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

Sunday Dinner: Viewpoint

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“All that we see or seem

is but a dream within a dream.”

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Edgar Allan Poe

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“Chaos is merely order

waiting to be deciphered.”

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 José Saramago

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“The eye sees

only what the mind

is prepared to comprehend.”

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Robertson Davies

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“One moment the world is as it is.

The next, it is something entirely different.

Something it has never been before.”

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Anne Rice

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“Dream delivers us to dream,

and there is no end to illusion.

Life is like a train of moods

like a string of beads,

and, as we pass through them,

they prove to be many-colored lenses

which paint the world their own hue. . . . ”

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“The master said, “You must write what you see.”
But what I see does not move me.
The master answered, “Change what you see.” “

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Louise Glück

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“You are one of the rare people

who can separate your observation

from your preconception.

You see what is,

where most people

see what they expect.”

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John Steinbeck

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“The closer you come to knowing

that you alone create the world of your experience,

the more vital it becomes

for you to discover

just who is doing the creating.”

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Eric Micha’el Leventhal

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

from Lincoln City, Oregon

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“If the doors of perception were cleansed,

everything would appear to man as it is

– infinite.”
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William Blake

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Six On Saturday: Autumn’s Passing Beauty

The Connie Hansen Garden Conservancy, Lincoln City, OR

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Autumn’s passing beauty shines for such a short time.  Like the green flash of a sunset, you must watch for it; wait for it, celebrate it.

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Mexican bush sage, Salvia leucantha, blooms at Bear Valley Nursery, Lincoln City, OR.

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The allee of crimson maple trees lining Rt. 18 that had thrilled me as I passed McMinnville, Oregon, on my way to the coast, had already dropped many of their leaves, and were left standing in their bare, structural glory, by the time I returned by the same way, a little more than a week later.

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Rose hips ripen near Siletz Bay

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But a bit further down the road, the richly green tunnel of trees I drove through near the Salmon River had transformed into a shimmering golden stretch, where hardwoods mixed in with the ubiquitous conifers had turned from green to gold during my visit.

It was raining the morning I left.  A storm was moving in, bringing cold winds where I had enjoyed calm sunny days.  I wonder whether those golden leaves still cloak the trees?

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The Connie Hansen Garden

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I found rich color everywhere I went, from orange rose-hips to crimson viburnum offering up a final flush of blooms.  Browning ferns rose above blackberry vines, some with the last ripe berries of the season still clinging to their canes.

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The garden at Mossy Creek Pottery

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How much beauty do we pass by every day, lost in our thoughts and our routines?

When we take a moment, take a breath and see; we find our world richly colored and filled with beauty.  It feels all the sweeter in late October, in the brief moment before it is swept away by winter’s chilling winds.

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Viburnum blooms one last time for the year at the Connie Hansen Garden

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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

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Viburnum mariesii

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All photos from Lincoln City, OR

Bringing Some of the Beauty Home

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I’m always inspired by the rich diversity of botanical wonders casually growing from every crevice and bit of soil along the Oregon coast.  After a week of wandering around admiring moss covered trees, richly colored flowers, towering conifers, intricately textured ferns, and thick berry brambles, I’m left (almost) speechless at the sheer beauty and abundance of gardening pleasures for anyone inclined to cultivate a spot in this rain-forested beach town.

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Linaria purpurea grows from a hillside at the Bear Valley Nursery in Lincoln City, Oregon.

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I’m intrigued by everything.  Even in mid-October, as nights grow cold and days grow shorter, the landscape remains lush.

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The view from the patio behind my hotel room.

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There was frost on my windshield last Thursday morning.  I had to study the controls of my rented Chevy to clear the windows and mirrors before I could set off into the foggy, frost kissed morning to pick up my daughter for our morning breakfast.  By 10:00, when Bear Valley nursery opened, the frost was forgotten and sunshine gilded the day.

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My daughter has grown into her gardening heritage.  She proudly showed me the pumpkins she is growing for her family this fall, her beautiful Hubbard squash, vines dripping with beans and huge heads of elephant garlic.  She knows that our wanderings will take us to the beautiful family run nursery just up the road from where I love to stay while visiting her and her family, and that she will leave with a tray of plants to add to her garden.

