May/June, or When Gardens Explode (in a good way)

Post 76

In May/June, when gardens explode, for one's own safety, follow these instructions--

Take in a slow, scented breath and stand still long enough to contemplate the tableau before you.

Then repeat to yourself, "I did not do this."

Because you didn't. Nature did. You just did some work to help things along.

For which Nature rewards you.

Because as with all real work (versus a job,) there is something extra that appears. Something that must have happened when you were checking soil levels or weeding or planting seeds, in short, when you were doing some practical task that has nothing to do with love or dedication or ardor. Because somehow, the garden caught fire. 

So during the explosion (and there are often explosions (the good kind) when you are doing things you love,) keep calm and remember, you have no idea how this happened. You are just lucky to be around at the time.

What Makes a Style?

Post 75

Why do we like what we like? This week I've realized how much exciting times from my childhood have shaped my sense of style.

My small garden does not follow the usual  good taste model, that of planting in large drifts, with many plants of the same variety planted together. Large drifts work well for larger gardens, but for me, it can get boring in a small one. My eye needs to roam. It needs to be drawn in and then drawn forward,  moving in expectation and delight till it takes its moment of rest at a particular cynosure, only to re-energize and take off again.



 Part of my inspiration has been country meadaows, part late Medieval millefleur tapestries, part has been Fleur Cowles illustrations, but I've just understood another big, and highly unexpected influence: Lower Manhatten.

Growing up one of the most exciting things I could do was visit my Dad at his office in Hanover Place near Wall St in Manhattan. Which was very different than the city where I lived and spent my usual days.

The city I knew was the spacious grid of the East Side where light shone thru wide canyons that opened up in logical right angles. It was a spacious, rational, prediciteble world where 65th Street followed 64th, where the blocks were all the same size and views were long and  unobstructed. But down around Wall Street was a different world.

 The streets were small, cantered and illogical. The buildings were all over the place and almost seemed to be falling over each other.

This new, hodge-podge city was wonderful to me because I was with my Daddy and it was his world.

Everybody knew him, many called him affectionate nicknames I'd never heard of. Through good and ill it was his kingdom. He loved it and came fully alive there.

Above, you can see him as he is today, or rather as he was a few days ago, on his 100th birthdy, when he rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. He, I and the NYSE are much different from what we were when I first saw Wall Street in the late 50s, early 60s -- but the geography of the place remains the same. And now I am old enough to be conscience of its past and present effect on me, and how it has perhaps inspired and strengthening my delight in fetching disorder.

So perhaps this is why, whatever I'm creating, it will usually have a combination, a balance, of order and disorder. My garden has its quinquinix structure, over, around, thru and about which, runs perennial plants acting like random meadow annuals.

And here I am below as a teenager with my dad in his salad days. He and my mother (as I mentioned in my post about Fleur Cowles) have influenced my style in more ways than I can say, for childhood loves make for much in adult life. Our styles, if authentic, often come from what we have loved, and how strongly we have loved.

Loving the Imperfect, Garden and All

Post 69

I talk about wholeness a lot on this blog, but rarely about some of the unpleasant parts of wholeness. So here--like dark clouds on a sunny day-- is a love screed affirming, deepening, some of what I have left out.

Sometimes--I really hate to garden. It's cold, my bones ache, it's dirty, I want to be inside. I want to be in bed. You can't throw your back out in bed (well, at least it's not likely at my age.)

Do you know how much work  a garden is? Even a low-work garden? How much dull, repetitive work there is? Work that needs to be done regardless of the weather. And it's not like I don't already have a job.

I do not care if it's good for me. I am getting no pleasure from it. And there is still more work to do. And more. How will I ever get it done? Not as young as I used to be. What was I thinking? What Was I Thinking?

Yes, sometimes that is what it feels like. Maybe not often, but sometimes. To pretend otherwise is to  cheapen reality.

But even when gardening feels like drudgery, there can remain three important things: hope, faith and love.  Nothing much this side of Heaven comes without effort. There are always good days and bad days. Anything worth doing looks impossible if you look at it in totality, but if you just put one foot in front of the the other, sooner or later it gets done.



I have found that when I work out of love the difficult bits are still difficult, but not impossible. Where as if I work out of more mixed motives, I have a harder time when I hit the difficult stuff. And it helps to assume and accept that there will be difficult stuff. Even in a garden.

To embrace reality means to accept it. I'm not one of those who thinks we completely construct our own reality through our attitudes and thought processes. But I do think our thought processes can make a difference to our behaviors, which reverberate through reality. To have faith and hope means to go on. To try to do good where you can. To forgive. To ask to be forgiven. To be open to grace.

Cause at some point the weather turns, your bones stop aching and this happens--

 

A foretaste, perhaps, of a truer being.

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All the photos in this post are of Erdenheim Farms, except for the last, which is of Rittenhouse Town.

Why does Beauty Matter?

Post 53

Why does beauty matter? (Sentiment alert here--if warmth make you uncomfortable, read no further.)

Why do we put so much work into gardens to grow beauty? While some would say the answer is self-evident, and others say that it is a matter of taste, or making something special or evolutionary tactics, I would like to imagine another possibility, one at the core of human experience.

You are born. If you are lucky, you are born to people who love you right from the start. It has nothing to do with anything you have done; it is pure gift. And these people who love you and who you come to love, take care of you, meet your needs and often even your wants. Theirs are the faces you associate with care and love. Their faces are beautiful to you.

