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.

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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.

Fire and Snow, or Impossible Beauty

Pastorius Park

Post 13

Mid-storm in the garden

Post 13 was going to be about bringing in the pots. But it seems the unexpected can happen with # 13.  So,  cold, wet winter snow overtook dry, crisp, and still-blooming autumn. Snow and fire. We never get snow before late November, early December, never that is, till now. So, any pots should have been in long before their usual date. Who knew?

First came the storm, darkening the day with clouds, brightening it with snow, but snow illuminated by bursts of color.

Morning on the road

Then the aftermath, a bright, cool sunny day with the ground and sky both blue and white, and the mid-horizon blazing with turning leaves. 

Pastorius Park

It would have been easy to have gotten upset, pouting over early cold. But it is hard to pout when surrounded by beauty.

Pastorius Park, -- Run Lassie Run

And oh, what beauty.

What unusual, surprising, impossible beauty

Pastorius Park

We were lucky to get just enough snow for beauty, not enough for damage. It was a good balance of opposites, for which I am thankful.

Mistakes, or the Misplaced Butterfly Bush

Post 4

Mistakes: you will make them.

Can you spot it? It's that blobitity lump of silver-green smack in the middle front. A Butterfly Bush I was deluded enough to think would stay small. It didn't, ruining an otherwise successful rock garden.  Plus, the bush's mass confuses the flow of space; instead of drawing the eye in, it pushes the gaze out. Which irks me. Part of me wants the garden to be better, perfect, a sort of garden porn. 
 
Do you see the problem here? Red myrtle, red maple and ... invasive Lythrum salicaria, aka Purple Loosestrife. In England it is a lovely, manageable garden plant.  Here it destroys rivers, clots streams and chokes wetlands. I must pull it out. Which hardly seems fair since I did not plant it. The wind and rain did. But it's my responsibility now.

The words humus, humility and human are cognate. Sometimes, as I garden, it feels as if humility is seeping up into me from the humus. And it feels like strength, not weakness, a beatitude of the garden.

"Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a process and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect: part of it is decaying, part nascent…And in all things there are certain inequalities and deficiencies, which, are not only sources of life but sources of beauty." Alvar Aalto

The Butterfly Bush is now in bloom, and true to its nature, it is making the butterflies very happy. It will bloom, on and off, from now till fall, when I will transplant it to a better place further back in the yard. It will still please the flutterbys, but also contribute to the overall beauty of the garden.

The beauty I want to create is a different kind of beauty than the usual, temptingly-perfect garden porn.  What I want instead, is a sensuous expression of the integrity and inter- and outer-connectiveness of a particular environment.  For me, to garden is to find and express a presence, an itness, a balance of energy and order of being, tempered to a loved and local, time and place. 

"Presence is why we love what we cannot eat or mate with... Presence matches our speed; thus it seems not flow, but all arrivals— The beginning mirrored everywhere. The true indictment. The end all through the story."  Les Murray in "Sunflowers"

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Addendum--posted the above yesterday and this morning noticed that a spider had thrown a guyline from the pink coneflowers (you can see them in the bottom pic,) to a stem at the back of the bush.  This pleases me, since around here, garden spiders are good news. They are nonpoisoness and eat mosiquitos and other pests. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How-to: Butterfly Bush or Buddleia davidii, is hardy in our area and easy to grow. It likes sun and some water (but not bog,) will survive drought, and depending on the variety, can be anywhere from 3 to 12 feet tall. The trick is to remember to prune it in the spring, not fall, and only after you can see the beginnings of new buds. For the most blossoms, prune the stems down to about 6 inches. If, however, you want to encourage height, you will still get some bloom if you prune it up higher. It can make an attractive, overhanging backdrop to a sunny or even slightly shaded border. Besides the lavender-blue pictured above, it also comes in a wonderful dark purple, white and even some reddish and orangey shades. It is a dependable, unfussy plant, but can look awkward if badly placed (duh!) or if left undeadheaded after blooming, since numerous curly wands of brown decay can be a hard look to make work.