Spirit of the garden

Seasonal delay

Some homes are where flowers for ever blow,
The sun shining hotly the whole year round;
But our home glistens with six months of snow,
Where frost without wind heightens every sound.
And home is home wherever it is,
When we’re all together and nothing amiss.
Canada Home – Juliana Horatia Ewing 1841-85

I’m in an ice cube home today – perhaps you’ve heard of these? No, not a chi-chi tiny house but a building where nature has coated all windows, walls and roof in an early season blast of ice. We’re sheathed in a delayed season as winter hangs on.

Not a surprise at all but still, vexing. We’ve been hearing of the storm coming early in the week and mostly were ready for it – our awareness always heightened with memories of the brutal eastern ice storm of 1998. Rain began this morning and will continue throughout the day – branches will bend, some will fall, and those daffodils that had poked out of the soil this week will hesitate for awhile before celebrating their release into the spring cycle once again.

It might be good that I can’t really see out the windows – being prone afterall to stare for extended moments, running possibly into hours, at a spring that taunts us. I do try, but the corrugated frigid layer splits and cracks everything behind it – looks like an abstract landscape today not the lovely jackfrost I remember from childhood. Aha, I’m still staring aren’t I?

Knowing that power could go out at any moment, I walk out early in the morning to the back deck, through the garage to the freezer, and pull out two packed bags of last year’s sweet corn. The upright freezer was a pandemic addition – probably the best of the worst of times. Kernels were tossed into a gleaming pot of vegie broth replete with onion, garlic, sweet potato, carrot, green pepper and herbs – cream to be generously added later. Heft helps in moments of angst you know. The house will smell welcoming even if the outdoors are not. This makes me feel more competent somehow.

Pete will be in the basement trolling the news online for as long as the power holds and a Scrabble game with said soup is in the offing. This could be romantically, and necessarily, highlighted by candlelight.

Furgus, the great grey cat, will lie purrfectly still on the sofa with ears twitching at any sound that dares to intrude on his snooze. He will probably extend a paw once in awhile but remain stoic throughout – contentedly remaining above any waves of domestic discontent.

I’ve calculated which plugs should be pulled out when and if the power does indeed snuffle out, while my fellow has brought in enough wood to warm us as needed. Yes, even though we’ve lived in this lovely place for over 23 years, we have yet to purchase a generator – we do speak of it often however and that counts for something. Intent is just as affirming to the household as is actual commitment wouldn’t you agree?

Downstairs the light table has been set up for germination and growth, and gives hope for the green to come. Kale and marigolds are breaking the soil as well as an unidentified vegie seed that I have high hopes for. Seven large pots hold the promise of summer Dahlias – in fact, we have a good few inches of cheery green leaves already unfurling in the purple daze. I can see the magnificent blooms already nodding in my mind’s eye. Uh-oh, I’m staring out another type of window aren’t I?

This is what home should be – a place to find refuge when the world outside seems determined to bring you down. So welcome spring – bring it on! April showers – even if rigid in nature – brings May flowers. Yes, that’s it.

Framing a local exhibit: River Life – Botanical Reflections

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
Aristotle, 384 – 322 BCE

Over the past few months I’ve had the great pleasure of working with local botanical artist, Linda Hamilton, as we developed an exhibit for the Almonte branch of the Mississippi Mills Public Library. Linda creates exquisite paper sculptures of flowers and foliage and today we installed River Life – Botanical Reflections. This talented artist living in Almonte, Ontario, invites you to see the garden that’s in and around the river and the wet. Linda’s aim “is to create work that connects people with the natural world and inspire them to reflect on that connection.”

We share a mutual interest in plants and in those who capture them in herbaria, prose, science, and art, and this was a great opportunity to meld her refined creations with an accompanying narrative to frame her art. Check out Daydream Flowers.

River Life – Botanical Reflections

River is blue green with a temperament shaped by the undulations of land and time. Close your eyes and imagine a wonderous map of water, this country rich in waterways that travel east, west, north, and south. Liquid life powering nature, people, reverence, economies, and recreation. Water is life and so the stories of a place are shaped by the thrum of blue green where plants are part of the telling.

Art finds a way to see these plants and to creatively capture them in time for us. Art invites reflection to remember moments embracing the outdoors, informing our worldview, poetry, literature and science – reflections on the blue green world made real.

