Three Friends of Winter

Since I have just posted about Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year, I thought I would continue with a mention of the Three Friends of Winter, the pine, bamboo and plum blossoms. These plants symbolize survival under adverse conditions.

The pine is considered the chief of trees. Its trunk is straight and powerful (although I have to say that the pine that shows up commonly in Chinese art is less than tall and straight) like an upright man of strength and virtue. At the same time a pine’s twisted limbs symbolize the ethical and principled man buffeted by the winds of adversity

Although the pine is revered for its strength, the nearly evergreen bamboo with its hollow stalk is symbolic of tolerance and open-mindedness – and flexibility. Sometimes survival of those with integrity depends on their ability to yield without breaking. Hence the stories of nobles who retire to their mountain hermitages to tend their chrysanthemums – at least until a change of climate at the imperial court . As an element in the Chinese garden the bamboo is welcomed for the rustling music it makes in the breezes of every season.

The plum is the first to bloom in very early spring. Though its blossoms are not large or particularly noticeable, its fragrance wafting on the cold air cannot be ignored. The fragile and exquisite blossom is a metaphor for inner beauty and humility in adversity. It can be hardy in Beijing in a protected location – which means it would also need protection here in Western Massachusetts.

In China we found that many plants were grown and used as much for their symbolism as for their beauty. For example, the chrysanthemum, a native of China is a symbol of the courage it takes to lead a life unconstrained by demands of convention, of gossip and palace intrigues. Hence those nobles leaving court for their hermitages and chrysanthemum gardens. But those are flowers and stories for another season.

Don’t Throw It, Grow It!

            Garbage isn’t always garbage. Sometimes it is the beginning of an indoor garden.

            Who among us hasn’t taken an avocado pit, planted it in a pot and enjoyed a large lush houseplant?  It would never bear fruit, but it was fun to see this large seed grow into a substantial plant.

            Growing seeds, roots and tubers from the kitchen is a great way to remind children of the different ways edible foods are propagated. This is a great kitchen science project, and fun for the whole family.

            Deborah Peterson and Millicent Selsam have written Don’t Throw It, Grow It: 68 Windowsill Plants from Kitchen Scraps (Storey $10.95).

            This book was first published nearly 30 years ago when Selsam was a well known and well respected author of science books for children.  In a new introduction Peterson tells stories about their forays into ethnic food markets to find unusual edibles that they might be able to get grow.  It is a testament to how food markets and our eating habits have changed that such exotics as papayas, mangos, ginger, daikon and others are available in regular supermarkets these days.

            With simple 2 page directions and illustrations the authors explain how to prepare a seed, then how to plant it, and sometimes how to harvest.  Their basic caveat is that the seeds must not be cooked.  Herb seeds as well as beans and peas may very well be dried, but still be viable, but they can never be cooked and still produce a plant.

            Some seeds that Peterson and Selsam talk about are familiar. Think of all the primary school projects of growing a bean or pea plant.

            But there are many fruits, not all of them unusual, that can not only produce an interesting plant, but that will bear fruit.  For example, although many citrus fruits, oranges and grapefruits will not come true from seed,  kumquats, Meyer lemons, Ponderosa lemons and Kaffir limes will.  It would be nice to have a Meyer lemon tree producing that delicious fruit for baking and cooking.

            At this time of the year the markets are full of pomegranates. Recently we have learned that pomegranates are very good for you, full of antioxidants, but they have always been good to eat just because the sweet scarlet seeds are so beautiful.  Actually, the seed is just yellow, the transparent juicy scarlet covering surrounding the seed is called the aril.

            Fortunately, pomegranate juice does not stain, because working with pomegranates can be a messy business. To clean the seed, you can rub the aril covered seed gently on several thicknesses of paper towels to remove the aril.  The cleaned seed can be dried, and it will even retain its vitality for a year.

            The pomegranate seed can be planted in a damp peat pot and covered with a plastic bag. Given bottom heat, it can germinate in as little as a week or ten days.  Without that warmth the seed will take a month or so to germinate.

            Once they have sprouted the plastic bag can be removed and the seedling placed in a sunny window. When it is a few inches high it can be transplanted. Unlike most tropical plants it does not require high humidity and can be overwintered in the basement.

            Other unusual plants that Peterson and Selsam discuss are carrots, turnips, potatoes, pineapple, mustard, and almonds. There is quite a botanical education to be found right in your own kitchen.

            The pineapple produces such a sculptural plant that my husband and I closely followed the directions to prepare one for rooting.

