Sunday Dinner: Never Assume….

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“Advances are made by answering questions.

Discoveries are made by questioning answers.

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Bernard Haisch

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“Your assumptions are your windows on the world.

Scrub them off every once in a while,

or the light won’t come in.”

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Isaac Asimov

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“It is useless to attempt

to reason a man out of a thing

he was never reasoned into.”

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Jonathan Swift

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“Assumptions are maintained by the hug of history.

Yet, history does not guarantee their validity,

nor does it ever reassess their validity.”

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Michael Michalko

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“You think you know this story.
You do not.”

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Jane Yolen

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“Don’t build roadblocks out of assumptions.”

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Lorii Myers

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“The surface of the earth is soft

and impressible by the feet of men;

and so with the paths which the mind travels.

How worn and dusty, then,

must be the highways of the world,

how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

I did not wish to take a cabin passage,

but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world,

for there I could best see the moonlight

amid the mountains.”

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Henry David Thoreau

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“There was no Jedi so wise

that he could not be undone

by his own assumptions.”

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Claudia Gray

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2020

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“Assumptions close doors.

Intrigue opens them.”
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Sam Owen

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“You find the magic of the world in the margin for error.”
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Heart of Dixie

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An Iris for a New Year

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A little more than a year ago, a group of us worked to renovate the decade old Iris border at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden.  The plants had been in decline for a while, having succumbed to an infection that attacked their roots and rhizomes.  Experts advised us to discard all of the old plants in the trash and start anew, with fresh soil and all new plants.

While many of the plants were clearly infected and were destroyed, I kept finding bits of healthy Irises I believed I could salvage.  And so I potted up some of the plants to re-use in the garden, and stuffed a few more questionable ones into a bag that came home with me to try to save.

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It took a bit of time and care to clean up those Iris plants.  Old tissue had to be cut away and each rhizome carefully washed.  I looked for places in our forest garden where I could grow some of the more promising plants on, knowing I can divide them again in a few years, and return some healthy plants to the WBG should I end up with any varieties that we lost in the renovation.

And that is how I struck one little rhizome with a bit of healthy root into a pot, newly vacated at the end of the season, and left it to grow or die under a tree at the bottom of our drive.  It lived. 

It lived and has been growing for a little more than a year now.  It didn’t bloom last spring, but has continued to shoot up new, fresh leaves and to slowly fill out its pot.

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I took this little potted Iris with me when I spoke about Irises and our Iris border renovation this fall.  By early November, the beginning of a bloom stalk was pushing up from the clump.  I was able to show it off as an example of the re-blooming Iris we highlight at the WBG.

After that last talk, I moved the Iris onto our front patio, where it is sheltered from the wind and warmed by the sun.  It sits in the protection of larger pots, near the bird fountain, where we can watch its progress from the front windows.

And today, on the very last day of 2019, it is opening into a perfect, beautiful bloom.  I’m taking this as an omen of better times to come.

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How often do we look around us and sometimes feel like discarding all that has gone wrong in the past, and look for a fresh start?  There are probably times when that is the clearest path forward.   But this beautiful Iris, blooming on the last day of December; the last day of this tumultuous decade, whispers a promise that great beauty can grow from what we thought was lost.

Our belief in the endless potential and goodness of the multiverse will carry us through all manner of difficulties.  A little care, an unshakeable confidence in the power of life to prevail in the most difficult of circumstances, and a little bit of winter sunshine works all sorts of unexpected miracles in our lives.

Wishing you happiness and unlimited potential in the days ahead,

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Woodland Gnome 2019

Six on Saturday: Iris in Bloom

German Bearded Iris ‘Rosalie Figge’

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Iris perfectly blend color, fragrance, geometry and grace.

I’ve spent the last six months delving into the details of the genus and am delighting now in watching them unfold their perfect standards and falls.

The appearance of Iris each spring still feels like a bit of natural magic.  From a slender green stem, the intensely pure colors emerge as each flower unfolds.

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Iris tectorum, Japanese roof Iris, can be grown on traditional thatched roofs.  It was a status symbol in some Japanese communities to have a roof covered with blooming Iris.  This is a crested Iris, like our native Iris cristata.

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Watching an Iris bud open reminds me of how a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, ever so slowly stretching and unfolding its wings.  Both grow so large one wonders how they could have possibly fit into their sheath.  While a butterfly soon flies off in search of nectar and a mate, Iris blossoms remain anchored to their stems, hovering above the garden in motionless flight.

