Sunday Dinner: Pass It On

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“What are you planting today

to harvest tomorrow?”

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Lailah Gifty Akita

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“Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas.

Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection,

despite its ugliness.

I take it for granted that to create a tree

I condemn a seed to rot.

If the first act of resistance comes too late

it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless,

the awakening of resistance.

Life may grow from it as from a seed.”

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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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“Seeds have the power to preserve species,

to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity,

to counter economic monopoly

and to check the advance of conformity

on all its many fronts.”

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Michael Pollan

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“Plants do not speak,

but their silence is alive with change.”

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May Sarton

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“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds

and think of the rainbows in ’em,” said Captain Jim.

“When I ponder on them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe

that we’ve got souls that’ll live in other worlds.

You couldn’t hardly believe there was life in them tiny things,

some no bigger than grains of dust,

let alone colour and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?”

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L.M. Montgomery

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“Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution.

If you don’t have any problems, you don’t get any seeds.”

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Norman Vincent Peale

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“Remember to be conscious of what seeds you plant,

as the garden of your mind is like the world.

The longer seeds grow, the more likely they are to become trees.

Trees often block the sun’s rays from reaching other seeds,

allowing only plants that are acclimated

to the shadow of the tree to grow—

keeping you stuck with that one reality.”

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Natasha Potter

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“Take the time to plant seeds

even if you’re unsure if they’ll grow; who knows,

maybe all it takes is for someone else

to come along and water it.”

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Kai Mann

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“Every gift from a friend

is a wish for your happiness.”

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Richard Bach

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“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap

but by the seeds that you plant.”
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Robert Louis Stevenson

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Sunday Dinner: Trees’ Ancient Law of Life

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“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.

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“In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.

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“When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

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“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

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“A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

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“A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

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“When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts.

“Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother.

“Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

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“A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning.

“It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home.

“Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

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“So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours.

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“They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.

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“Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree.

“He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

Herman Hesse

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

from the Oregon coast: Siletz Bay, The Connie Hansen Garden Conservancy, Mossy Creek Pottery, Bear Valley Nursery

Fabulous Friday: Continuous Effort

Our upper garden was bathed in sunlight this morning.

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Wouldn’t it be nice if gardening was all about sunbeams and rose petals, happy planting times and delicious harvests?

Let’s have a good laugh together, and then get real.  Gardening is really about making a continuous effort to fashion little improvements here and there and address challenges as they arise.

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More sunbeams and golden orbs encircle our happy Colocasia ‘Black Coral’

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If you need a bit of inspiration, please pick up the current issue of Horticulture Magazine, which is filled this month with timely advice, gorgeous photography, and wonderful suggestions for how to have fun with fall planted bulbs.

In case you’re wondering, those suggestions include a group of friends, good things to eat, and a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

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Narcissus ‘Art Design’  It’s that time of year to start thinking about planting spring bulbs….

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My gardening challenge this morning involved neither friends nor wine, but my partner was there to support and assist.

You see, there are well tended beautiful parts of our garden, and then there is this sad, steep slope from the side yard down into the ravine that suffers from erosion, vole tunnels, deer traffic, deep shade and benign neglect.  While we’ve both made efforts in this area over the years; they don’t seem to amount to much.

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This steep slope in our side yard has had erosion problems for many years. Every bit we do helps, but we’re still trying to improve it.

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A neighbor’s fallen oak wiped out many of the ornamental trees growing here when we came.  The remaining trees, and shrubs we’ve planted, have been regularly pruned by the deer.  Let’s just say the challenges have outnumbered the successes.

But excuses don’t matter a whit when it’s raining buckets and your slope is washing down into the ravine.  Which is why we decided that another ‘intervention’ is necessary this week, as we sit here on the cusp of Atlantic Hurricane Season.

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April 2017: Another area where we had an erosion problem has responded very well to these terraces and perennial plantings.

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We’ve had great success with the terraces we installed a few years ago, on the other side of the yard, to control erosion.   Even though the Rhodies didn’t take off as planned, the ferns and other perennials are filling in, and the erosion is handled.

In fact, I’ve learned that ferns are a terrific plant for controlling erosion in deep to part shade.  They set deep, thirsty roots to both hold the soil and control the amount of moisture retained in the soil.  Their dense foliage absorbs some of the impact of pounding rain.  As they grow, they create their own living mulch to keep their roots cool and moist.

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This is the planting at the top of that previously terraced slope, today.

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So it was that I loaded up my shopping cart on Wednesday with concrete landscaping blocks, pea gravel and as many holly ferns, Cyrtomium fortunei, as I could find. 

Now, I imagine some of you are thinking:  “Why don’t you just spread a good load of pine bark mulch here?”  or “Why don’t you just build a retaining wall?” 

We’ve learned that bark mulch makes moles very, very happy.  They love the stuff, and consider it great cover for their tunnels.  We use very little wood mulch, always a blend with Cypress, and I am transitioning to gravel mulch in nearly every part of the garden.  The voles hate gravel, and it is much longer lasting.