            First we twisted off the crown and were surprised that it happened so easily.

            Then we pulled off the lower leaves, and we think we see the nubs described in the book as incipient roots. I put my pineapple crown is in a jar of water and I will wait for the nubs to swell, which should only take a few days, and roots form in about a month. I didn’t have any activated charcoal on hand, but I will add that to the water jar to keep the water sweet.

            Once the roots are four inches long the crown can be transplanted into a pot with  soil. Given a good sunny spot it will grow happily for three years  before it is ready to bloom, but you’ll have to read the book to learn the magic with a black plastic bag and a cut apple that will help to bring this about.  The flower will be enjoyable, but alas, it our climate we cannot expect to harvest a fruit.

            Don’t Throw It, Grow It is entertaining and educational. It will provide many interesting botanical experiments during these snowy months.

            A final note as we think about the seed starting season.  Heat mats are useful for starting vegetable and flower seeds (and for keeping tropical plants suitably warm) for the garden, as well as the more exotic seeds like pomegranates. They have become useful and popular because germination is more dependable when the soil is warm. Heat mats  are available locally at the Shelburne Farm and Garden Center and the Greenfield Farmer’s Coop at prices beginning at around $35.

January 17, 2009

Chinese New Year

Reading Mysteries

There are times when it is impossible to be out in the garden – when its pouring, snowing, sleeting, freezing or too damn hot. While I do read a lot of garden books, and own a LOT of garden books so that I am never at a loss, I always have a mystery novel going as well.

My friend B.J. Roche, who teaches journalism at the University of Massachusetts and writes for various regional and national publications, decided that it was time to shift into the New Media.  Her website, Fiftyshift, is all about things that interest women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond.  B.J. knows that I am an avid mystery reader and asked me to do a guest piece.   Considering the slant of the website I immediately thought of of those tough gals who started showing up in the 80s, Kinsey Milhone, Anna Pigeon and V.I Warshawski.  Login and see what I’ve been enjoying over the past 25 years.

Sastrugi Revisited

I have written about SASTRUGI before. This word from the Russian refers to the snow waves that many of us notice after a snowfall, but sastrugi can take many other forms than the gentle ripples in the snow caused by the wind.

We have had a least a few snow showers every day for the past week, and enough wind to blow the light dry snow across our field and into the Sunken Garden, created when the old barn was hit by lightning in 1990 and burned, leaving three stone foundation walls. The wind blows and creates a sculptural sastrugi bending over the top edge of the garden, but also creates a deep drift below that can last into May when I finally take a shovel to spread it out.

There is a large section of our drive (it is really town road that continues and ends in front of our house) where varied sastrugi form.

This sastrugi has a smooth swooping surface creating a shallow cave that is indicated by the shadow of the overhang,

but you can see sculptural shapes are formed below.

All Mother Nature needs are snow and wind, and voila, an everchanging sculpture exhibit.

My Garden Journals

            Recently I’ve been writing about the books you read, for information and inspiration. Now I want to talk about the book you write, your garden journal.

            Garden journals are as individual as a gardener’s garden. I have seen beautifully kept journals, annotated with delicate sketches and drawings. Mine have never looked like that.

            I’ve seen journals devotedly kept every day of the year, with notes on the weather, what’s been done in the garden, and what is blooming or fruiting or ready for harvest. Mine have never looked like that either.

            My journals have been kept sporadically, and some years I haven’t kept one at all.

When kept my notes have been made in all kinds of books. I started out keeping the barest amount of information, especially about weather, in little faux leather diaries with the year stamped in gold. These were my first garden journals and they now live in a jumble on the bookshelf between a series of Garden Way booklets, and a collection of garden essays.

            In the mid-80s I used a basic three year journal published by the American Horticultural Society, and made brief notations during the garden season.

Several years later a friend gave me a Three Year Garden Journal: with regional gardening guides by Louise Carter and Joanne Lawson that I used from 1991-93. There is a new edition with beautiful photographs by Allen Rokach that has updated information.  The advantage of this three year journal is that each two page spread includes four columns, one for tips, and one for a single week each year, which means you can easily see the difference in the weather and the garden’s behavior over a three year span of time.

            I kept my three year journal fairly well during the active garden months, but there just wasn’t much to say between October, once the killing frost was noted, and March. As I look back through this journal I wish I had been more specific. I thought even sketchy notes would bring the details back to mind, but apparently that isn’t so.