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Bear Valley Nursery

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In past years,  I’ve bought plants for her, and then waited patiently for photos of them growing.  I just accepted that I couldn’t bring plants home cross-country.  Sure, I mail cuttings and bulbs to her from time to time, but I haven’t tried to bring horticultural finds home…. until this year!

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The Connie Hansen Garden Conservancy supports itself with donations and plant sales. Oh, such sweet temptation….

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I guess I was giddy by the time I impulsively bought a cute little fern, one I’ve never seen in a Virginia nursery, and an unnamed Iris.  I have a real weakness for interesting ferns and Iris, and I decided to give my best effort to getting them home again to our Virginia garden.

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Daughter cared for them until packing up day, Tuesday, when I was elbow deep into preparations for my flight home from Oregon.  As we waited for granddaughter’s school bus to deliver her back home, we worked together in the garden.  We split the pot of Iris (maybe a Siberian cultivar?) and I slipped part of the clump into a gallon zip-lock bag as daughter dug a hole in her rich, black soil and planted the other half of the clump.  Whose will bloom first, I wonder?

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My portion of the Iris, now safely home.

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I’d saved a take-away food container, and decided that it would bring my fern home safely.  After knocking the roots out of the nursery pot, I carefully laid the plant on its side, bent the fronds to fit the space, and snapped the lid back on securely.  But then daughter was at my elbow with her offering of plump elephant garlic cloves.  How could I resist?

I nestled a few around the fern, and slipped the rest into another plastic bag.

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My pile of horticultural treasures had been growing all week, actually.  One of the owners of Bear Valley Nursery very generously snipped a few seed stalks off of her beautiful Linaria purpurea, that I had been admiring.  They were cropping up throughout the display gardens, through her gravel mulch.

I’d already been admiring them at the Connie Hansen Garden Conservancy and wondering what to call them.  The common name, toadflax, somehow seems insufficient for their graceful beauty.

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Linaria growing at the Connie Hansen Garden Conservancy

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I had also been admiring the Crocosmia, which naturalize so easily both in gardens and on hillsides, and along roadsides throughout the area.  Any spot with a bit of sun seems a good place for a clump to take hold and expand.  I nicked a few seed covered stems one day while walking down the lane from my hotel to the beach below.

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They weren’t growing in anyone’s yard, mind you, just volunteering among the blackberry brambles, ferns, and grasses growing on the shoulder of the road.  I dropped the stems into my bag with sea stones and shells, hoping for similar stands a few years on.

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Crocosmia bloom beside a water feature at the Connie Hansen Garden in Lincoln City, Oregon.

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Both of these perennials are hardy in our Zone 7b climate.  A Master Gardener friend grows Crocosmia in her Williamsburg garden, and gave me a few bulbs.  My Crocosmia are far from these lush stands I’ve admired in Oregon, though.

I am not familiar with the Linaria, though see no reason it shouldn’t thrive in my garden at home.  Native to Italy, it should grow well among Mediterranean herbs like rosemary and lavender.

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I found Linaria growing in white, pink, purple and blue in various gardens around Lincoln City.  A clump grows beside a stream, mixed with Verbena bonariensis, ferns and grasses at the Connie Hansen garden.

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I packed all of these parcels into a heavy plastic shopping bag, and tucked them into my carry on bag.  Nothing on the airline’s website raised any alarms, and so I confidently put my bag on the conveyor at security on the way to my departure gate.   But when it comes to plants and planting, I’m sometimes a bit over-confident…

When my bag didn’t reappear among the plastic bins of my shoes, coat, and tablets, I knew there might be a question or two to answer.

And sure enough, my bag was opened and searched.  But once I explained what plants I was bringing home, and the friendly agent saw there was nothing dangerous involved, we repacked it all and I was on my way.

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Fern and garlic fresh from my carry-on bag.

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I’m happy to tell you that the seeds and plants all made it home in great shape.  As I was unpacking my bags in the wee early morning hours, I happily set my new Oregon plants in a safe spot until I could get to them today.