River predates us – a wildness innate in nature. Stand in this town and sense that great liquid artery, the Mississippi River, traveling 200 kilometers from Upper Mazinaw Lake to merge with the Ottawa River east of Arnprior. This river and land have been known and populated for over 10,000 years rich in indigenous history, and later, with that of new settlers. You stand in that sprawling watershed, in the bicentennial year of Mississippi Mills. You know some of this liquid story – you’ve walked the river edge or floated in or above it. Maybe you touched the water, wanting for a moment to hold the reflection of the day in the palm of your hand.

But look closer to this landscape moving over stone and soil, to the pools, the edges and those lands close to the rivers. You’ve seen them for a lifetime, see them again. There is a garden in and around the river and the wet. This moving world is a green world – a home for plants.

Trees soar above the waters; shrubs frame the living edges and bend over liquid beauty; grasses and sedges rustle to dance with the breeze; vines twine; leaves and blooms unfurl. Every botanic story responding to the surrounding environment: the climate, the sun and shade, the geography that it is faced with. Life takes hold on the margins and in the muck, in marshes, bogs and swamps. A seed, a spore, a root or cone begins to journey in and near water to claim a space.

Names are a key to knowing more about plant nature, or maybe, ours. We name plants in ways that have been observed in nature, or where and how we found them. The Pickerelweed, Pontederia cordata, where it is said the pickerel fish, or northern pike, enjoyed living under it’s shady leaves, that the Anishinaabe people called kinozhaeguhnsh – pike’s plant. Turtlehead – Chelone glabra – look at how the flowers resemble those river dwellers with their mouths open, chelone meaning tortoise in Greek. Jewelweed – Impatiens capensis – known by active names such as spotted touch-me-not or orange touch-me-not among others, in Latin referring to the seed pods that explode sending hundreds of seeds flying away from the original stand.

Watch for the tiniest detail – be drawn into the world around plants: insects, frogs, fish and food – each story linked to the green and blue. That Milkweed is beautiful at all stages and so necessary for the Monarch butterfly’s survival. Willow and bulrush have been dried and made into baskets, tools to make the day easier and to please. Berries and roots are prepared as food – knowledge gained over the years.

There are plants that twine and climb – think bindweed, virgin’s bower, grape – that grow over and around surfaces to frame a verdant scene. Designed to float, the water lily is home in quiet, cool waters, where tendrils rooted deep in mucky silt grow up and up through blue green – canoes and kayaks slip by and the memory brings on smiles.

And beyond the green seasons, plants continue to offer up botanical beauty that captivate – look to the tracery of trees against a winter sky; to the red of the dog wood or seedheads poking up through snow.

Our individual time here is shorter than that in which the rivers have run, but we can be rich in knowing about those that live all around us – the green beings: the foliage, the flower, the fruit.

Slow down next time you’re near the tumble of water, the swirl of a pool, the hum of a stream. What do you see? What green lives near you and shares the story of the river? How will you be part of that story?

I am interested in each contemporary plant in my vicinity – and have attained to a certain acquaintance with the larger ones. They are cohabitants with me of this part of the planet, and they bear familiar names. Yet how essentially wild they are – as wild really as those strange fossil plants whose impressions I see on my coal.
Henry David Thoreau, Journal Entry, June 5, 1857

A Tree Notwithstanding

Is it the post-past two years of pandemic malaise, or is it a sign of the changing times? Don’t know, just feel less than enthusiastic about the season.

It may be that recent events have shaped my mood – you know, the highly anticipated, very beautiful but oh-so-heavy snowfall that pulled down branches, split two of the lilac trees and somehow extended its mayhem into our home, down the stairs, into the basement where it toppled our fully decorated holiday tree. Ok – that may have been somewhat unrelated but still, it was quite a coincidence wasn’t it?

The tumble broke so many treasures, but many survived like innumerable crocheted snowflakes that just seemed to drift onto new branches or even twine themselves in the angel’s netting – um, her name is Arabella by the way. It broke the one green glass ornament that my niece had sent to us many years ago and caused me to screech and run to see if my mother’s blue ornament from her mom’s tree was intact – yes – and then, sniff, the fall shattered the painted egg from 41 years ago which I made to mark our first Christmas together with. Shattered.

