Sakura Sunday

Post 71

The mood of early spring is hard to define. But here and there you get perfect days, cool, not yet balmy but gentle nevertheless, brightening light intensified by the lack of tree cover, revealing the unexpected delicacy of emerging vegetation.

Somehow the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, sums up, in its bloom,  the beauty of the season in which it blooms.

Philadelphia, like D.C. and Newark, has a magnificent public collection of cherry trees, thanks to the generosity of the Japanese people, who, for over a century have donated several thousand trees to these and other American cities.

Just from the way the blossoms fall,  you feel like you understand Japanese aesthetic sensibility that much better. And there are worse ways of encouraging international understanding than sharing beauty.

Today is Sakura Sunday, the day of the Cherry Blossom Festival. Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry tree. Below is a picture of one of the two cherries we have previously planted as street trees.

And today we planted our third. Thanks to a sale at Lowes, this one is a weeper. It bloomed early and is now without blossoms, but only until next year.

Small at they are now, it is comforting to think how they will look in 20, 50, 100 years. When they grow as large as the wonderful specimens in Rittenhouse Town, trees that each have a history and a personality of its own, like this one below.

 

Or these two, that seem to be holding hands and dancing.

It feels good sharing beauty, knowing that a future you will never see will be that much better.

I am grateful to the generations of Japanese who developed these trees and shared them with the world.

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For the last few months I have had the luck of  walking daily thru an exhibit of Japanese prints put up by my accomplished colleague, Marian Jahn.  Below is a photo of a portion of one of my favorites of these prints, the photo is taken from the Art Department's Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Art-Department-Free-Library-of-Philadelphia. The exhibit has one more week to run.

 

 When I was growing up  my mom would often call  my attention to certain things that she felt were the best of their kind; she called this educating the eye. Now I wonder if my exposure to these beautiful prints might have influenced how I have apprehended this spring's blossoming, thus inspiring this post.

We never know all the ramifications of the simple deeds we do in our lives. I thank Marian for all the effort and knowledge she put into this exhibit, because here the influence can be traced and she can be thanked. We owe so much to so many. And as the cherry blossoms fall after their quickening bloom, I hope I can keep that knowledge with me.

Growing at The Flower Show

Post 67

Would I ever be so silly as to pose with a Guard? Of course not-
not unless drunk, or rather, drunk with the scents, sights and sounds of this year's Flower Show. (Do not miss the hourly video that plays across the clock's face. Do not.)

 

 

And the plants were pretty darn good too.

Above  is a combination I have never seen before but works: stone, Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, and the reddest of red English daisies. It's like the daisies are applauding the tree's movements. Clap your petals.

The common luxuriness of English cottage garden style was in evidence. As in the pic above  -- white Cosmo, the mallow that goes violet to purple and tall agaratum.

                                                                                                                                                    And isn't this the bees' knee's? Talk about  contrasts to make harmony.                                                                              A huge amount of what I have learned about gardening I learned at the Flower Show -- by just looking.                                                                                                                            It is easy to copy things, but unless you understand the principles behind the original, you will not copy well. You'll just get pastiche

I do not like to copy, but to understand and adapt. So I look and ask questions. From my answers grows my style. If I were to just steal or appropriate, I'd bypass growth. And growing a garden well means growing yourself as well.

Here I pause, my eye arrested by the contrasts of color and texture.

And hows this for a roar of color?  This bookcase of plants would only look right in the Tropics or under the too bright overheads of the Convention Center.

And maybe because I've been doing photography all Winter, I notice I am more drawn to strong, simple form that I used to be. Below is one of my favorite plants I saw.

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It's like a male form of seafan coral.  And now, on to some pitcher plants next to granny bonnet daffs.

Behold the hills and vales of this lusious succulent.

These roots could be fruits--or are they?

This world is an amazing place and the plant life on it one of the many things that  makes it so amazing.

The Flower Show is a blast because it exposes you to all sorts of groovy new things, things you had not imagined existed.

But you find out they do, and with that knowledge and understanding your own imagination and sense of possibility grows.

And becomes a bit more amazing as well.

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A short shout-out to Daniel Hogg who came all the way from the mists of Cornwall to tell tall tales (well--they couldn't all be true, ... could they?) of the fabled Lost Gardens of Heligan

 

To the Jane Austen Society for their award-winning display

And to this, the most lovely clematis I think I have ever seen, now slightly wilted, but still somehow unearthly in its not-quite white beauty.

And last of all, some wisdom

And a sign at the bottom of the barrow.