And so it is that I now have a fresh pot of Cheilanthes argentea, silver cloak fern, and a pot of Iris, species and cultivar yet a mystery. I am hoping that perhaps the Iris will turn out to be one of the beautiful Pacific coast native varieties.

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Silver Cloak fern, Cheilanthes argentea, is a new fern that I’ve not grown before. It is tucked into a new pot and topdressed with a little lime and some gravel.

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Learning that this particular fern loves to grow in the crevices of rocks, and prefers slightly alkaline soil, I’ve top dressed it with a bit of dolomitic lime and given it a gravel mulch.  It likes to grow on the dry side, unusual for a fern, and can take a bit of sun.  Since it is rated for Zones 5-7, I’m thinking that I should give it more shade than it might need if growing in the Pacific Northwest.

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The silvery underside of each frond is this fern’s distinguishing feature. It is a low grower, but spreads.

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Native in Asia, it is able to dry out, curling up its fronds, and then re-hydrate when water comes available again.  Once established, it will spread.  I will give it the pot this winter, and then perhaps plant it out into an appropriate spot in the garden next spring.

Tomorrow I expect to sow the seeds into flats and set them into a safe spot to overwinter, and hopefully sprout in the spring.

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We enjoyed this view during breakfast on the porch of the Wildflower Grill.

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Looking through my hundreds of photos reminds me of the beautiful plants and associations I enjoyed in Oregon.  I will share some with you over the next several days, and perhaps you’ll pick up a fresh gardening idea, or two, as well.

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The Connie Hansen Garden

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While I was away, we finally had abundant rain here in Williamsburg.  But we’ve also had wind and cold.  I can feel the turn of seasons in the breeze, and my thoughts are turning to digging up our Caladiums and moving plants indoors, even while planting out spring bulbs and winter Violas.

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My new Iris can grow on through winter in a pot in my sunny holding area.  I’ll look for lush new growth in spring.  I want to try to identify the Iris before planting it out into the garden.

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I’m happy to be home, back to our beloved Forest Garden.  Even as the seasons shift towards winter, there is beauty everywhere here, too.  My travels have me still buzzing with new ideas, associations to try, and fresh inspiration to carry me through the weeks ahead.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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Sunday Dinner: Abundance

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“Family was even a bigger word than I imagined,

wide and without limitations,

if you allowed it,

defying easy definition.

You had family that was supposed to be family and wasn’t,

family that wasn’t family but was,

halves becoming whole, wholes splitting into two;

it was possible to lack whole, honest love and connection

from family in lead roles,

yet to be filled to abundance

by the unexpected supporting players.”
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Deb Caletti

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“Love comes in waves.

It’s natural law.

There’s always more coming.”
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Kate McGahan

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Woodland Gnome 2019

Time to Travel, Time to Reflect, Time to Plant, Time to Return….

Siletz Bay, Lincoln City Oregon

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“The sun rises each morning to shed light

on the things we may have overlooked

the day before.”

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Tyler J. Hebert

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Siletz Bay, as seen from the other side along Highway 101

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It has been more than three weeks since my last post of Forest Garden, and probably long since time that I should share with you a few of my adventures.   As friends likely knew, I’ve been away, visiting some of my favorite places and spending time with some of my favorite loved ones.

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Depoe Bay, Oregon, where everyone watches for whales.

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I spend weeks preparing for the trip, and then leave home at o’dark thirty for the airport to catch one of the first planes of the morning out to Chicago.  It is worth the effort, as I’m collecting my luggage in Portland by West Coast lunchtime.  Then the long drive to the coast through some of the most beautiful scenic routes in the country, and I instantly feel ‘at home’ again.

From the beautiful Willamette Valley, where the leaves had already turned scarlet and orange to the rocky central Oregon coast, where they mostly hadn’t, I was enchanted by the beauty of every mile.

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We stopped to shop for produce and pumpkins on the way north to Tillamook.

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I spend the week with daughter and her family, marveling at how much little one has grown since I last saw her and catching up on family news.  There is time for walks on the beach, drives through the mountains, breakfasts together, playground time, and time spent exploring the beautiful Connie Hansen Garden.