 
 When you are a bit older you may notice that some of your friends have more pleasing faces than you initially thought. I remember talking to my Mom as a teenager about fixing up a female friend with a male acquaintance. My Mom thought I was greatly over-evaluating my friend's attractiveness. I had no idea what she was talking about. Anyone with eyes could see that my friend was a beauty.

Love sheds light around people you love, places you love, almost anything you love. Love makes the stuff of life beautiful, whether there is beauty in it to begin with or not.

 

So--is it possible that this connection, hardwired into our brains--sometimes works backward? That when we see beauty we feel loved? But are not aware that we are working backwards, from where the warm feeling is coming?
Then -- does this influences us to make beautiful things? To need beauty around us the way we need love? 

Love, that thing money can't buy, is a problem for consumerism. We can be sold stuff that ties in with love --but not the thing itself. We can be sold beauty. We are every day. Yet there are people who will tell you that art is more than an investment, that music moves your soul and that beauty somehow matters more than the money that may buy it.

                                                                      

Two Kindly Weeds: Morning Glory Grandpa Otts and Gloaming Mistflower

 Post 51

Early Fall is when the air freshens up and it is pleasure to go back into the garden, a pleasure, that is, until you notice the weeds.

As you start to clear stuff out: weeds and dead or rotting matter, mildewed stems and spotted leaves, you realize that there is less blooming than earlier in the season. Annuals, the ones that did not burn out in the heat, are still strong but most perennials are done.

If you are lucky some perennials will look good as they age , such as the cones of the Pee-Gee hydrangea, above right. Still, if it were not for two late-flowering, beautiful, rampant things,  much of the garden would loose luster well before its end.

Here is my hell strip with some pink asters and the two kindly weeds: Granpa Otts Morning Glory and Wild Ageratum, or Mist Flower.

Though they spread like green rampage, they can work well in a wild garden

And why would I call a Morning Glory a weed? Well, because this one acts like one; it's hard to kill, overpasses its boundaries and, if allowed, can strangle other plants. Nevertheless, it is a kindly weed because it does not get its full growth till late in the season when you have the space and need the color. Best of all, it is easy to yank or hoe out, you do not even have to dig.

Here is what the Seed Savers Exchange says about it--

"(Ipomoea purpurea) One of the original Bavarian varieties that started SSE. Given to Kent and Diane (Ott) Whealy in 1972 by her grandfather, Baptist John Ott, who lived on a 40-acre farm near St. Lucas, Iowa. Beautiful deep purple flower with a red star in its throat. Reliably self-seeds each year. Plants will climb 15' or more, if given support. Self-seeding hardy annual at Heritage Farm (zone 4)."

 So, buy one seed packet once, and you will have this forever. Because it is dark, and has a cool navy purple with streaks of hot violet, its flower, though small, looks  dramatic and dynamic.

 Mistflower, on the other hand, is a receding blue grey that looks best at twilight, when the blue takes on a weird, delightful glow. It is a bit of a filler since it looks best highlighted by bolder plants.

The way I handle its invasiveness is that every year, once bloom is done, I pull it out by its shallow roots. Yet, by June of the next year, it starts to pop up again. This is good, cause this is an area where I have had a lot of bulbs and spring ephemerals.  With this late riser, I get two seasons out of one patch of soil. 

For me, it's less effort to restrain vigorous plants than to cajole fussy ones. And I like the balance of wildness to tame that they engender. This is probably more of a reflection of my particular inner balance than of any practical gardening wisdom. 

Whatever it is that gives personal style to the garden, or any other aspect of your life, it comes from inside you.

 
All the tips in the world, books, quotes, guides, are just fodder for the deep part of yourself that creates.

That creates out of love. 

Earthly Skysea Solstice,...and Jean Mather

 Post 43
I've literally been dreaming blue this last week--figures in glistening blue raiments. Its not hard to figure why. Outside my window, radiant pulsating blue...

Something about this last year, a rainy fall, a mild winter and an early spring, has made this one of the best years for hydrangeas anyone has seen. Hydrangea Heaven.

I did a post on hydrangeas last year that covers the basic how-to. but because it was a fall post, most of the pics were of aging moptops, not the lively blue youngins pictured so far. And besides, beautiful as these beauties are--there are also other types of hydrangeas, all with their own charms.

There are mopheads with bicolored florets.

 There are lacecaps.

There are lacecaps with variagated leaves.

 There are oak hydrangeas, happy in lightly dappled shade.

And then there are climbing hydrangeas and their crazy, ever-bloomin cousin, Schizophragma hydrangeoides. Here's a pic of a biggie at Chanticleer

Below is my yard with a 3 in 1, a climer, a bicolor, a lacecap... and a astilbe, a fig and cherub with a fish.

And all these are all in bloom right now. An earthly skysea show for the solstice.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

This post is in memory of the Rev. Dr. Jean Mather, Mother Jean, 09/23/1946- 06/13/2012.

She was a gentlewoman and a scholar, who set a stirring example of bravery and faith in the face of  adversity. It was an inspiration and a pleasure to have known her.

It almost seems silly to say 'Rest in Peace.' With people like Jean, you know they are in the arms of God. Nothing else could hold her. This felt surety when I think of her, and of others who I have known like her, is part of what fastens me to a faith in the Life beyond life.