Our Iris continue to multiply in the garden.  I’ve been collecting them, dividing them, and have even received some as gifts.  Most bloom only once each year, and then for only a few weeks.  But what an amazing sight to anticipate through the long weeks of winter, knowing that spring will bring Iris blossoms once again.  Collecting different types of Iris extends the period of bloom, and planting re-blooming iris offers the tantalizing promise of an encore in autumn.

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Iris pallida, a European species Iris brought to Virginia by the colonists, is one of the species used in German bearded Iris hybrids.

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There is a fellowship of Iris lovers extending back through our recorded history.  We see Iris carved into bas reliefs in Egyptian temples, and Iris flowers were admired in ancient Greece.  The Babylonians grew them, and Iris grew wild across the hills of Turkey and meadows of Europe.  There are more than 150 species of Iris, and many of our garden Iris are hybrids of two or more species.

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Native Iris cristata

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Tough and persistent, Iris are easy to grow, once you understand what each variety needs.   It is easy to fall in love with Iris plants in bloom.  And that is the best way to buy them, so you know exactly what you are planting.  Since most are hybrids, gardeners rarely grow Iris from seeds.

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Some Iris grow from bulbs, most from rhizomes.  Some may come in the mail as bare-root plants.  You may have to wait a year or two for the first bloom when you buy divisions.

For immediate satisfaction, look for potted Iris plants in bloom.  You will know exactly what colors you are adding to your garden and know you have a healthy plant to start.

Then, just wait for the beauty to multiply with each passing year.

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Iris x hollandica ‘Silver Beauty’

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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

 

Fabulous Friday: It Lived!

Our figs lived through this long and very cold winter.

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We’ve been watching the fig trees daily for signs of life.  Yes, along with the joy and excitement of spring, there is a fair degree of anxiety, for some of us, about what survived the winter and what did not.  As I chat with gardening friends, the topic of what has survived and what is not in leaf comes up again and again, these days.

That anxiety and expectation has been preoccupying me this week as I tour the garden expectantly between attempts at unpacking our basement and garage.  What am I unpacking, you might wonder? 

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Athyrium niponicum ‘Applecourt’ has leafed out this month, and the hardy Begonias have begun to emerge and grow.  It is always a relief to see their small red leaves appear each spring.  Newly planted Caladiums will soon open their first leaves, too.

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In those last warmish weeks of late October and early November, we moved as many of our tender perennials as we could into the basement and the garage.  It has been a horticultural Noah’s Ark these past months as the survivors have huddled together in the relative security of these all too dim spaces, waiting for spring.

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Colacasia ‘Mojito’s’ tubers were stored over winter in the basement, and have come back to the garden today.

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And now that it is clearly spring, we have been bringing them back out into the light, watering and grooming each pot and basket, and allowing them to rest a while in the shade on the way to their summer homes.  There is an urgency about bringing these brave survivor plants back out into the life-giving warmth and light of early summer, and looking for signs of life.

Dormancy, for a plant, can fool you.  The plant may look completely dead; bare branches, bare soil, brown slimy leaves.  The whole ugly mess… may still harbor life in the roots and branches.  Pitch it too soon, and you have lost a beautiful plant.  Wait too long, and the plant’s life force may expire.

Sad to admit, but I have erred a few times on the side of impatience when I should have just waited a bit longer for a plant to awaken into new growth.

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There is the matter of the Colocasias and Alocasias I stuffed into grocery bags last autumn and stowed in the basement.  To be honest with you, I didn’t want to lift and carry their generous pots to the basement.  And so I followed the odd advice I found somewhere on the internet to store their root balls in paper bags.  Given the choice between further hurting my back, losing my beautiful plants, or trusting the anonymous but reasonable advice…. I took the chance with the grocery bags.

Miraculously, there was a vivid green leaf of Colocasia ‘Tea Cups’ bravely waving at me from above the crusty brown rim of the bag in February.  But it was still too cold to repot them, then, and I’ve procrastinated on this task since things warmed up in late April.  When I went to retrieve them this afternoon there was nothing green or promising about the mess waiting for me in the bags.

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But I soldiered on and lugged them up from the basement and out to my work area, where I managed to beat and coax and squeeze their rigid root balls of the two largest plants into 5 gallon plastic pots.  After a thorough watering, I’ve set the pots aside in a warm bright spot to see whether my plants will resurrect themselves from their dormant tubers.

There were a dozen smaller tubers, still attached to the desiccated leaves of other plants rescued last autumn.  I’ve trimmed and planted them into waiting pots and I will hope to see their leaves emerge by June.

