Sunday Dinner: Time and Time Again

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“There are those of us who learn to live completely in the moment.

For such people the Past vanishes and the future loses meaning.

There is only the Present…

And then there are those of us who are trapped in yesterdays,

in the memory of a lost love, or a childhood home,

or a dreadful crime.

And some people live only for a better tomorrow;

for them the past ceases to exist”

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Salaman Rushdie

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“You never know beforehand what people are capable of,

you have to wait, give it time,

it’s time that rules, time is our gambling partner

on the other side of the table

and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand,

we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.”

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José Saramago

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“Measuring time isn’t as simple

as adding or subtracting minutes from a clock…

You must find your own measuring stick.”

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Lindsay Eagar

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The Williamsburg Botanical Garden

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“Brass shines with constant usage,

a beautiful dress needs wearing,

Leave a house empty, it rots.”

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Ovid

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“Spend one more day

in pursuit of art that only you can produce,

and somewhere, someone

is envying your courage to do just that.”

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Teresa R. Funke

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Everything passes,

but nothing entirely goes away.”
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Jenny Diski

 

Six On Saturday: Time for a Change

Geraniums bloom in the midst of scented Pelargoniums and other herbs, Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ and ivy.

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Color touches and excites us.  Of all the reasons for cultivating a garden, enjoying beautiful color throughout the year inspires me more than most.

Color ebbs and flows in waves through the seasons, with beautiful oranges, reds and golds reaching an autumn crescendo some time in October, most years, with colors steadily fading to browns and greys in November .

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Camellia ‘Yuletide’ bloomed this week, a bit earlier than usual.

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Cooler weather brings us renewed, intense color in late season flowers and bright autumn leaves.   Autumn’s flowers celebrate  gentler, wetter weather with a vibrancy they’ve not shown since spring.

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Oakleaf hydrangea holds its colorful leaves deep into winter.  Behind it, the Camellias bloom and flower buds have formed on the Edgeworthia.

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We noticed the first changing leaves in late August.  Maples and sycamores began to turn in late summer, followed in September by the first hits of red on the dogwoods.  Holly berries began to fade from green to orange in early October, and still aren’t fully red.

Our long, warm autumn has held off the usual brilliant autumn foliage of hardwood trees deep into the season, and many trees have dropped their leaves already, lost to wind and drought.  Those that have hung onto their branches long enough to shine, brilliant for a while before falling, are enjoyed all the more this year.

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Purple beautyberries shine against the shrub’s changing leaves.  This isn’t the native, and I don’t recall this particular shrub’s provenance.  But I like its smaller leaves.   ‘African Blue’ and ‘Thai’ basil still bloom prolifically and will continue through the first heavy frost.

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Goldenrod fills our upper garden beds.   A Virginia native, its golden yellow flowers feed the late pollinators and offer a last wash of soft color among stands of brown seedheads and withering perennials.  Our garden remains alive with every sort of little bee, a few Sulphur butterflies and a late Monarch or two.

We came home after dark this week to the rare and magical sight of a lone hummingbird feeding on the ginger lilies.  A hummingbird glows in the wash of headlights, reflecting a bright pin-point of light from its little eye and sparkling in its movement from flower to flower.  One might mistake it for a little fairy moving among the flowers after dusk.

We had thought the hummingbirds had already flown south, and sat for a long time at the top of the drive just watching its progress from flower to flower.

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Butterfly ginger lily is a favorite late nectar source for hummingbirds.

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And so we celebrate the colors of the season, even as the garden fades for another year.  This week I’ve dug Caladiums and replaced them with spring flowering bulbs, Violas, snaps and sprouting Arum lily tubers.

I’m taking up our collection of Alocasias and Colocasias, re-potting them and bringing them inside before our colder nights bite them, too.  We now have low temperatures in the 30s predicted for the next few nights, and they won’t like that.  It’s time to bring in the Begonias, as well, and I’m not looking forward to all the heavy lifting this day will require.

From an afternoon high near 80F on Thursday, we’re suddenly expecting winter-time temperatures at night.  Change is in the air this week.

But even as we turn back our clocks this weekend, so we dial back the garden, too.  Winter is a simpler, starker season, but still beautiful.  And as leaves fall and perennials die back, the Camellias shine.  Every sort of berry brightens to tempt the hungry birds, and we notice the color and texture of all of the different barks on our woodies.

A little planning and thoughtful planting now will insure color in the garden through until spring.  A gardener always has something to enjoy, and something interesting to do while enjoying the beauty surrounding us.

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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

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

A Day for Contentment

The first blossom of Camellia ‘Yuletide’ opened Tuesday, right on schedule.