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This bluestone gravel is my current favorite to use in the upper garden.  A Yucca I thought had died reappeared a few weeks after I mulched this area.  I’m installing more of this, one bag at a time….

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A retaining wall wouldn’t work here because we use this area as a walkway between parts of the yard.  It is also so steep, that we would need major construction for it to be safe.   I don’t fancy bringing all of that heavy equipment into this part of the property.  Everything we use has to be carted in by hand.

It was my partner’s idea to space the landscape blocks a few inches apart this time.  We’ll reevaluate that decision after the next heavy rain!  But we filled in some of the divets, from collapsed vole tunnels, with the root balls of our new ferns.  Voles don’t do as much damage to fern roots as to some other perennials and woodies…. and then there is the small matter of the gravel….

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I planted five new ferns today and added two more bags of gravel to the 10 or so we’ve already spread here over the last several years.  Pea gravel gets worked down into the soil over time, and can even get washed further down the hill in a heavy rain.  The concrete blocks will stop the washing away.  Eventually, we may add a larger size of rock mulch in this entire area.

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These are two of the three holly ferns I found on sale racks Wednesday morning. With perennials, you are really buying the roots and crowns. I cleaned up the browned leaves and planted these with full confidence that they will grow into beautiful ferns.  New fiddleheads were already peaking out of the crowns.

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But this is our effort for today, and we are both satisfied.  I had two little ferns in our holding area, waiting for a permanent spot, that we added to the three new holly ferns.  I’m sure a few more will turn up over the next few weeks.

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I have already been planting a few ferns in this area over the last several years (top center). Now, I’ll also add some Helleborus transplants to the ferns, to further hold the ground and make this area more attractive in winter and early spring.  Hellebores make excellent ground cover year round and stop voles with their poisonous roots.

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Why holly ferns?  Cyrtomium fortunei, Fortune’s holly fern, is hardy at least to Zone 6.  Some sources say Zone 5.  It is evergreen, with large fronds of tough, waxy green pinnae.  The clump expands each year, and eventually, after a couple of year’s growth in a good spot, a single fern will cover an area a little more than 2′ across.  Once planted, little care is required.

Cut out brown fronds once a year, keep them watered the first year, and then just regularly admire them after that.  Disease and critter damage isn’t an issue.  This is a large, bold, shiny green plant that shrugs off ice and snow.  It is great for halting erosion in shady spots.

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Fortune’s holly fern planted in the 2017 terraces has grown very well.

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And so once the blocks were set, ferns planted and gravel spread, I was happy to go back up to the upper garden to hold a spraying hose while watching butterflies.

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Actually, I also had 3 new Salvia ‘Black and Blue’ to plant to entice more hummingbirds to the garden.  But that was quick and happy work, and only a minor distraction from admiring the butterflies.

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My partner and I agree that every summer day should be a lovely as today.  We enjoyed sunbeams and cool breezes here for most of the day.

And yes, did I mention all of the butterflies?

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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Fabuous Friday:  Happiness is contagious; let’s infect one another!

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Dryopteris erythrosora’Brilliance’ is another of our favorite ferns. It is evergreen and easy to grow.

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“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge

to test our courage and willingness to change;

at such a moment, there is no point in pretending

that nothing has happened

or in saying that we are not yet ready.

The challenge will not wait.

Life does not look back.

A week is more than enough time for us to decide

whether or not to accept our destiny.”
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Paulo Coelho

 

Sunday Dinner: Seeing What There Is to See

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“Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book

which ever is before our eyes –

– I mean the universe –

– but we cannot understand it

if we do not first learn the language

and grasp the symbols in which it is written.

The book is written in mathematical language,

and the symbols are triangles,

circles and other geometrical figures,

without whose help it is impossible to comprehend

a single word of it;

without which one wanders in vain

through a dark labyrinth.”

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Galileo Galilei

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“In the various arts,

and above all in that of writing,

the shortest distance between two points,

even if close to each other,

has never been and never will be,

nor is it now, what is known as a straight line,

never, never, to put it strongly

and emphatically in response to any doubts,

to silence them once and for all.”

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Jose Saramago

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“His way had therefore come full circle,

or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral,

following as ever no straight unbroken line,

for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry

and not to Nature and Life.”

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Hermann Hesse,

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“The brain does not own any direct copies

of stuff in the world.

There is no library of forms and ideas

against which to compare the images of perception.

Information is stored in a plastic way,

allowing fantastic juxtapositions and leaps of imagination.

Some chaos exists out there,

and the brain seems to have more flexibility

than classical physics

in finding the order in it.”

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James Gleick

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“Give me a place to stand,

a lever long enough and a fulcrum.

and I can move the Earth”

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Archimedes

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“The pits and tangles are more

than blemishes distorting the classic shapes

of Euclidian geometry.

