Sunday Dinner: From Your Point of View

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“The cosmos is within us.

We are made of star-stuff.

We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

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Carl Sagan

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“When you have once

seen the glow of happiness

on the face of a beloved person,

you know that a man can have no vocation

but to awaken that light

on the faces surrounding him.

In the depth of winter,

I finally learned that within me

there lay an invincible summer.”

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Albert Camus

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“One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.”

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Tim Burton

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“What we do see

depends mainly on what we look for.

… In the same field the farmer will notice the crop,

the geologists the fossils,

botanists the flowers, a

rtists the colouring,

sportmen the cover for the game.

Though we may all look at the same things,

it does not all follow that we should see them.”

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John Lubbock

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“Nothing is really work

unless you would rather be doing something else.”

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J.M. Barrie

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“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then

to hang a question mark

on the things you have long taken for granted.”

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Bertrand Russell

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

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“It is a narrow mind

which cannot look at a subject

from various points of view.”

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George Eliot

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“If we are always arriving and departing,

it is also true that we are eternally anchored.

One’s destination is never a place

but rather a new way of looking at things.”

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Henry Miller

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Garden Gold

Fennel flowers allow for easy access to their nectar.

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The hotter it gets, the more gold in the garden glitters and shines.  As the mercury goes up, yellow and gold feel almost cooling.

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An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly feeds on Lantana ‘Chapel Hill Yellow,’ a fairly new perennial Lantana introduction. WBG

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I don’t understand the alchemy of that, but I do understand the clear attraction of gold for all of our nectar seeking pollinators.

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Gold flowers may just taste sweeter.  They certainly draw in the bees, wasps and butterflies who draw sustenance from their sugary depths.

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Lantana ‘Chapel Hill Gold’ is also a perennial in Zone 7. WBG

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All the while, these prolific flowers are also ripening seeds to delight goldfinches and other small birds who will feast on their ripe seeds well into the barren months of winter.

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Flocks of goldfinches took wing from the wildflowers where they were feeding, as I walked through the Williamburg Botanical Garden yesterday afternoon.

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Golden and yellow flowers often prove among the easiest for a gardener to grow.  Turn to dill, fennel and parsley for their distinctive round umbel inflorescence, all flat and easy to access;  Rudbeckias and Helianthus for their many petaled sunburst flowers.

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The first black eyed Susans, our native Rudbecki hirta, have begun to open in our garden.

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Coreopsis, Lantana, marigolds and Zinnias all bloom in shades of yellow, orange and gold.

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The season ends on a wild and native note as Solidagos burst into bloom in September and October, towering over the black eyed Susans in our garden like great feathery plumes of living gold.

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Solidago blooms alongside Rudbeckia in our garden, October 2017.

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If the entire garden were nothing but green and gold, animated with swallowtail butterflies and goldfinches, what a beautiful display we would still enjoy.

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Woodland Gnome 2018

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“Any patch of sunlight in a wood

will show you something about the sun

which you could never get

from reading books on astronomy.

These pure and spontaneous pleasures

are ‘patches of Godlight’

in the woods of our experience.”

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C.S. Lewis

Sunday Dinner: Remembrance

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“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

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Thomas Campbell

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“There is no death, daughter.

People die only when we forget them,’

my mother explained shortly before she left me.

‘If you can remember me,

I will be with you always.”

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Isabel Allende

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“Beauty exists not in what is seen and remembered,

but in what is felt and never forgotten.”

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Johnathan Jena

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“And even if we are occupied by most important things,

if we attain to honour,

or fall into great misfortune –

– still let us remember how good it was once here,

when we were all together,

united by a good and kind feeling

which made us…better perhaps than we are.”

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’

I do not agree. The wounds remain.

In time, the mind, protecting its sanity,

covers them with scar tissue

and the pain lessens.

But it is never gone.”

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Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

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“You must learn some of my philosophy.

Think only of the past as its remembrance

gives you pleasure.”

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Jane Austen

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“I don’t want to be remembered for my work.

I want to be remembered for my love.”

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Kamand Kojouri

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Wildlife Wednesday

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The beauty and mystery of this world

only emerges through affection, attention,

interest and compassion . . .

open your eyes wide and actually see this world

by attending to its colors, details and irony.”

