Category Archives: other gardens

Every branch He prunes.

church, creativity, other gardens, quotes, ,

I traveled over the hill to the nearby monastery one morning last week and pruned roses for three hours. The sisters who came to this place inherited a big garden next to the river, with many plantings they are learning to manage. Sister Xenia is the chief gardener, and she spends a lot of time on the job, but it’s not the only task she’s assigned, and she appreciates any help outsiders can give.

Frost had to be scraped off my car before I left home. It was still below freezing at that time, and I wore my denim skirt, leggings, work boots and a thick flannel shirt over one of my old turtlenecks. But after I’d arrived and started in with my clippers, it wasn’t long before a springtime breeze began to blow.

So many roses! And most of them are not in a location that is good for roses; they are in the shade too much. Each bush was a big challenge to my skill and art, presenting one or more problems including:

1) Too tall and leggy, with no buds down low that my pruning might channel the lifeblood to.

2) Too many large canes and branches crowding each other, so that I had to thin drastically, after deciding based on uncertain parameters which ones to remove.

3) Bushes growing too close to another type of shrub or tree, as in the case of the one pictured, where a Pittosporum has surrounded one tall rosebush.

4) Growing close to the path or over the sidewalk, catching on the sisters’ habits or poking passersby.

5) Dead wood

It really was a joy to have quiet time to focus completely on a project like this, and I needed every bit of my mental resources and powers of concentration to do the work. Also my imagination, as I tried to envision what effect my cuts would have on each bush in the next months and even years.

Afterward when I was driving home, I began to ask myself why I hadn’t prayed while working, and quickly realized that it had taken all of my attention and creativity to do the task set before me. Is it perhaps a little like restoring a painting that has been severely damaged… a little like designing a building that must be raised on top of living ruins?  I wonder that, having no real knowledge of those types of art.

One thing for certain, the glory of this art won’t show until after many weeks the plants produce the actual rose flowers. I have just decided that a visit to the monastery is necessary when that brilliance begins, because I’ve never even seen these bushes in bloom. In the meantime I’m posting some old rose photos from my own parish church grounds, to keep me happily anticipating warmer weather.

At about noon the nuns gather for the 6th Hour prayers, and when the bell rang the announcement I laid down my tools and joined them. There was my chance to pray and soak up the Spirit, and the spirit of the place, and to stand up straight for a while and breathe the incense.

I hadn’t pruned all the roses, but I ate lunch with the sisters and went home anyway, meditating on what made the experience so fatiguing. Does it cause God this much trouble to prune us, as the Bible says he does: “Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John 15:2” Does He say to Himself, “I did the best I could, under the circumstances.”? Maybe we grow all out of shape in odd ways, not getting enough of the Sun of Righteousness.

Speaking of sun, it had brought the temperature up to 79 degrees that afternoon. We are all aching for rain here in the West, as we suffer a terrible drought that makes it hard to enjoy those lovely warm rays. The drought is like a dark un-cloud looming behind the sun. Now that I am invested in a few dozen rosebushes, I am a little concerned that some of them might not make it through a water-rationed cycle of seasons to next January when I will try to get back and minister to them.

As we anticipate a possibly very long dry season, my motherly/sisterly feelings are reaching out to the plants and animals, and I’m praying more intently in Divine Liturgy along with the deacon, “For favorable weather, an abundance of the fruits of the earth, and temperate seasons, let us pray to the Lord.”

Koulourakia and Colors

church, food and cooking, other gardens, , ,
first twist

At church again, this time for baking cookies for that upcoming festival. We made koulourakia, which most of us bakers can’t pronounce, so we call them “the twisty Greek cookies.”

The dough, made with seven pounds of butter, had been prepared last night and stored in the fridge. We scooped it out with melon-ballers and rolled the balls into ropes.

Japanese anemone

And outside I caught this graceful and lovely flower in bud and bloom. I haven’t looked it up yet to find out what it is….though I might have known in the past. Do you recognize it? (update: Jo tells me in the comments it is a Japanese anemone.)

GJ twisting

After being twisted, the cookies get an egg wash and then a sprinkling of sesame seeds. They are basically a butter cookie, and though some recipes include orange juice and/or zest, our current version is “plain.” But I came home with my hands smelling anything but plain.

In our back yard now we have three cherry-sort of tomatoes: Juliet (red); Sun Gold and Sunsugar (orange); and Michael Pollan (pointy green striped). So I can put them all in a salad to colorize it! Not to mention, this year I have three colors of nasturtiums, red, orange and yellow — so I put all those petals in my salad as well. That’s a visual feast as well as a feast for the palate, as last night’s guest said.

In case you can’t see all three tomatoes, here is a close-up:

Today the thermometer reached 75° – woohoo –
so we hope we are in a warming trend.

Holy Tuesday Flowers

church, nature, other gardens, ,

Over a year ago I had to give up gardening at church. That branch of my life had to be pruned out so that other things had room to grow. But I miss the contact with the earth and growing things on the big property, and all the assortment of flora, some of them my own plantings and most of them friends in whom I’ve invested time and attention. So after Bridegroom Matins this morning I lingered and took some pictures while the light was still gentle.

 

native iris
cistus

The service and the flowers were certainly the highlight of my day. After that, I had planned to spend time working in my own garden, but instead, grueling computer confusion demanded all of the patience and peace I could find.

I never stepped outside again until evening when Mr. Glad and I took a slow walk. It was a great boon to get into the air and away from electronics, and with someone I love who loves the outdoors, too, and I wished I had my camera along then — or better yet, a magic bottle in which to capture the smell of honeysuckle and other sweets.

 

It’s nice that this evening I can look at images of those morning flowers, which seem now to be getting ready to deck a bridal chamber.

Tulip or magnolia or both.

my garden, other gardens, trees,
Pippin with Liriodendron

Yesterday I talked with the dental hygienist Joan about hikes and trees and flowers. She asked, “Are you a plant person? Did you see the saucer magnolia trees across the street?” Oh, yes, I had seen those lovelies, smallish ones with their flowers opening so brightly pink.

“I have my camera and want to take their picture when I leave,” I said. But later with all my strolling about and photo-shooting I never got a good one of those Chinese Magnolias that people often mistakenly call Tulip Trees.

Chinese Magnolia

I told my friend when she took the pointy tools out of my mouth, “I had a real Tulip Tree in my yard once so I know that those are not really that.” She misunderstood, and said, “Oh, but tulip trees are magnolias.”

I explained that what I was talking about was nothing like what she was talking about, and promised to send her information when I got home. I also sent her this photo of Pippin as a young girl enjoying the blossoms and leaves of our tree, which we had planted a few years previous.

It was a fast grower and a joy to have around, shading the play fort and adding grace to the landscape. Here it is in the 80’s on the right behind the children.

Yard with Tulip Tree

But in researching the botanical name of our Tulip Tree, I discovered that is IS a member of the magnolia family (but it is not what Joan thought). Oh, my — crazy how confusing things get when humans try to classify the world formally and informally all at the same time.

In 2011 I planted tulip bulbs in the front yard (here where we have no trees with that name), and had a glorious display last spring. It looked as though they weren’t going to come up a second time; often tulips don’t last, in our climate, because it’s too warm and wet. This winter was cold and drier, and what do you know, there are little tulip leaves bravely poking through now. Perhaps in a month or so I’ll have another kind of tulip flower to write about.