You can “read” our holiday tree. The story always begins with a trip to the local tree farm to find, yes, the perfect tree – Balsam of course. Selection takes a while and often involves hot chocolate or hot cider. Once home, it rests for a day in the stand getting used to our basement, our cat and our stories. Then there are the lights: warm white not blue or multi-coloured, placed in loops of glow – just right. Next, open the cardboard boxes – one special one that was my mother’s from her home and our growing up time; then a box of my favourites fashioned over the years by us and by friends; then the snowflakes, so may snowflakes. The culmination is the aforementioned Arabella, the angel we found over 40 years ago at a craft show in Place Bonaventure in Montreal. She is wearing antique cotton garb, stained I think with tea (possibly English Breakfast), masses of white (greying) flossed hair and two glass eyes that seem to follow you around the room. All of this tumbled to the floor a week before Christmas Day.

To remove myself from the throes of deep sadness, I collected all the pieces/fragments and started my own dance with eggshell tesserae – a mosaic of pieces to be fixed onto a wooden heart and adhered with coats of lacquer – ok, Mod Podge. It took two days but somehow that alleviated my sadness. My partner says future archeologists will wonder at the intricacy of it all. There’s a lesson here, focus on what you can do, not on what has happened. I reclaimed us.

So I say to you, celebrate however you can! It’s important to embrace each day and those seasons we set aside as respite from the cacophony around us – that won’t go away. Who cares if here in the east we are forewarned of rain and potential ice on Christmas Eve eve, and yes, it just might change all our plans, but that’s ok – we’ll plan for another day! Then another!

No drama here, just a message. You are loved, and missed, but oh-so-present at this time of the year, tree notwithstanding. Although standing is best.

Create many joyful, future memories in the new year – well, why not?

Part of a Larger Garden

Hiatus – an interruption in time or continuity
Miriam Webster online

Hiatus. How many times have you used that term in the last 17 months? Think about it. We had an interruption in our normal days, our time. A hiatus in community. An abrogation of “normal” – what was that anyway and what can it be? I took a hiatus from blogging this summer, our second summer navigating through the complications of this pandemic time. Was my hiatus a form of horticultural therapy? Yes, I think so.

Exactly one year ago, Spirit of the Garden became a pandemic pastime for me. The core concept was to unpack what we meant by “garden”- the wider breadth of it. Plants yes, and our obsession with them, but also encompassing a creative life, a community life, the wonderfully odd connections to be made with those people and places that move us. The green world, and those who live in it, that cultivate us.

In this eastern Canadian garden, I take a deep breath. It’s a steamy afternoon when smoke particulates from northern forest fires have diminished somewhat; when vaccinations pave a way forward yet COVID numbers begin to rise again; when news of the imminent fall of Kabul and of climate change are at the edge of my consciousness. When, if only for now, the sound of birds and cicadas are welcomed in fully. I go to the garden for a sense of hope as so many have through time.

If hope can be expressed in beauty, well, there’s much to celebrate as here the colours of August riot. The rich orange/yellows of Rudbeckia hirta, those Black Eyed Susans who dance willy nilly through the garden beds here and in the fields nearby; the pinks and whites of Echinacea – Coneflowers that tempt the bees; the stretching, waving mauves of blooms over an array of Hostas. Yes, I’ll cut back all the drying lily stems but not quite yet as there is one or two blooms boldly demanding I spend time with them still. I look up and there, most preciously, are the variegated greens of the trees – a second flush on the willows and crabapples after the earlier defoliations of Lymantria dispar, the Gypsy Moths, that shocked us all earlier this summer.

There is also pleasure when walking on the nearby recreational trail – a former railway bed – and greeting any and all passerbys as the wild flowers rightly nod in approval. It’s an ongoing seasonal parade that demands we join the throng of movement welcoming us, and pollinators, to join in. I walk home to pull out my trusty reference book: Ontario Wildflowers – 101 wayside Flowers by Linda Kershaw. I’m thrilled to formally meet: Oxeye Daisy – Leucanthemum vulgare; Queen Anne’s Lace – Daucus carota; Canada Thistle – Cirsium arvense; Common Milkweed – Asclepias syriaca; Spotted Joe-Pye Weed – Eupatorium; and Canada Goldenrod – Solidago canadensis, among so many others.

