Tag Archives: salvia

We bloom and drink, and wait.

bees, my garden, other gardens, , , , , , , , ,

In Wisconsin my daughter Pearl has been tending a large house and garden for about eight years. She’s much more artistic and organized than I, about all of the design and execution of beautiful spaces indoors and out. She does all the work herself, even to the point of laying bricks to create a quiet and somewhat hidden corner to sit in, with morning sun and afternoon shade. It’s a wonderful spot winter or summer, and I enjoyed it with Pearl on one of my visits. This time, she had little time for sitting, what with being the wedding planner for Maggie. While she was bustling about, on my first morning after arriving late at night, I made the rounds to see all the flowers that are still blooming everywhere.

Her hydrangeas are gigantic — and I saw others in the area that are just as impressive. Along the side of her driveway, and in big pots, a multitude of plants all grow thickly and complement each other;  she doesn’t know the names of them all. She showed Izzy and me this Blackberry Lily, iris domestica, displaying its seeds — something different!

At the airbnb where some of the wedding party stayed, closer to the venue, I sat on a wide porch where giant trees shaded the lawn and tire swing. Pearl’s house has similar ones, though maybe not as tall, that charm me at any time of year.

One day Roger and Izzy, Lora, Pearl and I went to a nature preserve in the middle of wide fields that are being restored to wildness from agricultural land. The asters provided the brightest splashes of color in the midst of the various drying grasses and seed heads, and bees were all over the several species of them.

Most of the Gray-headed Coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata) had faded to simply gray heads, but this one was still going strong:

Hairy White Oldfield Aster

The temperature had dropped some, rain was coming in. Everything was delicious.

Common Comfrey

Wild carrot seed heads, here and above.

That encounter with native plants of Wisconsin pretty much filled my Nature cup. When I came home, just as at Pearl’s, this first morning I wandered around and around again to see how my own garden had fared in my absence. In spite of all the unfinished projects waiting for me, I felt warmly welcomed. It’s been a little rainy, and cloudy. For some reason my furnace is not turning on, so I gave in and just opened the door to the coolness, and put on a flannel shirt.

I guess the Japanese anemones heard me saying that I plan to move them to a different spot, and they are putting on a display five times bigger than ever in their ten years of life. I’ll have to reconsider… If nothing else, I will at least wait until they finish blooming before I move them. Other things blooming now are bulbine….

The salvia is producing more blooms since I rather tardily trimmed the old ones.

And always, always, the pomegranate bushes are blooming, from spring until frost! Rosemary is flowering right now, too.

I’m finding it quieting to my spirit to be among the plants as they adjust to the changes of fall. I thought the urgency and too-muchness I was feeling leading up to my time away would be waiting for me when I got home, but it seems not.

This humble native succulent is quietly waiting, not demanding more than a few drops of water from time to time. It appreciates a little shade. When I bought it, there was a sign nearby saying it was not ready for transplanting yet. So it was just the plant for me. We will be ready when we’re ready!

How many burning bushes today?

bees, my garden, poetry, , , , , ,

I stepped just beyond my front door only to put a letter out for the mailman, but I immediately forgot myself and stepped farther, to gaze upon that small part of my kingdom…

Carpenter bees were working at the white salvia that has filled out so well and become a definite feature of the landscape. Only carpenter bees were there. What about the other flowers? On the wallflower, grown to a prominent bulwark of purple in that area that is squeezed between the street and the driveway, buzzed a half dozen different sorts of pollinators, among them honeybees (I hope), stripey little bumblebees, and a species new to me, with bright yellow abdomens underneath.

And what a quietly “burning” bush — to follow the metaphor of the poem below — this creature is. I’m amazed that I saw him at all:

I spent a half hour studying them and collecting blurry pictures to help me see them better. I pulled out the orange California poppies that I am trying to keep from taking over my pale yellow plantation of them. After peering into the asparagus beds that are becoming a forest, I spied a few spears that could be cut, and managed to remember them long enough to bring out a knife with which to do that.

The rest of today promises to hold encounters with several bright and human epiphanies. My world is illuminated and shining full of these transitory and eternal treasures. Christ is risen!