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Little one loves the beach, and we found the perfect place for her to play safely.

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I love waking and ending my days listening to the pounding of the Pacific Ocean.  This time, we were blessed with calm, sunny weather.  Aside from one foggy evening and a bit of rain, the days were bright and comfortable and the ocean perfectly peaceful.

The weather was always right for whatever we chose to do.  If you know the Pacific Northwest, you know how blessed we were with this stretch of beautiful weather in the middle of October.

There are favorite places to visit and new ones to explore.   I learned a few new ‘locals’ shortcuts’ this time, and had a wonderful time on the hilly twisty roads of this stretch of coast where the mountains touch the sea.

And finally, for the first time, we spotted whales below Cape Foulweather.  We are always watching for whales at the coast, and this time there was a pod of them in the ocean far below us.

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The whales are just below the surface, and the frothy white on the surface is from their breathing. You may see their shadows below the clear blue sea. This is the view from Cape Foulweather along Highway 101.

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We soaked in the view while also keeping up with an energetic four year old!  She was much more interested in thoroughly exploring the park than in looking at whales, but I managed to still capture a photo or two.

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The view from Cape Foulweather, one of the highest point along this stretch of Highway 101 headed south towards Newport.

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On my visits to Lincoln City, I’m always happy to visit the Connie Hansen Garden to see what is growing, what has changed, and talk with the garden volunteers.

This time I was able to visit with a volunteer who is working on a major new ‘white garden’ installation.  She was still working on the soil while I was there, but I was keenly interested in her plans for planting.  And now I’m looking forward to seeing how it is coming along next year.

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A beautiful collection of heathers and heaths grow in the lower section of the Connie Hansen Garden Conservancy.

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The garden’s first owner, Dr. Connie Hansen, established many extensive collections of her favorite genera.  There are Japanese maples, Rhododendrons, many sorts of ferns, Oregon natives and at one time Iris.  A few Iris are left and a new bed established a few years ago.  But her main collection of Japanese Iris were sacrificed when the parking area was laid, after her passing, when the garden became a public Conservancy.  All of the work in the garden is still done by volunteers.

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There are many water features in the Connie Hansen garden to help manage the water that runs through this property from the surrounding neighbors’ yards.  The soil throughout the garden is nearly always moist, and so raised beds are important to grow many of the plants successfully.

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As I explored and enjoyed this beautiful Oregon garden, I was reminded of the work waiting for me at home.  October is a very busy gardening month in Virginia as well as in Oregon.  I thought of the many bulb orders I was waiting to collect and plant on my return and the chores to be done before the weather turns.

Digging the Caladiums and preparing them for winter storage was on my mind and on my ‘to do’ list as soon as I returned home.  They don’t like temperatures much below 50F, which is why they thrive in Florida, survive in Virginia’s summers, but are not grown in Oregon.

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Even in summer, Oregon nights along the coast are often too cool for heat loving plants like Caladiums, Colocasias and Alocasias.  But there are so many wonderful things they can grow year round that we can’t.  My daughter’s pansies still looked perky and fresh after growing in her garden over the past year.  Her garden is cool enough for them to grow right through the summer.

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Gunnera is related to Rhubarb, and grows to its full potential in the Pacific Northwest. This plant would likely wilt in a Virginia summer.  I don’t see it in cultivation in our area.  Ajuga carpets the ground beneath it.

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We savored every day and made the most of them all, but eventually it was time to pack for the trip home.

Those last few days were fraught with a bit of worry, because Hurricane Michael had swept through our area as a tropical storm with high winds, tornadoes and torrential rain while I was away.  I stayed in touch with friends and loved ones in the storm’s path through Virginia, and knew that our area was hard hit with downed trees and power outages.  I was nervous over what I would find waiting at home in Williamsburg.

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Hydrangeas along the coast were still gorgeous. This one grew beside the doorway where I stayed. 

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And of course, I was concerned about our own Forest Garden.  My partner spent hours and hours cleaning up and chatting with neighbors about the damage and their clean-up efforts in the days after the storm, and he was a bit vague about how much damage we had.