I find it interesting that twelve months ago, when all of us were coming to terms with a closing down of sorts, and of fact, that this blog looked at sunflowers – Helianthus. This week, we sought out those shockingly extroverted blooms again – they seem to smile all the time as they track the sun. We walked and were forever grateful to someone in this community who, for many years, has planted a floral trail in a wide field – a garden inviting all of us in. This kindness to community allows us to pause for a short time, to notice life around us. A gift of time to dream and play – as well as to snip. An act that maybe we can all replicate in different ways – cultivate hope so that we can grow a strengthened shared future.

The mid-summer colours return even when we are beleaguered by temperamental weather, ravenous caterpillars, a global pandemic and human confrontations within and beyond borders. This is garden in its fullest sense, an encompassing awareness of being part of something larger than ourselves – our place in the multitudes.

I go to the garden grateful. I leave with hope we will all lend a hand when and where we can. And we can.

Walking in the Potvin field – Mississippi Mills

Healing – focus on green

To explore and affiliate with life is a deep and complicated process in mental development. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it hope rises on its currents.
Edward O. Wilson

Biophilia is a wonderful term that means we humans tend to make connections between ourselves and nature. The book by Edward O. Wilson in 1984 defined it as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life”. Well, that seems right in this instance as I’ve been holed up until I felt whole again. Solution? Focus on green!

And it’s got nothing to do with the weather – nothing at all to do with the warning of possible “flurries” last night and a temperature plunge this aft. In May. No, it’s more to do with recuperation from a most welcome knee surgery compounded by dancing around COVID and yet another lockdown – which may go on even longer.

The good news? Without asking, my dear partner and friends stepped up and took care of me – it takes a village at all stages of life and I’m deeply grateful to the circle of humans in my life. And Furgus, our great grey cat, is no longer my constant companion – on my pillow, head or nestled at the bottom of the bed – and I take that as a good sign that I’m fine and recovered. No longer a source of feline, or human, worry. Cats know.

From my recuperation room, I was spoiled. I could look outside the window to see the maples changing day-by-day and look downstairs to see the seed trays with their increasing populations of stems, tendrils, and leaves. Repotting has taken place – a wonderful way of getting upright and into normal again – and very soon, barring a spontaneous glacier age, many plants will be hardened off prior to a final move to ground. I won’t worry about the ones that didn’t “take” – they just may need more time, asking to be nurtured a little longer, like all of us right now. Wait and see. Patience is a gift.

Outside, the rain drizzles down, continuing the seasonal magic of coercing buds on trees and shrubs to swell with excitement and unfurl one more time. All around, green shoots – the best green of the year – are beginning to frame the scene like an impressionistic masterpiece dripping from an artist’s brush, the trees enclosing us all in leaves soon to dance on any errant breeze and I will listen to every story it has to tell. Bliss.

My mind happily wanders through the garden where we will, as always, spend so much time this year. Projection can be a saving grace on days like this although I did manage to edge one bed – a whole bed – just the other day. It’s a start and the others are no doubt eager for the attention to come their way. In time, in time.

*A look back – Helleborus in the melting snow*

Down the mulched cedar path running away from the driveway to the mailbox, that marvel, the Helleborus, or Lenten Rose, is putting on a show. Here the leaves of the Helleborus are often the first declaration of spring as they peak out evergreen from under the snow. I look forward to it each year even as the snow is still hugging it to its cold heart. Interesting story – there’s a dark side to this enticing plant. Hippocrates used it as a common prescription for treating insanity and it’s mentioned by other ancients as sometimes found in rituals of exorcism and the coercion of spirits. Hmmm, could be a good year to explore the broad scope of plant possibility? Never you mind. Just seeing those blooms burst out will answer to my need for a rebirth.

Time marches on, giving rise to physical healing and to an everchanging landscape. The scilla, crocus and snowdrops have blended back to the earth; the daffodils, grape hyacinths and tulips have taken hold; while alliums, lilacs, and peonies are about to declare themselves. All this against the yellow glow of dandelions – the year’s first meal for every and any pollinator who wants to wing by. Botanic pandemonium! Entrancing.

Biophilia. Not just a hypothesis but a human necessity. Test it out, see if the affinity for other forms of nature fits you too – human, animal, insect, plant. Value those who help in these trying times. Snuggle up to a furry friend. Celebrate the longview when bees arrive. Stare for a ridiculously long time at a favoured plant…or even a plant to be. Walk under trees and feel the ground beneath your feet. For me, nature is pulling me back to myself. Is there any better year than this to claim the joy of continuity? Hobble on!

