gardenthoughts

as i wandered about our garden for the third time this afternoon, peering, i found my self musing about how i ever came to be such a peerer .. i mean, i know that not every gardener is a peerer .. however, for me, peering is simply in my nature .. i’ve been peering at life since i was a little girl .. it’s as natural for me to peer as to breathe .. as if there is an element in my make-up that expresses itself through the act of peering .. that doesn’t want to miss a thing .. that has to see as much as possible of what is happening in and around me .. and now, i suppose, to share it through blogging ..

ease of peering requires space .. consequently, i tend to be more than a bit of a cleaner in the garden .. “fastidious” comes to mind .. during my time gardening with phil there was always something going on .. much to do but also much to see .. my peering skills were honed .. keeping the garden visible was a big part of the job .. the tidier the garden was kept, the easier it was for us to see plants unfolding .. i was in peering heaven with so much to watch growing .. not only was there the delight of watching a garden flowering during the winter .. there were the  inhabitants .. plants that until then, were unbeknownst to my mind .. they grew as the understory of the garden .. in early winter i’d watch cyclamen coum leaves appear .. up through the earth .. i’d bend my body closer .. i’d crouch down .. i’d peer at these tiny, magenta buds unfurling .. ever so slowly .. over a period of weeks .. creating a carpet beneath the fragrance of yellow, spidery witchhazel flowers .. beneath the forming buds of hellebores .. beneath the strapping stems of rhodos .. pink and white and deeper pink .. magenta .. so exquisitely beautiful .. sometimes touched with dew .. or a raindrop .. so much magic in cyclamen .. anemones .. hellebores .. primula ..

added to that performance,  was the show from deciduous shrubs .. witchhazels, of course .. abeliophyllum distichum .. corylopsis .. vibirnum bodnantense .. winter flowering cherry (prunus subhirtella ‘autumnalis’) .. daphne mezereum (february daphne) .. deciduous rhododendron (rhododendron mucranulatum ‘cornell pink’) .. stachyurus praecox .. whoever heard of such a thing .. well, phil did .. and when he wasn’t out in the garden, he was poring over shade gardening books .. looking for not only shade plants, but shade plants that bloomed during the winter months .. then figuring out what nursery in town .. or out of town .. might carry such specimens that we could, somehow, transport back to the island ..  incredible .. and there was i .. in the midst of it all .. digging .. screening .. mixing .. planting .. bringing plants home .. mulching .. up close and personal experience (so to speak) .. peering at the magic  continually unfolding in the garden ..  year after year .. privileged to have ‘peering rights’  to every inch of it .. so thankful to be there with him at that point in his life ..

i digress a bit .. we’re not finished yet .. there are evergreen shrubs to keep an eye on .. daphne odora .. skimmia reevesianna .. rhododendrons .. choisya .. mahonia .. osmanthus .. sarcococca .. (there’s another one .. who knew such a plant existed) .. all, silently coming to fruition .. so green for so many summer months .. their green-ness getting stronger .. shinier, somehow .. buds forming at their tips .. colour emerging .. and then, one january day .. or november day .. or december day .. open ..

yet, there’s another layer .. another musing .. one rhodo in the yard is going to bloom for the first time since i’ve known it .. phil had already planted it before i came to help him .. so thirteen years .. maybe more .. and now, this year, it has flower buds .. seven of them .. i have no idea what colour it is .. and i don’t know its name .. phil and i used to call it “rex” .. it was the king of the garden .. somehow .. and i’ve been peering at it for years .. peering deep into the centres of the whorls of glossy, deep green leaves, growing on the tips of straggly branches .. waiting for flower buds to appear .. and now, this year .. a gift of flowers .. peering has brought much patience into my experience .. i’ve watched a clematis that took seven years to bloom once .. hasn’t since .. what is that .. does it mean there’s something “wrong” with the plant .. (i have my doubts) .. is it because the yard is so shady that the plant grows slower (could be) .. they definitely perform differently than we anticipate .. (we are much more familiar, perhaps, with the upbeat, crescendo of summer gardens) .. maybe it’s the dormancy of the season that has everything to do with the slowness of growth .. maybe it’s simply a garden with its own rhythm (as gardens tend to be) .. a slow, subtle expression of a winter flowering shade ..  that phil .. consciously or not .. created here on this little island .. for nonie .. to enjoy after he was gone ..

something new for me .. in my gardening years, i have had little to do with seeds .. when i was a little girl, my father made a germination box he kept in the basement .. it was painted green and had plastic windows stapled on two sides and two ends .. not a large box, it was about 10″ x 12″ x 24″ .. a flourescent tube was attached to the top .. at least, that’s my memory of it .. i used to sit on the basement steps, enraptured by the magic he was performing with seeds and that box .. in a few weeks’ time he was planting bunches of chives along the fence .. i haven’t dealt much with seeds myself .. well, that isn’t completely true .. when i say i haven’t had much to do with seeds, i mean i haven’t grown many perennials from seeds .. i have planted many annual seeds over the years .. hundreds of thousands of vegetable seeds  .. hundreds of annual flowers .. sweet peas, marigolds, narcissus .. the ‘easy to grow’ guys .. however, in the last few years i find my thoughts turning more and more to planting different seeds .. such as milkweeds ..

one of the gardens i tend belongs to a man who decided a few years ago he would like to invite monarch butterflies to his yard .. we don’t actually live in a popular monarch passageway .. however, how do we know what might happen, if we don’t make the attempt .. so, stu and i have been working on creating a butterfly garden in his yard .. and, one of the host plants for monarch butterflies is milkweed .. and there are a number of different milkweeds .. so far, we have been successful with ‘butterfly weed’ .. asclepias tuberosa .. a delightful, brilliant orange cluster of flowers atop a two foot stalk .. they bloom most of the summer .. in autumn the seeds are whisked away by the wind .. the seed is attached to a wing of fine, slender tufts .. (wish i had a photo .. but you could google it) ..

anyway .. in the beginning stages of this butterfly garden, i ordered seeds from monarch habitat seeds (www.monarchwatch.org) .. at that point in time, i found a couple of gardeners on the island to take some of the some of the seeds and plant them indoors .. i didn’t have the confidence to do it myself .. (we’re so silly sometimes) .. apparently, milkweed seeds are not that easy to germinate .. all tolled, we ended up with about a half dozen plants .. four different varieties .. indian milkweed (asclepias eriocarpa), showy milkweed (asclepias speciosa), desert milkweed (asclepias erosa), and the butterfly weed .. of those, we eventually ended up with three of the one variety, butterfly weed ..

this year, i am continuing my self-education in seed sowing in order to increase the milkweeds in stu’s butterfly garden .. and, according to the reading i have done recently, step one is stratify .. i’ve never stratified seeds before .. indoors .. i have sown seed in the autumn outside with, so far, minimal ‘success’  .. i am encouraged, however, by vetran seeders to remain patient .. apparently some seeds can take years .. i remain steadfast in my mission .. this morning  i took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and placed seeds of each of the four milkweeds in damp paper towel packages, into plastic bags, into the refrigerator .. there they will remain for at least six weeks .. perhaps more .. not sure yet .. once the stratification is complete, i will plant the seeds .. either in small pots or into the ground .. not sure there yet, either .. we’ll see how it goes ..

and, not only that, but my reading tells me that there is a possibility that some seeds may germinate early, in which case i am to plant those right away .. this all sounds very positive .. seeds sprouting early .. plant them out .. sounds to me like there are going to be an abundance of milkweeds in stu’s and my future .. we’ll see how it goes ..