I knew the trees had survived, although some branches were lost.  Some shrubs had blown over, and the wind had had its way with the perennials.

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Sunset on my last night in Oregon along the beach behind where I stayed.

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The journey home was long, and it was well past midnight when we pulled back into our own drive.  I couldn’t see much, but I saw that the Dogwoods and shrubs by the drive were still standing.  My partner had done a beautiful job with his clean up and there was little left to see, except piles of broken trees along every neighborhood street.

It took several days for me to really ‘see’ what was missing- what had been edited from our familiar landscape by the winds.

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After TS Michael blew through, this was left behind in our community.

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But life is as much a process of editing as it is of adding.  The adding usually brings joy, and the editing may bring relief, or may bring sorrow.

I am finding that as I travel further along the path of my own life’s journey that editing is a fact of life.  We all find comfort in ‘simplicity’ at different stages in our lives.  Editing is required to find the promise that simplicity can hold for us.

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Broken and weathered trees are simply part of the landscape along the coast. There is a beauty to them, and a clarity to these windswept landscapes that I love.

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The days since my return have been filled to the brim with planting, planning, reflecting, writing, and the normal business of life.  I have a few projects underway that take time to bring to completion.

It is a very busy time as we use these fine October days to the utmost, before the weather shifts.  November awaits, and then winter will settle over the garden soon enough.

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I’ve spent too little time just enjoying the beauty and capturing it in photos.  I try to remember to snap a photo here and there in an odd moment, but have been at a loss to string them all together in a way that makes sense for a decent post.  I’ve not abandoned Forest Garden, just taken a bit of an extended break.

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With a little help from my friends, we’ll get those hundreds of bulbs planted soon enough!

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And now it is time to settle back into something like a routine.  Perhaps a revised routine to reflect the changing of the seasons.

I have more stories to tell, and perhaps we’ll get to them one day soon.  But for now I’ll leave you with an image I took this morning.  Something beautiful, something that shows me that life goes on, no matter how odd the journeys we make, no matter what storms may come our way.

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Our Camellias have come into bloom, just as they always do. They survived the storm with buds intact.

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Woodland Gnome 2018

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Growing Hardy Cyclamen

Naturalized Cyclamen hederifolium at the Connie Hansen Garden in Lincoln City, OR are already in bloom in mid-October.

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Cyclamen are just one of those delicate, special plants that we delight in growing.  Their intricately patterned leaves and sculpted, sometimes fragrant, flowers are some of the most novel and beautiful among common potted florist plants.  I generally buy a florist Cyclamen in early December and enjoy it on my kitchen window sill through late spring, when it begins to die back for its summer period of dormancy.

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Discarded from the kitchen windowsill in June, this Cyclamen re-bloomed  out on the deck in the fall of 2013.

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As much as we enjoy the tender florist’s Cyclamen, Cyclamen persicum, I have been seeking out other, more hardy species, too. 

Cyclamen persicum is native to the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and some Mediterranean Islands.  Although it is frost tender, it still prefers cool growing conditions and thrives when kept in medium, indirect light in a spot where night time temperatures drop down into the 50s F.  It wants to go dormant once night time temperatures rise into the upper 60s and 70sF.  I grow it in a windowsill to give it the coolness it needs to keep blooming.

I first began growing Cyclamen hederifolium, which blooms in late autumn into early winter, and Cyclamen coum, which blooms in late winter to early spring, a few years ago.   I was inspired by the Cyclamen I found growing at the Connie Hansen Garden along the Oregon Coast, and then discovered that they are readily available from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, and other bulb dealers.

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Hardy Cyclamen and bulb foliage shine through the leaf litter of a perennial bed at the Heath’s display garden in Gloucester, Virginia in February, 2018.

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Cyclamen grow from tubers.  Like other geophytes, they go dormant each year and will live on in a dry state with neither roots nor leaves.  If you want to buy Cyclamen , you may purchase seeds, tubers or living plants.  While seeds are relatively inexpensive, it will take a few years to grow your plants on to a good size.  There are more flowers with each passing year as the tubers grow larger.