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The Afghan fig F. ‘Silver Lyre’ returns from its roots each May.  Rarely, leaves will emerge from buds on last year’s stems.

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And my beautiful reward for all of the effort today came on my last tour of the garden this afternoon:  fig leaves!  Our figs are finally awakening, trusting that the summer weather is settling in at last.  Their buds are opening up and leaves unfurling on the branches even as new sprouts emerge from the soil.

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One by one, our winter dormant plants are springing back to life and growth.  We’re still waiting for a few woodies, like those olive trees that overwintered on the patio because I couldn’t lug their huge pots indoors.  There is still green wood just beneath their thin bark, and so I’ve not yet given up.

Hope fuels us gardeners.  And the smallest green leaf emerging from a brown and wrinkled stem can make all of that patience and effort worthwhile.

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Woodland Gnome  2018

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Iris ‘Strange Rites’

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Fabulous Friday:  Happiness is contagious! 

Let’s infect one another.

Sunday Dinner: Artistry

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“Art and love are the same thing:

It’s the process of seeing yourself

in things that are not you.”

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Chuck Klosterman

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Iris germanica ‘Secret Rites’

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“Everything you can imagine is real.”

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Pablo Picasso

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“If you ask me what I came to do in this world,

I, an artist, will answer you:

I am here to live out loud.”

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Émile Zola

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“Every child is an artist.

The problem is how to remain an artist

once he grows up.”

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Pablo Picasso

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“Art washes away from the soul

the dust of everyday life.”

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Pablo Picasso

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“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically,

but it would make no sense;

it would be without meaning,

as if you described a Beethoven symphony

as a variation of wave pressure.”

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Albert Einstein

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“When words become unclear,

I shall focus with photographs.

When images become inadequate,

I shall be content with silence.”

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Ansel Adams

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

Vases by Bob Leek

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“Art is not what you see,

but what you make others see.”

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Edgar Degas

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“There are painters who transform the sun

to a yellow spot,

but there are others

who with the help of their art and their intelligence,

transform a yellow spot

into sun”

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Pablo Picasso

On the Eve of May

The first rays of morning sun fuel our garden this last day of April.

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May is already upon us.  The garden has filled with flowers, and there are more waiting each morning as we walk outside, to see what has changed overnight.

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Iris ‘Echo Location’

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This is Iris season, and Columbine season, and the grass is filled with wildflowers season.

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Native fleabane, probably Erigeron pulchellus, grow in our front lawn. A short lived perennial, this patch grows a bit larger each year. After it finishes flowering, we will mow this part of the ‘lawn’ once again.

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It all grows unbelievably fast in late April and early May, and I am busily trying to work with the season.

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Erigeron is a native wildflower in our area.  Too pretty to cut back, we have let it have its real estate in the front yard.

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That said, it was only 41F when I followed the sun out of bed this morning.  Neighbors in nearby towns had temperatures near freezing over night, and so I don’t yet trust the weather with so many of our tender, tropical plants.  I am crossing my fingers and toes, and planting out as much as I dare, just as quickly as I can.

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I was a bit surprised to notice the trellis filled with blooming Clematis this morning.

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Spring rolls over us like a wave, before cresting into full on summer.  And I am working to ride that wave as the garden awakens.

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This is the time to set things right; to establish what will grow where, and how, for the next six months.

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Columbine

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But everywhere I look, I see something new.  I see opening leaves, emerging perennials, and unfolding buds.

May’s magic lives in our garden, and I hope it lives in yours, as well.

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Woodland Gnome 2018

After experimenting for the past several days with my new Canon Power Shot Elph 180, I am back to my Nikon Coolpix S3500.  Trying to focus in on the fleabane flowers proved the utility of my little Nikon, which lives in the inside pocket of my gardening vest.  It has crossed the country with me a couple of times now, and is officially obsolete in the world of pocket cameras.  But it still takes a great photo and leaves me satisfied.

 

 

Sunday Dinner: “Be Fruitful”

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“Don’t sit at home and wait

for mango tree to bring mangoes to you wherever you are.

It won’t happen.

If you are truly hungry for change,

go out of your comfort zone

and change the world.”

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Israelmore Ayivor

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“True passion motivates the life forces

and brings forth all things good.

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Gabriel Brunsdon

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Double Narcissus ‘Gay Tabour’

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“Try not to become a man of success.

Rather become a man of value.”

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Albert Einstein

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“There is no season of your life

that you cannot produce something.”