            Because I am easily intimidated by beautiful journals, my most recent joural, but one, (currently mislaid) was a child’s notebook I bought during our stay in China, 1995-96. Chang e, the goddess of the moon was on the cover and I was fond of the goddess and her companion, the jade rabbit.  I thought I could make this my own multiyear journal, by leaving plenty of blank space for additional notes. This worked pretty well, especially when I  would say  May 20 1996 – Planted the Perdita rose.  June 20 1997 – Perdita dead. A succinct report.

            The other thing I did was to cut out photos from the nursery catalog and tape them in so I would have the proper name of the plant I bought, cultural information, and the photo to show me what attracted me when the plant somehow looks completely different in my garden. This is a good idea even if it does make the journal puff up with the added paper.

            In my little Chinese notebook I also cut out weekly precipitation reports from the West County News.  I was trying to cut down on the labor of keeping these statistics and making them more accurate.

            Again, my reporting was more regular during the active garden season.

            In March of 2006 I began keeping a new journal. I had bought a handsome spiral bound blank book with pages heavy enough so that I could include my own little watercolor sketches.  If I were the kind of person who would attempt such a thing.

            I did tape in a few clippings from catalogs, and I did keep more detailed notes during the growing season. .  I was better about including proper plant names, even when I didn’t just tape in a catalog clipping. I occasionally managed to make a list of the perennials in bloom at a given moment.

            All in all, 2008 was a banner year for keeping a garden journal.  Oddly enough, I kept a better paper record, because I was also keeping an online record. At the end of 2007 I started my Commonweeder blog, where I posted two or three times a week about doings in the garden or in the broader world of gardeners, environmental issues and books. For once there are journal entries even when there is nothing doing in the outside garden.

            One of the advantages of the blog for me is that it holds digital photographs of the garden throughout the year.

            More and more I am enjoying keeping a journal. It is an historic record of the changes in the garden, indeed in my life.  I find it a little alarming to see all the David Austin roses that I have planted, and watched die after two or three years, but I did ultimately learn my lesson, and now only admire the Austin roses in books and catalogs where no bitter winter can threaten.

            I can enjoy the vagaries of the weather over time, whether drought or ice, from a happy remove.

 I can look at plans I’ve made and been pleased at their fruition, or sigh with the thought that I’ve had some really bad ideas.

I’ve been so devoted in my entries that I may finally feel worthy of the beautiful pale green Italian journal a friend bought for me in Florence about 10 years ago.

Maybe. 

January 10, 2009

Climate Change

Inaugural Day pot luck in Heath, MA

Temperatures have been in the single digits for days now, but here in Heath, and I think all over the country, we are feeling a change in the climate as our new president takes office. Never has the phrase Global Warming been so positive as we warm to each other, warm to the tasks at hand.

We were all feeling the warmth of good fellowship and optimism last night at the Inaugural pot luck at the Community Hall, to eat and drink and celebrate together, and watch the Inaugural Ceremony that had been taped earlier in the day.

There was a lot of talk about what next, but just for today we celebrated. The pot luck committee chose a section of the Seamus Heaney poem The Cure at Troy to read aloud because it captured the mood of the day.

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of a new life at its term.

Climate Change

Temperatures have been in the single digits for days now, but here in Heath, and I think all over the country, we are feeling a change in the climate as our new president takes office. Never has the phrase Global Warming been so positive as we warm to each other, warm to the tasks at hand.

We were all feeling the warmth of good fellowship and optimism last night at the Inaugural pot luck at the Community Hall, to eat and drink and celebrate together, and watch the Inaugural Ceremony that had been taped earlier in the day.

There was a lot of talk about what next, but just for today we celebrated. The pot luck committee chose a section of the Seamus Heaney poem The Cure at Troy to read aloud because it captured the mood of the day.

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of a new life at its term.

A Green White House

Bloom Day January 2009

This abutilon was featured in my first Bloom Day post almost a year ago. It is in bloom nearly every month of the year and a pleasure every day. I was so happy to discover May Dreams Gardens and Carol’s generous community of bloomers. I was a new blogger and it was my first experience of community and help with a new enterprise.

My large Christmas cactus which was so maginificent a few days ago is starting to look a bit bedraggled, but this smaller plant, which was living in a much cooler room, is just now coming into its own. It was interesting to see how cool temperatures can retard blooming, and extend it.

I am also forcing bulbs, but perhaps I’ve kept them in the cool too long. I just brought them out into our main living space where it is warmer and growth is more active. Maybe I’ll have a forced bloom in February.