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“It isn’t what you have or who you are

or where you are or what you are doing

that makes you happy or unhappy.

It is what you think about it.”

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Dale Carnegie

We are entering the season where everyone we know wishes us happiness, merriment, and good fortune.  Greetings fly as freely as golden leaves showering down from the Ginko trees on DoG Street in Colonial Williamsburg.

We send our own flurry of “Happy Thanksgiving” wishes to everyone we encounter.  It is the catch phrase of the week to the checker at the grocery store, the clerk who sells us coffee, and every neighbor we meet out walking.

But do those wishes for happiness actually penetrate into our heart?  Do we feel that glow of happiness from the inside out?

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The first year in several that this Camellia has bloomed for us, I was startled by its beauty yesterday afternoon. For once, its buds survived to open. This shrub is a favorite for browsing once a deer gets into our lower garden.

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“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.

If you concentrate on what you don’t have,

you will never, ever have enough”

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Oprah Winfrey

I know many who are feeling anxious this holiday season, and too many struggling with grief.

We are inundated with images from the California fires.  We are still haunted by the enormous losses neighbors across the country have suffered in recent years from storms, fires, floods and shootings.  We pray for those immigrants caught on our Southern border without shelter this Thanksgiving season right along with those camping in Southern California after losing their homes in the fires.

Five minutes spent scanning headlines or watching the news is enough to drain the happiness right out of anyone.  Our national narrative is like a J.K. Rowling dementor that sucks the warmth and happiness away.

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“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough”

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Walt Whitman

We believe that we are living in unusual times; the troubles we face unique in history.  That is not the case.  We are swept up in the currents and eddies of a long river of human history, much of it far worse for everyday folks like us than anything we might experience, now.

Despite the bleak news around us, we are also surrounded by stories of kindness, hope, good fortune and great joy.  President Lincoln was deep in the weeds of his own Civil War between the states, struggling with the great purpose of keeping our states together as one nation, when he declared a day of Thanksgiving in 1863.  He asked all Americans to come together on one day in gratitude for teh many blessings and resources our country shares.  He asked his neighbors to shift their focus to a higher power, and a higher purpose for our country.

Abraham Lincoln understood the simple truth about mental focus.  We can change our lives by changing the focus of our thoughts, our mental energy.

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“A quiet secluded life in the country,

with the possibility of being useful to people

to whom it is easy to do good,

and who are not accustomed to have it done to them;

then work which one hopes may be of some use;

then rest, nature, books, music,

love for one’s neighbor —

such is my idea of happiness.”

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Leo Tolstoy

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Oakleaf Hydrangea glows in scarlet, as the flower buds appear on our Edgeworthia behind it.

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Maybe that is why Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays.  It is a celebration of abundance in all its forms.   It is a day for reflection.  It is the quintessential ‘low stress’ holiday.

It is enough to have a quiet day to enjoy with loved ones.  There is a special meal.  One may see friends or relations one hasn’t seen for a while.  There are stories, there is laughter, there is expectation of the holiday season that debuts on this day.

The first holiday lights appear cities, in neighborhoods and along country roads.

There is a feeling of contentment and abundance and connection.  For a few golden hours, we can be content with ourselves, wherever we may find ourselves.

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“I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches;

and he to whom that is given need ask no more.”

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Henry Fielding

And so I wish you, too, a happy Thanksgiving.  I hope your thoughts linger on the many things that make you happy and enrich your life.

If you are grieving, I hope you remember the good times with your loved ones and feel deep gratitude for those times you shared.  If you are away from loved ones, I hope you can touch with them today.  If your life circumstances have shifted, I hope you find the beauty around you, wherever you might be.

Our happiness comes from within, not from without.  This is the life lesson we discover as the decades roll past.

And this is what we rediscover each autumn, as the leaves fall and the world grows cold.  The most abiding warmth emanates from a loving and grateful heart.

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“We are not rich by what we possess

but by what we can do without.”
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Immanuel
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2017 Favorites

Japanese Maple, found in our front border in 2010 when it was a seedling, and nurtured ever since.  April 2017

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November finds me sifting through the year’s photos in search of our favorites for the coming year’s calendar.

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Out of the thousands of photos I capture each year, sixty-one may come to be selected, re-cropped, and published in our limited edition ‘A Forest Garden’ calendar.

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We set parameters.  First, I use only photos taken here in our own Forest Garden.  All of those photos taken while visiting and traveling never have a chance to make it to the calendar.

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Next, I decide on certain types of photos each year.  One year, I wanted a photo of a bird for every month.

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I always want to use photos of butterflies, bees, dragonflies, and the other interesting creatures who have visited our garden during the year.  We love watching them, and plant to attract and feed them.

