Six on Saturday: With Patience and Flexibility….

Turneric in bloom with elephant ears

It’s finally raining. Cool, soft rain has been falling for several hours now with more on the way. It is such a relief, because I’ve been pulling hoses and carrying full buckets of water nearly every day for the past several weeks to keep the pots and certain parts of the gardens watered. It has been hot and muggy, which has encouraged all of the flowers and elephant ears to push out new flowers and growth and stay beautiful longer than usual; so long as they can stay hydrated. Otherwise, we have drooping stems and crispy leaves.

I’ve been doing July chores in October.  And even as we admire the lushness, my thoughts have already turned to changing out plants for the winter, planting bulbs and cutting back. 

I dug out the first Caladiums and Callas this week, laying the bulbs in a cardboard flat to dry.  I replaced the Caladiums with soft pink snapdragons to bloom on into the winter and again in earliest spring.  Trays of ferns and herbs are marshalled, ready to begin new lives in pots as soon as I lift out the summer tenants.

And here into the second week of October I’m still waiting to find that particular variety of Panola that blends pink and burgundy and softest yellow in each ruffled blossom.   My planting visions are filled with this warm palette of color to brighten winter pots. 

Climate confusion affects us all.  Butterflies linger a bit longer.  Trees remain green well into ‘autumn.’ It is still too warm to plant most of the winter ornamentals that usually fill nurseries and garden centers in October.  Gardening trains us in patience and flexibility.  And appreciation for even the smallest bit of beauty.

Read more and see four more photos on my newer website, Our Forest Garden

Six on Saturday: For the Birds

Our upper garden at the end of September is a haven for wildlife

A cold front this week blessed us with cooler temperatures and lower humidity.  The oppressive summer air was blown out to sea, and what followed feels crisp and clean.  I can see a few scarlet leaves and scarlet dogwood berries in the trees near my window, a sure sign that the season has turned, and the equinox is behind us now.

Each day will be minutes shorter now.  Mornings come later, but the cool comfortable hours for gardening last deep into the afternoon.  I’m drawn out again and again to tweak this or that and to capture a few photos.  Colors have grown bright and intense after days of rain and real relief from summer’s heat.

Even as the wheel of the year turns towards winter, we enjoy the culmination of a fruitful summer.  Beautyberries glow purple, inviting the many birds filling our garden to feast on them and spread their seeds.  Goldfinches fly up from stands of Rudbeckia to safer perches in the trees at our approach.  We find partially eaten hickory nuts and exploded beech nut hulls on the driveway, dropped by birds and squirrels.

It is a season of abundance for all the wild creatures our garden supports.  Nectar rich flowers open daily, pushing against one another in their expansive growth.  It is hard to walk through the upper garden now.  The paths have filled with fallen stems, and I rarely cut back some faded something to make the way easier for our passage.

Read more, here…. on my new website, Our Forest Garden, which is a continuation of A Forest Garden. I hope you will follow the new site so you don’t miss any new posts.

Secrets of Appreciation

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“Remember to give thanks

for unknown blessings

already on their way”

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Valentina Giambanco

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Camellia sasanqua and autumn leaves

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“Living in thanksgiving daily is a habit;

we must open our hearts to love more,

we must open our arms to hug more,

we must open our eyes to see more and finally,

we must live our lives to serve more.”

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Farshad Asl

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Camellia sasanqua

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“Gratitude is the seed of gladness.”

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Lailah Gifty Akita

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“Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.”

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W.J. Cameron

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Japanese Maple

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May the beauty of this day find you,

May joy bubble up in your heart,

May you know everyone near you as family,

May you feel the love  which surrounds you,

and may you enjoy the blessings of peace,

always.

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Woodland Gnome 2020

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Oakleaf Hydrangea

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Please visit my other site, Illuminations, for a daily quotation and a photo of something beautiful.

