberries, dandelions and other invasive plants.

It felt good to have my hands in the earth and the sun warm on my back. It felt normal and pre-pandemic.

The mulch, when I spread it, had that same aroma it always does, and the back yard had the same discouraging bald patches it always does this time of year.  I’m hoping that our hard work now will pay off later — but, as always, I’m not counting on it.

(Violets are one weed I’ll leave alone.)

Blossoms Remembered

Blossoms Remembered

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It’s been years since I’ve missed seeing D.C.’s famous cherry blossoms. It’s one of my own personal rites of spring — walking beneath the massed pink flowers, petals falling gently on our heads, seeing the city transformed.

There are always crowds: picnickers, photographers, little kids who stray too close to the Tidal Basin. Many people dress up for the occasion, and it’s a favorite for engagement shoots. But the clamor and craziness of it is part of the experience, as are all the times I’ve gone before with my family and with my parents years ago. Those earlier visits are with me each new year when I brave the crowds to see the blossoms again.

This year there are no tourists. Roads are blocked off discouraging congregation. Those who venture down are masked and gloved. They’re maintaining social distance.  I will not be one of them.

But I can imagine what it’s like, can take a virtual walk beneath the trees.

Social Distancing

Social Distancing

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On a walk yesterday I spotted these well-spaced blossoms, which are part of an uncultivated weeping cherry, I think. There’s a tree like this at the end of our yard, too, though until the last few years it had no space to bloom.

I ponder the pale pink of these flowers, a d their delicacy and freshness. Surely they’re an antidote to what ails us.

And yet, when I look more closely, all I see is the space between blossoms.

These
        days
              even
                    nature
                            seems
                                     to
                                        practice
                                                    social
                                                              distancing.

Being Outside

Being Outside

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Inside, we are quarantined, faithfully keeping our social distance. But outside … we are free.

I felt it today when I went for a walk in a gradually clearing day. The cold rain of early morning had misted away and what was left in its wake was a landscape filled with birdsong and puddles and forsythia popping.

All of a sudden, the day didn’t feel as gloomy. The fears of pandemic gave way to the beauty of spring.


(I’m rushing it a little with this photo; these iris won’t bloom until May.)

Pruning the Rose

Pruning the Rose

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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.

Snowdrops

Snowdrops

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From the looks of it they’ve been blooming over a week now, these shy white flowers, though I just noticed them today. They’re tucked away in a quiet corner of the common land at the end of the street.

The snowdrop is such a gracious flower, with its slender stem and paper white blossoms. When in full bloom the little flowers hang their heads ever so slightly — perhaps a wise move. To call too much attention to themselves this early in the season would be to risk retribution: snow that would bury them. But from the look of the forecast all they’ll have to endure is a little bit of rain.

Not that I keep a close count, but I believe this is the earliest I’ve ever seen snowdrops. They’re in good company, though. Yesterday, I saw the first robins of the season, too.

Muted Palette

Muted Palette

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An early walk today amidst a muted palette of autumn color. The pink of the sunrise sky set off the glow of those leaves that still cling to their branches. The air was mild with a feeling of warmth and moisture. A flock of birds passed overhead.

We are heading for a monochromatic world, I know that. Already more limbs are bare than leafed. But it was hard not to revel in the beauty of the moment, not to get from it an optimism about things in general.

The kwanzan cherry tree, which was slower to change and has held its color longer than most, is finally shedding leaves at a frantic pace. But it’s all to prepare for next spring when it will send forth its big-fisted blossoms in a riot of pink.

Yes, there is winter to get through in the meantime. But today, or at least this morning, it was easy to forget about that.

Fading Ferns

Fading Ferns

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The ferns are fading. They’ve turned crusty and brown. In some light, perhaps, they appear golden. But that’s a stretch.

I know it’s only seasonal change, but there’s something about ferns that speak more than most plants of youth and vigor. And I feel bad for them in this sorry state.

I think back to April and the earliest tendrils, how exciting it is to see these strange things emerge from the cool and leaf-strewn soil.

I think of how well they have served us through the summer, how faithfully they have waved in the breeze, how cannily they have outwitted the hungry deer that stalk these parts.

Yes, they will be back next year, I know. And I’ll watch them unfurl and come into their own once again, perhaps even spread, as they are wont to do. But it won’t be these ferns. These ferns … are fading.

Glory in the Morning

Glory in the Morning

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Behold the morning glory volunteers, their seeds slipped into the soil last year, gifts from the past. Back in June they decided to sprout, and now they’ve grown, twined and, finally, bloomed. I seem to recall their relatives were blue, but no matter, maybe the soil acidity has changed or there’s been a mutation. I like these better anyway.

Morning glories make clear the photosensitivity that all plants share. Sunrise and sunset prompt their openings and closings, which is just the obvious part, because it tempers their leaf color and stem strength, too.  
I feel a kinship with morning glories. Like them I bloom in the early hours; it’s when I get my best brain work done. By afternoon I often feel as closed up as they look.