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Our 2018 calendar’s theme is ‘Flowers Every Day of the Year.’  I focused more on photos of flowers,  and a little less on  beautiful foliage.  Selecting the year’s favorite photos requires a major investment of time and thinking.

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It is instructive, as it illustrates the garden’s annual progression of growth.  I watch the colors of our garden shift from month to month and season to season.

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I learn so much about our garden by reviewing the year’s photos. This discipline of studying the photos also helps spark fresh ideas, and clearly shows where a little extra effort may be required!

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Now that my holiday efforts are complete, there is time to look one more time through the photo file I compiled while working on our 2018 calendar.

I hope you enjoy this retrospective of the past year in our Forest Garden.

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If you would like to have a copy of our 2018 “A Forest Garden” calendar, they are available through The Nurtury in Gloucester Courthouse, Virginia.  As in past years, this is a working gardener’s calendar.  Moons, solstices, equinoxes, and first and last frost dates in Zones 5-9 are noted.  Each month features gardening tips and reminders.

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This week between Christmas and New Year, this longest night of the year, remains one of my favorite weeks of the year.  It is a time for looking back at fond memories, and also for looking ahead to those plans and projects on our personal horizon.

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It is a time for favorite friends, favorite activities, favorite keepsakes, and favorite memories.

 

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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April 3, 2017, and our Magnolias have put out both leaves and new blossoms after a late frost in March.

 

 

For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  2017 Favorites

*

“A Forest Garden 2018” calendar is available,

should you wish to have one,

at The Nurtury, 6619 Main Street, in Gloucester Court House, Virginia. 

Reach The Nurtury at 804.695.4417 for more information. 

The Nurtury ships merchandise around the world.

Sunday Dinner: Faith

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“All the world is made of faith,

and trust, and pixie dust.”

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J.M. Barrie

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“All I have seen

teaches me to trust the Creator

for all I have not seen.”

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“I have come to accept the feeling

of not knowing where I am going.

And I have trained myself to love it.

Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air

with no landing in sight,

that we force our wings to unravel

and alas begin our flight.

And as we fly,

we still may not know where we are going to.

But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings.

You may not know where you’re going,

but you know that so long as you spread your wings,

the winds will carry you.”

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C. JoyBell

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“And still, after all this time,
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.”

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Hafez

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“Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”

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Dante Alighieri

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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“None of us knows what might happen

even the next minute,

yet still we go forward.

Because we trust.

Because we have Faith.”

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Paulo Coelho

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Fabulous Friday: Ivy Shining in the Waning Sun

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Evergreen treasurers, often overlooked during the warmer months, grow in importance as summer’s foliage blows away on autumn breezes.

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We notice that nearby forests are filled with a small army of shining holly trees, covered in bright red berries.  Clumps of mistletoe hover in the bare branches of nearby trees.

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And, we are grateful for the beautiful green and cream leaves of our stalwart ivies growing in pots and garden beds.

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A grapevine fills this pot all summer, but ivy anchors it on our deck during the winter months.   Newly planted Violas will bloom sometime in the next few weeks.

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There are many varieties of ivy available.  Find leaves large and small, wide or very narrow, green, yellow,  cream and variegated.

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The smallest leafed ivy I’ve ever found, this lovely little cultivar was sold for terrariums and fairy gardens. It is growing indoors this winter with a little Begonia.

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Now, native plant purists positively scowl at any kind word uttered about ivy.  It is not native by any stretch of the imagination, though it has naturalized throughout much of the United States.  Worse, ivy can escape cultivation and grow invasive.  This is a problem when ivy completely enshrouds a tree.

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Ivy covers these trees in a county park near Jamestown, VA.

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This vigorous vine can shade out the tree, eventually killing it, and break it apart with the strength and weight of its growth.

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Ivy was already growing on this mature beech tree when we came to the garden. The vine grows root-like anchors, but doesn’t suck sap from the tree. Ivy keeps its roots firmly in the ground and makes its own food from photosynthesis. These aerial roots may absorb dew and rainwater, but they don’t take anything from the tree.

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The ivy you or I plant this fall likely wouldn’t kill a tree in our own lifetimes.  This takes decades.  However, our ivy may escape into the wild when we are no longer tending it for whatever reason, or, the ivy may eventually form berries, and those ivy seeds may germinate elsewhere.

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Ivy makes a popular low maintenance ground cover. Keep it trimmed back, and away from your tree trunks.

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You can puzzle out the relative morality of ivy on your own terms and in your own garden.  But I will tell you that I admire it for its tenacity and toughness.

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Ivy offers some benefits for wildlife.  It shelters many sorts of insects, and so helps attract birds to the garden.  It can produce berries, once the vine is mature.

