Category Archives: my garden

Waking in the middle of January.

my garden, the language, winter, , , , , , , , ,

Today felt like the beginning of a fresh season. The real seasons don’t sync with the dates on the calendar, and right now presents itself as more natural for starting something, for having the necessary energy and expectation. If my helper Alejandro hadn’t come to prune, it might not have happened still. But I did ask him to come, so I guess I got the ball rolling, or the pruners opened, or something.

In the first week of January, I only needed to go to church, to be carried on a wave of feasts and exultations. I did that seven times in seven days, because of St. Basil’s Day, Theophany, and our parish feast day, with all the associated Matins and Vespers services. When I go to church it’s nearly impossible for me to get Anything Done the rest of the day. So of course I was Behind in the second week, and before I had caught up much I sank a bit Under the Weather, and put this painting as the background of my computer monitor:

Felix Vallotton, Femme Couchee Dormant, 1899

But! I didn’t resemble that lady all the time, and when I put her picture up it was at my New Computer I was sitting, the whole project of which was accomplished for me (just before I went Under) by a team of family members, starting with Soldier, who chose and ordered the machine, and the Professor and Scout who got it set up beautifully. Especially Scout, whom some might remember as the boy at left, but who now is a young man and my favorite I.T. guy. My computing (reading and word processing) now goes blessedly like lightning, compared to the old system.

That speed enabled me to switch my Duolingo lessons from my phone to the computer, which was a relief, because all the phone pecking had aggravated my right thumb joint. It is in an effort to learn Greek that I was suffering the abuse, which led one friend to declare that I now have a Greek Thumb. I found the audio-visual lessons to be inadequate without writing practice, so once I switched to the computer I started writing down some phrases and sentences I was learning.

A trip to Greece is in my near future, if all goes as planned — I will surely tell you more about that soon. It’s doubtful that I will use the language much when I go there, but at least I may be able to make out some signage. And languages are always fun. I really need to work on my Greek penmanship, though!

My Greek Thumb had been one more cause of my enervation. But after about a week of lounging about and never quite finishing the dishes and laundry, I found myself out in the garden picking greens and stringing up pea supports. It was an overcast day, but I wore my barn coat and garden gloves and happily pulled out the rotten cherry tomato plant and took pictures of the pomegranates before they got pruned.

Many people have looked out the window at those fruits and wondered what they could be. The pomegranates get bleached by the winter rain and frosts, and don’t resemble at all the deep red fruits they were in the fall.

The day’s harvest of parsley, kale, collards and Swiss chard was fantastic. I hadn’t picked any for a couple of months. That type of kale on the top of this bowlful is so beautiful and hardy, I hope I can find the same seeds to plant again this year.

On the last day of lounging, my podcast listening also helped me get into a more active mode, because my contemplative self had been supremely satisfied by listening to Malcolm Guite. He was talking about George MacDonald, at a celebration last year of MacDonald’s 200th birthday.

The event took place at the Wade Center at Wheaton College, and the recording of it can be found here on YouTube: “When A Heart Is Really Alive: George MacDonald and the Prophetic Imagination.”

If you are at all interested in MacDonald, C.S. Lewis’s conversion, the vision of Coleridge, or myth and the imagination generally, I very heartily recommend it. I’m going to watch/listen again. Guite’s love for God and for his subject(s) are contagious. Immediately following that experience, I had today a perfect Home Alone Day, when my scattered mind wasn’t too challenged by having to multi-task. And that helps me to get more Things Done, which is calming and energizing.

Even though my last couple of days were more about Getting Up than waking up, I put the word “wake” in the title of this post because one theme of Guite’s talk and MacDonald’s writings is Waking Up. You can listen to the podcast and hear more about what we might wake to; I will just leave you with a related thought from the author himself:

“The world…is full of resurrections… Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it — the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.” -George MacDonald

I shift my attention to wisteria leaves.

beauty, my garden, , , ,

Most of the day I’ve been in a melancholy mood, except for the hour or so I was outside helping Alejandro pull the remaining leaves off the plum trees. We did this in preparation for applying the first dormant spray of the season, and I do love being in the garden, just soaking up the fresh smells and dampness. In the middle of the day, that is, when the chill doesn’t go straight to the bones.

I spent hours and hours out there this week, planting bulbs and annuals too late, and getting a little weary of the cold sogginess. But every time I would look up from the ground, there was the sky, and the varied colors of leaves drifting down from my crape myrtle, or the neighbor’s liquidamber. The whole thing overwhelms me with the beauty and sadness of the earth.