They are often the keys

to the essence of a thing”

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James Gleick

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“Maths is at only one remove from magic.”

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Neel Burton

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“That’s the thing about magic;

you’ve got to know it’s still here,

all around us,

or it just stays invisible for you.”

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Charles de Lint

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Six On Saturday: Six Beautiful Things

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“The mind can go in a thousand directions,

but on this beautiful path,

I walk in peace.

With each step, the wind blows.

With each step,

a flower blooms.”
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Thich Nhat Hanh

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“Strangeness

is a necessary ingredient

in beauty.”
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Charles Baudelaire

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“Beauty is no quality in things themselves:

It exists merely in the mind

which contemplates them;

and each mind perceives a different beauty.”
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David Hume

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“Live quietly in the moment

and see the beauty of all before you.

The future will take care of itself……”
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Yogananda

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“All the diversity, all the charm,

and all the beauty of life

are made up of light and shade.”
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Leo Tolstoy

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“Though we travel the world over

to find the beautiful,

we must carry it with us,

or we find it not.”
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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

 

 

WPC: Favorite Place

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My favorite place is one of magic and mystery, comfort, peace and ever expanding potential.

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It changes minute to minute, day to day.  Yet it always remains constant in its beauty.

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There are infinite layers to this place.  What the eye can see, and what the camera perceives, are sometimes different.

The air is filled with song from creatures seen and unseen.

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And the light infuses all. 

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Photos By Woodland Gnome 2018

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Favorite Place

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Within the mystery of life

there is the infinite darkness of the night sky

lit by distant orbs of fire,

the cobbled skin of an orange that releases its fragrance to our touch,

the unfathomable depths of the eyes of our lover.

No creation story, no religious system

can fully describe or explain this richness and depth.

Mystery is so every-present

that no one can know for certain

what will happen one hour from now. 

It does not matter whether you have religion

or are an agnostic believe in nothing,

You can only appreciate

(without knowing or understanding)

the mysteries of life.

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Jack Kornfield

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“Those loving and most loved lights do not leave this world.  They remain among us, the stuff of sunbeams and whispers; always as close as thought, as real as dream.  Light and love bind us one to another, beyond the bounds of space and time. ” WG

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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Sun Time

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The sun marks the hours as it passes across our garden.  Ever changing light illuminates a little at a time, leaving all else in shade and shadow. 

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Light dances through the leafy canopy of our forest garden, rays penetrating slowly, coaxing life to organize itself from seed and soil, water and air. 

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It is the fire which enlivens this living alchemy. 

It is the Aten, the first and the last each day;

the one who reveals and conceals. 

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Sunlight is time made visible.

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Delta

“share a photograph that signifies transitions and change to you. …  explore the ways in which a single photograph can express time, while only showing us a small portion of any given moment.”

 

Sunday Dinner: New Horizons

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“When we look up, it widens our horizons.

We see what a little speck we are in the universe,

so insignificant, and we all take ourselves so seriously,

but in the sky, there are no boundaries.

No differences of caste or religion or race.”

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Julia Gregson

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“There is so much to say about a past.

It’s a vein of gold through a mountain,

leading to an incontrovertible stone heart of truth.

But the future is a horizon –

a faintly visible line that will promise much,

and always remain too far away to touch.”

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Aliya Whiteley

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“Watching the infinite horizons

gives you infinite dreams, infinite ideas,

infinite paths!

Choose a great target

and then you will see

that great instruments will appear for you

to reach that target!”

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Mehmet Murat ildan

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“Material and technical changes

are mostly quite visible.

But less visible are the changes

in the mind of the people, their way of thinking,

their conception of the world

and the quality of their fears.”

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Erik Pevernagie

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“Dreamers are mocked as impractical.

The truth is they are the most practical,

as their innovations lead to progress

and a better way of life for all of us.”

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Robin S. Sharma

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“In a world of change,

the learners shall inherit the earth,

while the learned shall find themselves

perfectly suited for a world

that no longer exists.”

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Eric Hoffer

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“We’re treating the sky as an open sewer.”

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“Every night on the news

is like a nature hike

through the book of Revelation.”

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“Now we have solutions to the climate crisis,

and they can create tens of millions of new jobs.” 

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Al Gore on CNN’s ‘State of The Union,’ June 4, 2017

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Sunday Dinner: Sunlight

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“The awakening is the purpose.

The awakening of the fact that in essence

we are light, we are love.

Each cell of our body,

each cell and molecule of everything.

The power source that runs all life is light.

So to awaken to that knowledge,

and to desire to operate in that realm,

and to believe that it is possible,

are all factors that will put you there.”

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Dolores Cannon

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“Being the light of the world

is about being a broken, exploding, scarred star

and shining a light of hope and inspiration

to everyone around you.”

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Ricky Maye

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

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“Once in a while you get shown the light

in the strangest of places,

if you look at it right.”

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Grateful Dead

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