 

Six on Saturday: Fall Color

Oakleaf Hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia, in early November

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Do you crave rich, warm color as autumn days grow cooler and shorter?  The trees have held onto their greenness longer this fall than anytime in memory.  We’ve been looking at one another and wondering, “When will the leaves finally change?  Will they change this year, or simply blow off and away?”  It seems that fall leaf color has shifted by three to four weeks over the past 30 years in our area. Many trees have simply dropped their leaves, or faded from green, to yellowish and quickly on to brown. 

Personally, I love a good rich scarlet tree in October.  We have abundant oranges and golds in our area, too, but the scarlet ones make my pulse quicken a beat.

Do you consider autumn color when you select a new tree or shrub?  That is usually lower on my list of considerations after whether they bloom and how large they’ll grow.  Lately, I’ve planted some Japanese maples that have tint in their leaves through the summer, and a crape myrtle that starts with deep burgundy leaves in the spring.  But since fall color lasts just as long as many spring flowers, like dogwood blossoms, it makes sense to consider November pleasures as much as April ones.

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Dogwood turns rich scarlet earlier than most other trees turn each autumn.  Their drupes feed many species of song birds.

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Here are a few of my personal favorites: Oakleaf Hydrangea ‘Snow Queen’ goes scarlet early in the season and holds onto those gorgeous leaves long past the time when most of our trees have gone bare.  This is a large shrub, with an open habit, large leaves and huge flower panicles.  It will take a space at least 8′-10′ wide and deep in your garden if you want to show it to best advantage.  But this gorgeous shrub has no ‘off’ season.  By the time the leaves finally blow away, new leaves and flower buds have begun to grow.  Its exfoliating bark adds interest through the winter.  But for big, bold scarlet leaves that last and last, it doesn’t get better than this.

Dogwood, Cornus florida, is a common native tree in our area that crops up randomly where birds drop the seeds.  There are beautiful hybrids out there, but we just grow the species, and love it year round.  In the spring, the trees cover themselves with white flowers.  These relatively small trees have a beautiful, graceful form.  By late summer, the drupes begin to turn scarlet and attract songbirds, and the dogwood’s leaves are one of the first trees to begin to turn each year.  They grow to a deep, rich scarlet before they fall by late November.  Even in winter, the trees are like living sculptures, covered in plump buds, awaiting warmer weather to begin blossoming all over again.

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Sumac sports scarlet leaves and burgundy berries.  Here, it is just beginning to turn in mid-October of 2014.

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Sumac trees, Rhus species, might be considered weedy by some, and I’m one of those apostates for much of the summer.  They have coarse foliage and an undisciplined habit.  They spread themselves around unashamedly and one tree quickly becomes a thicket.  But oh, once autumn arrives, those huge compound leaves turn a lovely shade of red and the clusters of drupes take on a warm, coffee brown color.  They are quite eye-catching when growing in groves on the side of the road. 

Grow these along the edge of a wooded area or in a meadow, or just take a drive in the country in late October or early November and admire them.  Sumacs are wonderful native plants for supporting wildlife.  They offer nectar in early summer and food for birds through fall and winter.  They sequester carbon, hold the soil against erosion, and provide great perches for birds.  I’ve learned to appreciate them, but wouldn’t choose them for a more formal garden area.

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Maple

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The Ginko tree, Ginko biloba, the oldest species of deciduous broad-leaf tree known anywhere in the world, is also one of the most stunning trees each autumn.  Each small, delicate leaf turns a clear, bright unblemished golden yellow and the tree stands tall and proud like a fiery torch for days or weeks, before a good wind comes along and sweeps that golden bling from branches to ground.  The leaves, which resemble the individual leaflets on a maidenhair fern frond, don’t travel far, and so the tree sports a golden ‘skirt’ for a while before the show is over. 

Ginko isn’t native to North America, but it is lovely.  Just please, make sure you get a male tree.  The female trees produce a fruit which is messy and odoriferous.  The ancient Chinese learned to use parts of the tree in their traditional medicine and as food, and the supplement remains popular. 