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Bidemi Mark-Mordi

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“To be fruitful

is to understand the process of growth”

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Sunday Adelaja

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

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“It had long since come to my attention

that people of accomplishment

rarely sat back and let things happen to them.

They went out and happened to things.”

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Leonardo da Vinci

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“Success is not how high you have climbed,

but how you make a positive difference to the world.”

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Roy T. Bennett

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Fabulous Friday: First Iris

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Spring has settled over our garden for another year, as the daffies give way to the rest of their perennial cousins.  The comphrey, one of the first to awaken with fresh leaves each spring, burst into bloom with week with its wine colored flowers.

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Our Iris are all stretching for the sky, and the first golden yellow blossoms are opening.  This is an exciting time in the garden as the beds begin to fill in with new foliage and we re-discover loved perennials who made it through this brutal winter, just ending.

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That isn’t to say that spring is settled.  It was in the mid-30s when I headed out this morning, still dressed in winter wear.  But the sun was golden, gilding every blooming shrub and tree in the garden.

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The North wind gusted all day, like a bored toddler determined to attract one’s attention.   Choosing to ignore it, I stayed out in the sunshine.

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All in all, a fabulous Friday as spring’s promises begin to come true.

Woodland Gnome 2018

Fabulous Friday:  Happiness is contagious… Let’s infect one another!

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Blossom XXXIV: First Iris

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“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful,

full or wonder and excitement.

It is our misfortune that for most of us

that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct

for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring,

is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.

If I had influence with the good fairy

who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children,

I should ask that her gift to each child in the world

be a sense of wonder so indestructible

that it would last throughout life,

as an unfailing antidote

against the boredom and disenchantment of later year…

the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

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Rachel Carson

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“It is a wholesome and necessary thing

for us to turn again to the earth

and in the contemplation of her beauties

to know the sense of wonder and humility. ”

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Rachel Carson

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Dwarf Iris riticulata open the season for Iris blooming in our garden.

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

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“In nature nothing exists alone.”

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Rachel Carson

Blossom XXXIII:  October Blues

 

Fabulous Friday: Autumn Re-Blooming Iris

Iris ‘Immortality’

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Something white caught my eye as I was watering the other evening.   As if by magic, an Iris scape stood there tall and proud, its white buds glowing in the fading light.  The second bloom of our re-blooming Iris catch me by surprise each autumn.  It is hard to predict when they will appear.

Our favorite I. ‘Rosalie Figge’ sent up a scape with four buds last week.

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Iris ‘Rosalie Figgee’ blooming last week.  It is past time for me to clear up the spent Iris foliage to prepare for fall blooms.

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It re-blooms reliably through the fall, sometimes blooming into December.  But I. ‘Immortality’ is a little more rare, and we always accept her fall blooms with deep appreciation.

Just as many perennials wind down for the season, Iris will often begin to grow fresh leaves.  Their spring-time leaves are often yellowed or burned at the tip.  This is a good time to clean up the old spent foliage, if you haven’t already, and cut back their weathered leaves.

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The Iris grow well with culinary sage.  Seed heads from our garlic chives add texture. I like them very much, though I know I’d be wise to follow Eliza’s advice and deadhead more of these before the garden is overrun with chives next summer,  grown from these lovely seeds.

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A little water, and maybe a top-dressing of compost or a sprinkle of Espoma will revive their vitality.  If your Iris are a re-blooming type, this may increase your fall blossoms.  If not, you have prepared your plants for a beautiful show next spring.

This is also on my ‘to-do’ list, and so these beautiful blossoms have emerged today from less than beautiful foliage.   With cooler weather in our forecast, I will hope to accomplish this, too, before I take off for the West Coast in mid-October.

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Pineapple Sage, in its fall glory, still sends out new buds.

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Our garden is filled with light today, and alive with many pollinators feasting on the goldenrod.  They focus with such concentration as they work flower to flower, gathering nectar and pollen to feed their colonies through the long winter ahead.

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There are plenty of flowers left for our enjoyment, as well as for those nectar loving creatures who visit us.

I will head back out there shortly to make up for our lack of rain this week, with another good soaking from the hose.  It takes a lot of water to satisfy our thirsty garden, and watering allows me to see things I might otherwise miss.  It also keeps the flowers coming, and with any luck, we’ll have more Iris emerging soon.

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Fabulous Friday:  Happiness is Contagious, Let’s infect one another!

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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I’m learning to make wire sculpture trees, and this is my second attempt: ‘Oak in autumn.’  I’ll learn so much about the structure of trees through sculpting them in wire.

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