THE BRIGHT FIELD

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the burning bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

~ R. S. Thomas (1913-2000), Welsh poet

Drinking up this last one.

bees, birds, my garden, , , , , ,

Some days the birds are so joyful in my garden that they appear to be beside themselves with exuberance. The finches and warblers gather at the chapel feeder, and then a few fly off into the trees to peck around, I assume for insects. A sparrow swoops toward the fountain, and then pauses, and twists midflight into a hairpin turn back the way it came. I have watched this fancy wing-work many times, as this morning from my spot by the table, which is now a sort of icon corner also. If the birds can have so much fun, maybe I should not worry about the way I flit about in my own little realm.

On a morning like today, when the sun is shining, it can be quite lively with titmice, chickadees and towhees, too. I’m afraid the hawks notice this activity; several times there have been brief encounters when they dive silently onto the playground of little birds, and the sound and size of their wings catches my attention — then they are gone.

But twice this month it happened. Once after the attack the raptor sat on the fence, backlit by the morning sun; I could see the shape and size of it, and the color of its breast. The next time I saw its dark gray back just before it disappeared. I think it was a Cooper’s Hawk. When I read about them, their habit of eating smaller birds was mentioned.

The last day of October is quieting my heart. I know, in the coming months it will be a struggle, to get myself outdoors as much as I know is sublime and profitable, but today was easy. Even the honeybees were enjoying my warm corner with the salvia that has many new little flowers on the ends of mostly dried-up stems. When I first sat down there, the bees were a little slow, but as the temperature rose so did their speed.

So many days of the month have been dreary and discouraging. I think at the beginning of it the plants were suffering from heat and smoke. Now they like the clean and cooler air. I forgot to water the succulents under the manzanita, and one poor specimen is showing just how it feels to be hanging on with one’s roots, conserving water, letting go of leaf after leaf while waiting for the gardener to bring refreshment.

But the majority are enjoying what might be their favorite, blooming time of year:

These last few hours of October are full to bursting with the beauty of the season. I know tomorrow will not be much different from today, in reality. But in our minds…. we remember that it’s time to turn the page of the calendar.

A jasmine flower just opened.

That fiery quality.

current events, my garden, nature, , , , , , , ,

I love the little skippers. I had forgotten until I looked it up again just now, that the type playing among my salvia flowers is the Fiery Skipper. Which makes me think I should mention the currently fiery conditions in California. I am glad to tell you that my situation is still low-risk. But the smoke has been more constant the last week; I suppose it blows in here from various fires, but I don’t keep abreast of their details on even a daily basis. I just looked for an update, but there are so many burns making up the various fire complexes, it’s a lot to keep track of. Especially when acronyms generally are so hard for me to remember.

When I start to look up the fires in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I cannot for the life of me remember that those are not part of the SCU Complex, but rather the CZU Complex. “The SCU Lightning Complex Fire is composed of 20 separate fires in San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties.” The LNU Complex spreads over six counties. See how it is? And I haven’t tried to learn anything about the fires beyond those three, in other parts of our huge state.

Wines of the 2020 vintage from northern California might be interesting: “The early fires pose a threat if they persist and heavy smoke blankets the region for several days before grapes are picked. That can lead to ‘smoke taint,’ an undesirable burnt taste in wine made from grapes with skins permeated by smoke.”

In some areas, as below, with San Francisco Bay close to the middle, the burn scars are so large they can be seen in satellite images.

What is it like for the birds and the tiniest creatures when the air is full of ash?

They continue to go about their business, doing their work, but are they slowed down by the smoke? Are their lives shortened? They don’t worry about longevity; they just keep going until they are struck down.

A man in my church lost his house in a fire near Lake Berryessa. He had sold it only three weeks before, but was still living in it. All of his belongings burned. He said he was very glad that it happened before the new owners had moved in, so that they were his things and not those of people who would have lost all their belongings and their new house. He is a single man and seems to feel content with being completely unencumbered.

I am continuing to do what I do… Last week my neighbor gave me a couple of quarts of strawberries that were left over after the food bank distribution that she helps with. They were perfect for making into popsicles. I found my ancient molds on a high shelf in the garage and poured in the sweetened puree. Several grandchildren will be visiting next month and I’ll be ready!

Soldier and Joy’s family are meeting me in the mountains for a few days, as part of our time together. They are flying to California, so I am trying to bring most of the stuff we’ll need in my car. Like books!

The sun will shine and we’ll be at the lake a lot… I hope it’s not too smoky up there. I also hope we will have thunderstorms, and it will be nice to be cozy and read by the fire. A fireplace fire, 100% contained.