I have a Ginko in a pot on our deck that I’ll need to move into the garden after its leaves fall this year.  It makes a great pot tree for its first several years, but eventually grows into a full size tree, if you don’t train it as a bonsai.  Of course, why limit the size of such a gorgeous tree?  Ginko makes a stunning and long-lived street tree, or a lovely focal point in your garden design.

Maples of all sorts are lovely in the autumn, as well.  There are so many species available, each with its unique leaf shape and autumn color.  Maples are so widespread that there are varieties suited to most areas of the country.  Red maples are native here in coastal Virginia, and are always eye-catching when their leaves turn each fall.

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Ginko

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These are just a few of my favorite trees in autumn.  Scarlet oak trees turn a beautiful shade of clear red, and sweet gum trees sometimes have purple leaves for a brief time.  Sourwood trees turn gold and then scarlet, and Aralia spinosa may turn yellow, scarlet, or even purple.  So many factors determine the colors of leaves in fall.  It is a little bit genetics, a lot reflects the growing season just ending, and of course the temperature, as days grow shorter, determines the intensity and duration of color, as well.

The colorful weeks of autumn feel like a fitting celebration to carry us from the verdant greens of summer into the barren winter.  Only, winter doesn’t have to seem so barren with a little planning and a few evergreen trees, shrubs and perennials scattered about. Green is a glorious color, too, and we get more mileage from our garden space when we celebrate greens in all of their shades, hues, and finishes as well.  What is lovelier than a deep green holly tree dripping in scarlet berries on a December day? Every season offers its own beauties and pleasures.  We just need to plan to squeeze the most enjoyment from them all.

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Woodland Gnome 2020

 

Many thanks to the wonderful ‘Six on Saturday’ meme sponsored by The Propagator

Please visit my other site, Illuminations, for a daily quotation and a photo of something beautiful.

 

Six on Saturday: Going and Coming

Camellia sasanqua opened its first flowers this week.

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The wind swung around to blow from the north overnight as the rain finally moved off the coast. The cold front came on a wave of rain that moved in before my eyes opened at 5 Friday morning and hung around deep into the evening.

Today dawned clear and bright, crisp and chill. How rare to have a night in the 40s here, so early in October. But all that cleansing rain left a deep, sapphire sky to greet the sunrise.

The cold front caught me distracted this time. I didn’t plan ahead enough to start moving plants indoors last week. And so every Caladium and Begonia and Alocasia was left out in the soggy cold night to manage as best as possible.

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Caladium ‘A Touch of Wine’ has been particularly cold tolerant this autumn.

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Trying to make amends this morning, I began gathering our Caladiums, starting in the coolest part of the garden on the downhill slope behind the house. Pulling Caladium tubers out of heavy, waterlogged soil presents its own challenges. The only thing worse is leaving them in the cold wet soil to rot.

Timing out when to lift Caldiums can be as puzzling as when to plant them out in the spring. Some varieties signaled weeks ago that they were finishing for the season, by letting their stems go limp with their leaves fall to the ground. When that happens, you need to dig the tubers while the leaves remain to mark the spot. I’ve lost more than a few tubers by waiting too long to dig them, and forgetting where they were buried.

At the same time, other plants still look quite perky with new leaves coming on. It feels wrong to end their growth too soon, with those lovely leaves wilting in the crate. This is a time to prioritize which need immediate attention and which can grow on a while, yet. After tonight, we expect another warm spell, so I have an excuse.

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Arum italicum remains dormant all summer, emerging again sometime in October.

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Everywhere in our garden we see new plants coming out and blooming even as summer’s stars fade. If it weren’t for fall blooming Camellias, Arums, emerging bulbs and late blooming perennials, I couldn’t be so content in October. But in our garden there are always comings and goings, so I try to take autumn in stride.

The pot I planted last fall with Cyclamen hederifolium, Arum, and spring flowering bulbs has burst into new growth. Retrieving the few Caladiums I plopped in there in June was a bit of a challenge. I didn’t do too much damage, I hope, in pulling them up from between the Cyclamen that now are in full leaf. Cyclamen tubers are fun because they just grow broader and broader year to year, spreading into larger and larger patches of beautifully marked leaves and delicate flowers.