Many experts recommend buying your hardy Cyclamen plants in leaf, so that you can see the color pattern on the leaves and the color of the flowers.  Others just say they have experienced more success in getting plants established in that way.

Once you have a plant or two, they will produce viable seed.  You can collect and sow the seed, or trust insects to spread it around for you.  New Cyclamen plants will emerge  in following years from seed, even as the original plants continue to grow and expand.

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I order tubers for hardy Cyclamen , which is also an easy way to start a patch of your own.  I have planted directly into the ground in years past, and I’ve planted tubers into our large ceramic pots outdoors, as part of my autumn planted winter arrangements.

Although I’ve had some success, I’ve had disappointments, too.  These are very small plants, and can easily get lost under leaves and under other, larger plants.  They tend to show up best when planted among the exposed roots of mature trees.  I didn’t know that when I planted the first batch out into the garden.  The area where I first planted them has since filled in, and so our patch is less than spectacular.

I’ve sited later plantings in better spots.  But again, one needs to clear away fallen leaves and other, faded plants to really see and enjoy Cyclamen planted in the ground.  The Connie Hansen garden has their patch under a pine tree, in the middle of a concrete bordered traffic island in their parking lot, where little else grows.

Many successful gardeners suggest planting hardy Cyclamen among the roots of established trees because they thrive in the lean soil,  they prefer drier soil in summer, and they are shown off to good advantage.  There is room for seedlings to sprout and the effect in autumn and early spring can be spectacular.

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Last year, I planted most of the precious tubers I bought in large pots outdoors.  To make a sad story shorter, there was obvious digging in the pots in the week after planting, and I never did see any Cyclamen emerge.    I’ve since read advice to lay a sheet of 1/2″ chicken wire over the soil in pots, and cover it with some mulch to protect Cyclamen and other tempting tubers and bulbs.

So this year, I am trying a different approach.  I’ve bought a bag of both C. hederifolium and C. Coum.  C. hederifolium generally gives its best showing in its second and subsequent years from a tuber, because the season of bloom begins in autumn.  But I am planting five of each, just to see what I can do with them.

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Plant the tubers concave side up. If you can’t tell, plant the tuber on its side and let the plant sort itself out as stems and roots begin to grow.

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And rather than planting them where I want them to grow, I’m going to try to foil the squirrels by planting them in little plastic nursery pots, indoors, and keep them inside until they have roots and leaves.  Then, I’ll transplant to where I want them.

The challenge in planting tubers is that they want to be planted very shallow; with only an inch or so of soil and mulch above the surface of the tuber.   That is a screaming invitation for rodents to grab a snack, especially if they’ve watched you plant or see the disturbed earth!  Once the tuber is rooted and attached, they have a fighting chance to survive!

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Fill small pots to within an inch or so of the rim with new, commercial potting soil.  Dust the soil with a little Bulb Tone or bone meal to get the Cyclamen off to a good start.  Cyclamen don’t require a lot of fertilizer.

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I’ve planted ours in regular potting soil under about 1/2″ of soil and another 1/4″ or so of perlite.  I ran out of perlite and finished off the last few pots with vermiculite, which works equally as well.  You’ll notice that some of the C. Coum tubers already show evidence of the first few flower stems emerging from the crown. I hope that these will plump up and continue to grow as the tuber re-hydrates over the coming days.

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C. Coum tubers came packed in wood shavings.

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This was even more pronounced on the tubers I bought last year, as I didn’t get them until early December.  I made a point of arranging to pick up my tubers this year within just a couple of weeks of when they came in to the warehouse to get the freshest tubers possible, and get them growing as early in the season as possible.

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Our new tubers are resting tonight in my basement work area.  I’ll keep an eye on them, and move them up to a protected spot on the deck as soon as new growth appears.

Once the plants are growing well, and some of our summer plants have died back, I’ll plant them out where they can grow on through the winter.  This year I expect success with all 10 of our new little Cyclamen plants.

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Water the pots well after planting, and then let them rest. They won’t need light until they begin to grow. Keep the plants evenly moist when they are in growth, but never let them sit in water.