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English Ivy, Hedera helix, serves as a dense, evergreen ground cover in many Colonial Williamsburg gardens. It requires little maintenance beyond periodic trimming.

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It tolerates dry soil, sun, shade, heat and cold.  It can be cut back hard and still re-grow into a lush plant in a season.

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Newly planted Hellebore and ivy will soon fill this pot with evergreen beauty. The Hellebore will begin blooming early in the new year.

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It will fill a hanging basket beautifully, and remain lovely all winter long through the worst weather we might face here in Zone 7.

Ivy is very useful as the ‘spiller’ in potted arrangements.  I especially enjoy using it in pots where the main plants are perennials, and the pot won’t be re-worked year to year.  After several years, the ivy can take the pot without worthy competition, however.

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New Year’s Day 2017, and this basket of ivy looks fabulous.

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Let it trail, or train it on a trellis or other wire form.  Ivy can be groomed into many interesting shapes, grown on wire mesh orbs as a ‘kissing ball,’ or even grown on a  privacy screen or a fence.

If you place a rooted cutting in a vial of water or plant its roots into damp moss and a little peat, you can even grow it on a living wreath enjoyed on a shaded porch.  Just keep the wreath hydrated and out of direct sun.

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Violas and ivy make a beautiful winter hanging basket in our climate.

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Just remember the Ivy rule:  The first year it sleeps, the second it creeps, and the third, it leaps!  This is a lovely vine that takes some time to work its magic.

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In the best of possible worlds, deer generally leave ivy alone.  But we don’t live in that world, and find our ivy grazed from time to time.  Generally, it isn’t even noticeable. 

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But deer did seriously dine on a beautiful new ivy in a pot this fall.  Like with most new plants, spray it or otherwise protect it if deer frequent your garden.

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We are admiring our ivy on this Fabulous Friday.  If your green thumb is itching to grow something easy and rewarding during the cool months ahead, you might search out a beautiful ivy for your winter pots or baskets.

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Now that our stump is losing its bark, I’ve planted ivy in the pot.   Beautiful ivy will soon cover it all in a curtain of green.

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Fabulous Friday:  Happiness is contagious…

Let’s infect one another!

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Woodland Gnome 2017

 

Tree and Crystals

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This is the most recent wire tree I’ve just completed.  Every tree is different, and every tree teaches me a little more about the art of coaxing wire to imitate life.

Made entirely from simple floral wire, this one is mounted on a piece of blue calcite.  “Flame aura” treated quartz crystals complete the scene.

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This is a beautiful time of year to work on sculpting trees, just as their leaves fall and their ‘bare bones’ structures shine in the waning autumn sun.

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Autumn is the time for allowing our garden to fall back to its simplest elements.

As we clear away frost-bitten herbaceous plants and notice the skeletons of deciduous shrubs and trees, there is space once again.  Overgrown paths re-appear.  We tidy up the year’s growth, and re-discover much that was hidden away by summer’s lush foliage.

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As another season draws to its close, we reflect, and we celebrate.

Seeds of imagination planted now will reap a rich harvest when spring finds us once again.    New artistic expressions learned now, can germinate and grow during the winter months ahead.

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Mixed metal wire tree mounted on a salt lamp, made to celebrate a loved one’s birthday.

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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Sunday Dinner: Simple

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“As you simplify your life,

the laws of the universe will be simpler;

solitude will not be solitude,

poverty will not be poverty,

nor weakness weakness.”

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Henry David Thoreau

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“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease.

Hack away at the inessentials.”

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Bruce Lee

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“Besides the noble art of getting things done,

there is the noble art of leaving things undone.

The wisdom of life

consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”

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Lin Yutang

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“Every solution to every problem is simple.

It’s the distance between the two

where the mystery lies.”

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Derek Landy

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“It’s as simple as that.

Simple and complicated,

as most true things are.”

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David Levithan

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.”

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Ann Voskamp

Happiness This Thanksgiving: Transformation

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“Remember to give thanks

for unknown blessings

already on their way”

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Valentina Giambanco

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“Living in thanksgiving daily is a habit;

we must open our hearts to love more,

we must open our arms to hug more,

we must open our eyes to see more and finally,

we must live our lives to serve more.”

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Farshad Asl

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“Gratitude is the seed of gladness.”

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Lailah Gifty Akita

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

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W.J. Cameron

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May the beauty of this day find you,

May joy bubble up in your heart,

May you know everyone near you as family,

May you feel the love  which surrounds you,

and may you enjoy the blessings of peace,

always.

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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Our garden is ablaze in color today! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

 

For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Transformation