I’m finding seedpods on our Camellia shrubs even as the first fall flowers bloom. I’m working with Camellia seeds for the first time this year, after receiving a gift of Camellia sinensis seeds, the tea Camellia, from a gardening friend. Now that I know what to look for, I’m saving seeds from my own shrubs, too.

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Pineapple Sage opened its first flowers this week beside a patch of goldenrod.

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In fact, the garden is filled with seeds this week. I’ve harvested seeds from our red buckeye tree, acorns from the swamp chestnut oak, and Hibiscus seeds. I’m busily squirreling away the seeds in hopes many will germinate and grow into new plants that I can share.

Our birds are flocking in to enjoy the bright red dogwood seeds, along with beautyberry seeds and nuts from the beech tree. The drive is littered with beechnut husks and there are always birds and squirrels about. They are busy gathering all they can with birds swooping about the garden as I work. Even the tiny seeds I overlook, on the Buddleia shrubs and fading Black-eyed Susans entice the birds.

All the rapid changes feel dizzying sometimes. There is an excellent piece in today’s WaPo about the different autumn displays caused by climate change. Not only are species moving north and other new species moving in to replace them, but the very patterns of heat and cold and moisture are changing how the trees respond each fall. You may have noticed some trees whose leaves turned brown and fell weeks ago. Other trees still stand fully clothed in green.  Forests once golden with chestnut leaves now show more scarlet and purple because of new species replacing the chestnuts last century.

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Grapes ripen on the vines running through the dogwood tree. Color is slow to come this fall, with some trees dropping their leaves before they brighten.

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Our red buckeye tree is native further to the south. But it is naturalizing now in coastal Virginia, and is growing very happily in our yard. Trees are very particular about how much heat or cold they can take, and how many chilling days they require in winter to set the next season’s buds. Most also dislike saturated soils. Our abundant rainfall, these last few years, has sent some trees into decline when the roots can’t ‘breathe.’

Trees are coming and going, too, just on a much grander scale. For every tree that falls, dozens of seedlings emerge to compete for its space.

I’m planting seeds this fall, starting woody cuttings, and starting a few cold weather bulbs and tubers. I have flats of Cyclamen and Arum started, and spent some happy hours this week tucking tiny bulbs into the earth, dreaming of spring flowers.

Changing seasons takes a span of many weeks in our garden. The day will soon be here when I start carrying pots indoors for winter. Other pots stay outside, replanted with flowers and foliage to fill them winter into spring. I need to stay focused on all of the comings and going- not let myself get distracted with the beauty of it all.

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Woodland Gnome 2020

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Hibiscus seeds are ripe for sowing.

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Many thanks to the wonderful ‘Six on Saturday’ meme sponsored by The Propagator

Visit my other site, Illuminations, for a daily quotation and a photo of something beautiful.

Sunday Dinner: The Known

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“Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say,

`That is an oak tree’, or `that is a banyan tree’,

the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge,

has so conditioned your mind

that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree?

To come in contact with the tree

you have to put your hand on it

and the word will not help you to touch it.”

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Jiddu Krishnamurti

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“Their life is mysterious,

it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity,

it can be comprehended, described,

but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow,

the density blinds one.

Within there is no form, only prodigious detail

that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight,

foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap,

insects, silence, flowers. And all of this, dependent, closely woven,

all of it is deceiving.

There are really two kinds of life.

There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living,

and there is the other.

It is this other which causes the trouble,

this other we long to see.”

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James Salter

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“I’m planting a tree

to teach me to gather strength

from my deepest roots.”

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Andrea Koehle Jones

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“In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike.

And no two journeys along the same path are alike.”
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  Paulo Coelho

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Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2020

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“Trees, for example, carry the memory of rainfall.

In their rings we read ancient weather—

storms, sunlight, and temperatures,

the growing seasons of centuries.