And today, it was the wisteria in my own garden that lifted my head and heart — it is a richer, deeper, brighter yellow-gold than I’ve ever noticed before. Truly, if cameras had never been invented, I would have had to learn to paint long ago.

Happy December, my Dear Readers all!

Gardeners happy in the weather.

my garden, weather, work, , ,
Strawberry tree (arbutus) fruit I didn’t get to eat.

Last week we got quite a drenching, and it was exhilarating. Early in the week the wind blew down pine needles and strawberry fruit, midweek featured 5+ inches falling on one day, and the day after that the landscaper “Dan” worked in the rain all day and installed many plants in my front yard. He was sopping at the end, and only quit when he did because he still had to drive an hour to get home before dark; his eyesight is not good and he’s having cataract surgeries starting this week — hence the need to accomplish as much as he could beforehand. The things not planted are waiting in the utility yard. Look at those ferns! I’ve never had ferns in my garden before.

I worked outside myself, consulting with Dan and looking on as he tested how plantable the soil was after all that wetting. We were both amazed to find bone dry soil under some of the areas that had been thickly covered in mulch. Other places near the borders of the space, with less mulch, standing water filled the holes several inches down, in clay, and he didn’t plant there. While Dan soldiered away completely exposed (in his thin rain suit), I spent most of my time in the garage with the big doors wide open, organizing, cleaning and sorting, and when I took things to the trash bins or did a little trimming of dead flowers, I didn’t get very wet. I was wearing waterproof boots and a rain jacket.

The temperature was mild, so we were able to enjoy our work and the invigorating weather without being cold. That air was a strong tonic. I was happy to get started on the small area of relandscaping, and to have someone to talk to about all the plants and how to arrange them; he said he always loves planting; we were both joyful because we are always greedy for rain in California. Oh, and it was definitely a relief to see the garage quite a bit tidier.

From time to time when I went into the house I would put another log in the stove, so that when darkness fell and I closed all the doors and window shades, oh how cozy I was.

The languid skipper sets an example.

food and cooking, my garden, , , , ,

When I was pruning the salvia in front, this skipper was languidly sipping from the same. You can see its proboscis going right down in. The creature was definitely not feeling skippy… I wonder if skippers die in winter? Did it lay eggs somewhere already?

So much is going on in the garden. These irises really should have been divided again — but, already? I’m afraid they will have to wait until next year.

 

I ended up with so much lemon verbena — what wealth! This is a very nostalgic herb to me, because of when I was in Turkey riding non-air-conditioned buses across Anatolia, and first experienced its delicious scent, though I didn’t know what it was. The bus attendant would walk up and down the aisles every hour or so with a big bottle of something like cologne, and if you held your hands cupped he would sprinkle a tablespoon or so into them. I followed the example of others and quickly splashed it on my face and neck for refreshment. Later, when I returned home, I brought an empty bottle with me and kept it for many years, just so I could take a whiff from time to time.

It was decades before I matched that scent to the lemon verbena plant. I mentioned in the summer how I had made lemon verbena paste, and last week I made lemon verbena simple syrup, trying to use a lot of the leaves before they fall off when the bush goes dormant. Now I wish I had just dried them. Making tea is the obvious thing, but for some reason I never did, though I had dried a few leaves last year and they were sitting on the counter. Last week I made a pot of tea with them and loved it. It’s wonderful just “plain.”

A few months ago my neighbor Kim broke a big stem off a plant on her patio and handed it to me. “Stick this in the ground,” she suggested. Instead, I cut the stem into three parts and put them in water, wherre I noticed they had made a lot of roots pretty quickly. One day I spied this huge flower cluster at the back of the jar by the window. Kim says this is a Plectranthus ecklonii, and her plant never gets blooms like that. I don’t know what I will do with it, but I found out that it is not terribly frost tender.

Plectranthus ecklonii

 

The olive that I repotted with great effort is looking healthy again. I guess my pruning wasn’t too bad, either. I do enjoy pruning, but I’m glad I don’t have to do all of it, or get on ladders anymore for that task. I can just prune the smaller bushes and leave the big ones for my helper.

Recently I did prune all four dwarf pomegranates, in advance of their dormant pruning that will happen later, because my new landscaper consultant told me I should “lift their skirts.” Ahem… is that common parlance in the gardening world? I had never heard the term, but I knew what he meant.

I am thrilled that my Japanese anemones (below) are putting on their best show ever, though they still are not robust — I gave the four of them extra water this year, and they have been getting more sun since the pine tree was thinned. If I feed them a little maybe they will do even better next year.

I have lots more to do before I will feel prepared for winter, but that skipper put me in touch with the reality that I, too, am slowing down. Most likely I won’t get “everything” done. And I guess that will have to be okay!