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To maintain your plants, dust with a little bone meal in the fall, and keep them evenly moist when growing.  Once they die back and go dormant, they prefer to spend the summer on the dry side.  Growth is triggered in autumn when temperatures drop and the weather turns a bit wetter.

It is such a pleasing surprise to see their first flowers and leaves emerge each year.  Hardy Cyclamen are a simple and inexpensive pleasure and well worth the small effort to grow them.  If you’ve not tried them before, this is the time to order a few tubers and try something new.

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Our hardy Cyclamen were a welcome sight last February.

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Woodland Gnome 2018

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Sunday Dinner:… at Relative Rest…

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“Stone and sea are deep in life
Two unalterable symbols of the world
Permanence at rest
And permanence in motion
Participants in the power that remains”

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Stephen R. Donaldson

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“Newton’s work on gravity

led to the discovery of the Lagrange point,

a place where opposing forces

cancel one another out,

and a body may remain at relative rest.

This is where I am right now;

the forces in my life confound one another.

Better, for the moment, to be here and now,

without history or future.”

.

Nick Harkaway

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“You rest now.

Rest for longer than you are used to resting.

Make a stillness around you, a field of peace.

Your best work, the best time of your life

will grow out of this peace.”

.

Peter Heller

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“Each wave that rolls onto the shore

must release back to the ocean.

You are the same.

Each wave of action you take

must release back to the peace within you.

Stress is what happens

when you resist this natural process.

Everyone needs breaks.

Denying this necessity does not remove it.

Let yourself go. Realize that, sometimes,

the best thing to do is absolutely nothing.”

.

Vironika Tugaleva

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Photos by Woodland Gnome

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“True restfulness, though, is a form of awareness,

a way of being in life.

It is living ordinary life with a sense of ease, gratitude,

appreciation, peace and prayer.

We are restful when ordinary life is enough.”

.

Ronald Rolheiser

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Sunday Dinner: On the Path

Ocracoke Lighthouse April 2007

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“There are no wrong turnings.

Only paths we had not known

we were meant to walk.”

.

Guy Gavriel Kay

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Route 101 near Depot Bay, Oregon 2010.

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“It is not we who seek the Way,

but the Way which seeks us.

That is why you are faithful to it,

even while you stand waiting,

so long as you are prepared,

and act the moment you are confronted

by its demands.”

.

Dag Hammarskjöld

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Powhatan Creek, Virginia January 2018

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“You never know what’s around the corner.

It could be everything. Or it could be nothing.

You keep putting one foot in front of the other,

and then one day you look back

and you’ve climbed a mountain.”

.

Tom Hiddleston

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Yaquina Head Lighthouse Oregon 2010

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“If you do not change direction,

you may end up where you are heading”

.

Gautama Buddha

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The Colonial Parkway, Virginia 2014

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“What you’re missing

is that the path itself changes you.”

.

Julien Smith

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Near the York River, November 2014

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“…the universe…sets out little signposts for us

along the way, to confirm

that we’re on the right path.” 

.

Michelle Maisto

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Cape Foulweather Lookout, Oregon October 2017

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Photos by Woodland Gnome

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Along the Chickahominy River August 2016

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“End?

No, the journey doesn’t end here.

Death is just another path.

One that we all must take.”

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J.R.R. Tolkien

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WPC: Serene

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“Acceptance is an important part of serenity.

It is not enough, however, simply to accept

the things we cannot change.

For me, serenity comes from not having any investment

in the outcome.

If I am genuinely serene,

then it will not matter to me

whether things change or stay the same.

Either way, I choose to be happy.”

.

Victor Shamas

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“Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves

and in everything we do and see.

Every breath we take, every step we take,

can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity.

The question is whether or not

we are in touch with it.

We need only to be awake,

alive in the present moment.”

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Thich Nhat Hanh

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“Accept the seasons of your heart,

even as you have always accepted

the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity

through the winters of your grief.”

.

Kahlil Gibran

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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All photos from Lincoln City, Oregon

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For the Daily Post’s:

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Serene