A forest shares a history, which each tree remembers

even after it has been felled.”

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Anne Michaels

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Seeds of Appreciation

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“The invariable mark of wisdom

is to see the miraculous in the common.”

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Emerson

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“Those with a grateful mindset

tend to see the message in the mess.

And even though life may knock them down,

the grateful find reasons,

if even small ones, to get up.”

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Steve Maraboli

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“Life off Earth

is in two important respects not at all unworldly:

you can choose to focus on the surprises and pleasures, or the frustrations.

And you can choose to appreciate the smallest scraps of experience,

the everyday moments,

or to value only the grandest, most stirring ones.”

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Chris Hadfield

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“Tiny seed (embryo, food, a coat and a code)

gathered food from the dirt and turned itself, slowly,

into a giant tree.

Simple thing became complex and strong.

But for the embryo to eat and grow,

it needed water to activate enzymes to break down storage compounds.

Soil poverty also affected plant growth:

the seed needed loose soil rich in organic matter,

a good soil temperature, oxygen in the soil,

and light to germinate.

People were like seeds.”

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Tamara Pearson

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“The word is like a seed, and the human mind is so fertile,

but only for those kinds of seeds it is prepared for.”

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Miguel Ruiz

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“Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea.

The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos,

the fountains are bubbling with delight,

the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle.

Let us dream of evanescence

and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.”

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Kakuzō Okakura

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Wishing you every happiness this Thanksgiving

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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Sunday Dinner: Looking Forwards

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“The future belongs

to those who believe in the beauty

of their dreams.”
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Eleanor Roosevelt

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“The only thing that makes life possible

is permanent, intolerable uncertainty:

not knowing what comes next.”
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Ursula K. Le Guin

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“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
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Abraham Lincoln

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“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,

that they exist in the present,

which is what there is and all there is.”
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Alan Wilson Watts

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“When did the future switch from being a promise

to being a threat?”
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Chuck Palahniuk

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“The future depends on what you do today.”
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Mahatma Gandhi

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“We can only see a short distance ahead,

but we can see plenty there

that needs to be done.”
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Alan Turing

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Sunday Dinner: Understanding

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“Life can only be understood backwards;

but it must be lived forwards.”

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Søren Kierkegaard

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“I have been and still am a seeker,

but I have ceased to question stars and books;

I have begun to listen to the teaching

my blood whispers to me.”

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Hermann Hesse

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“Deep in the human unconscious

is a pervasive need for a logical universe

that makes sense.

But the real universe

is always one step beyond logic.”

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Frank Herbert

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“Any fool can know.

The point is to understand.”

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Albert Einstein

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“Just because you don’t understand

it doesn’t mean it isn’t so.”

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Lemony Snicket

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“To learn is not to know;

there are the learners and the learned.

Memory makes the one,

philosophy the others.”

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Alexandre Dumas

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“It’s always about timing.

If it’s too soon, no one understands.

If it’s too late, everyone’s forgotten.”

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Anna Wintour

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person.

It’s no longer enough to shake our heads

and make concerned grimaces at the news.

True enlightened activism

is the only thing

that can save humanity from itself.”

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Joss Whedon

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Sunday Dinner: Cycles

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“Every good thing comes to some kind of end,

and then the really good things

come to a beginning again.”

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Cory Doctorow

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“Time has a way of eternally looping us

in the same configurations.

Like fruit flies, we are unable to register the patterns.

Just because we are the crest of the wave

does not mean the ocean does not exist.

What has been before will be again.”

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Tanya Tagaq

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“It’s all a series of serendipities
with no beginnings and no ends.
Such infinitesimal possibilities
Through which love transcends.”

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Ana Claudia Antunes

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“What was scattered
gathers.
What was gathered
blows away.”

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Heraclitus

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“I think that to one in sympathy with nature,

each season, in turn,

seems the loveliest.”

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Mark Twain

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“People can’t live with change

if there’s not a changeless core

inside them.”
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Stephen R. Covey