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Orhan Pamuk

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“Once again, we are reminded that awakening,

or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism,

any more than Truth is the property of Christianity.

Neither the Buddha nor the Christ

belongs exclusively to the communities

that were founded in their names.

They belong to all people of goodwill,

all who are attentive to the secret

which lives in the depths

of their breath and their consciousness.”

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Jean-Yves Leloup

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“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention.

This is how we cultivate mindfulness.

Mindfulness means being awake.

It means knowing what you are doing.”

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Jon Kabat-Zinn

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“Miracles… seem to me to rest not so much

upon… healing power coming suddenly

near us from afar but upon our perceptions

being made finer, so that, for a moment,

our eyes can see and our ears can hear

what is there around us always.”

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Willa Cather

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Appreciation to Tina, at My Gardener Says, for hosting Wildlife Wednesday the first Wednesday of each month.  She has hosted this meme for a little more than two years now, encouraging all of us to notice the wildlife sharing our gardens.

Tina writes:  ” Especially in urban areas, planting for birds, pollinators, and other wild animals helps balance ongoing damage to natural zones and allows our world to heal–if just a little bit–by providing for those who can’t speak for themselves and with whom we share our world.”

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

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Wordless Wednesday

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“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”

Paul Valéry

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Woodland Gnome 2015

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Readings From “The Book of Nature”

 

Virginia Creeper

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There is new life in the soil for every man.

There is healing in the trees for tired minds and for our overburdened spirits,

there is strength in the hills, if only we will lift up our eyes.

Remember that nature is your great restorer.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

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Eastern Yellow Swallowtail on butterfly tree.

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All those who love Nature she loves in return,

and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called,

but with the best things of this world-

not with money and titles, horses and carriages,

but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.

 

JOHN LUBBOCK

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Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception

is really according to order.

GOETHE

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When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop,

striped and dotted with continents and islands,

flying through space with other stars

all singing and shining together as one,

the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

John Muir

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

 

Off the Shelf

Take a look at your bookcase.

If you had enough free time, which book would be the first one you’d like to reread? Why?

 

Scarlet Mallow

Hibiscus coccineus

 

This gorgeous scarlet flower caught my eye today.

It is the first blossom to open on the Scarlet Mallow, Hibiscus coccineus, we purchased at the Williamsburg  Farmer’s Market in May.

The beautiful, deeply cut foliage drew my attention at the market.  Almost lacy, like some Japanese Maple leaves, it appealed to me.

 

The plant wasn’t even in bud yet, but I knew a native Hibiscus would work in the border. no matter what color the bloom.

So I bought it on impulse and brought it home to the garden.

When the Japanese beetles attacked the Cannas and other Hibiscus, they left this one alone.  It’s quietly grown into its spot without drawing too much attention to itself…. until today!

Wow!  What a huge, elegant flower!

Native in the deep south, Scarlet Mallow is hardy north to Zone 6b.

It can eventually grow to 8′ high, though it dies back to the ground each winter.  The plant is upright and sturdy.

It prefers wet soil, and will even tolerate flooding.  No chance of flooding where it is planted in our garden, but it is on the downhill portion of a slope and will catch run off in a heavy rain.  Like all Hibiscus, it appreciates full sun.

As a native, this plant will pretty much grow itself.  I’ve given it compost and a little Plant Tone thus far.  The deer have grazed around it, but have left it untouched.

I hope it is self- fertile and the seeds it produces will sprout.  I plan to gather the seeds when they ripen this fall and sow them, hoping for more of these gorgeous plants.

Scarlet Mallow grows near Azalea and Ginger lily. The Ginger Lily will come into bloom soon with huge white flowers.

If you’d like to grow Scarlet Mallow in your own garden, it is available at Plant Delights Nursery.

You will likely see more photos of these gorgeous flowers as the season progresses, so I hope you like them.

They inspired me to  look for “red” around the garden, and so here is a bit more of the scarlet found in our garden today.

Begonia

Caladium

Sage

Autumn olive berries ripening

Lycoris

Rose of Sharon

Rose

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

Hardy HIbiscus