The Tapestry of a Day

Our place is now, tomorrow will come.

Ours is a mill town, its history well rooted in textiles and the power of a river to create the warp and weft of lives. Yesterday was my tapestry of a day – tightly woven with the delightful demands of the day, high temperatures and the waning of winter. A day bursting with tales to be told and a season of change on so many fronts.

And just as every tale is tempered by a larger story, so we began the morning marking the first pandemic year. A year to the day it was – only a year? Now vaccines and variants joust with each other on the news feed and in casual conversations as we attempt to wrap ourselves in comfort. Upon the memories of brutal losses worldwide and new ways of being that are not quite yet ready to end, we attempted to untangle the knots of our time and then, relinquished ourselves to the day.

In front of the seed trays soon to be filled, I received an email oozing with the promise of sweetness and spring. We sensed a beginning and it was sublime. A friend had tapped the maples and invited orders for syrup, offering the temptations of enjoying a walk through the sugar bush soon. Here in the Ottawa Valley, maple sap runs in copious amounts when the temperatures swing between highs in the day and lows at night – as do the visions of calories pouring onto pancakes and, oh my, beans and French toast! It’s going to be a tasty month.

The temperature hit 15 degrees Celsius and broke records – I’ll worry about that longer-term implication later – but then it meant a focus on the garden-to-be, or not-to-be if I didn’t get going on it.

Hundreds of seeds, may have been thousands, were planted. Using cutting edge technology – an old pen – I poked holes in rooting soil, used eyebrow tweezers (why use them for anything else right now?) to deftly place each seed into its dusky home and poked name-tag-popsicle-sticks in each. The tags will get lost at some point, it’s a well-honed tradition, but at least for a moment or two, I felt like a competent gardener.

Even the smallest seeds had stories. Some were purchased online – a key strategy these days – from favoured provisioners and horticultural clubs; others from friends who will enjoy spending time sitting near the plants and exclaiming later in the year; and then our own stash which had been stored and patiently waiting, in envelopes and mason jars. A veritable smorgasbord of blooms, herbs and veg just waiting for germination.

Every beam of sunlight was now a welcome garden co-conspirator. Every drip of water, life. Every bright window ledge – bathroom and bedroom included – is now festooned with pots, trays and green potential. And yes, there was already colour as cuttings taken from last summer’s mother plants were placed just so – a foil for those containers that might be mistaken for just some soil. Ha – just wait.

And the water dripped, dripped, dripped from eavestroughs and branches as when outside without jackets, just sweaters and loose scarves, we breathed in the complex scents of early spring. Drip, drip, drip – we eyed the upturned rainbarrels – not yet.

Needing to further enter this perfect fabric of a day, maybe to imagine the time ahead when spontaneity will again rule the day, we took the time to visit the opening bay.

There the waters swirled and eddied by as the ice changed its solid state back to liquid, twisting like a chameleon flowing down the river. The two Canadian geese had braved the winter here on ice and snow, and were now swimming in opening waters and joined by a third. Overhead the V-shapes of spring migration had begun and perhaps old friends were now reacquainted. No doubt our small support group of geese feeders heaved a sigh of relief – the beasties made it through! And so had we.

No doubt we all thought of times ahead when we too will weave our own stories together again, side-by-side. Maybe on the river, the street or in the garden; building on what we have learned. Our place is now, tomorrow will come.

Flummoxed by fences

We seem to be surrounded by them – fences. But what are they really? I’m not turning to the computer glare – too much of that these daze – but rather to the thick, brown, leather-bound tome on a nearby shelf: Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1970. A beloved holiday gift from my mum to my dad many years ago because he loved words – a legacy that both his children and grandchildren, enjoy.

Fence: Noun: A protection; defense. A barrier as of wooden or metal posts, rails, wire mesh, etc. used as a boundary or means of protection or confinement.

Protection or confinement. A contemporary allegory for the “fences” we’ve had to put in place over the past year…shelter-in-place, distancing, masking? Nope. I’m actually intrigued on this snowy, blue-skied, crystalline day, about the physical fences around me. Why? Well, probably as they’re a visible hardscape that at other times of the year disappear against overflowing green fields, winding roads, gardens, or get lost in dreamy conversations – over a fence.

Our main fence is green and surrounds most sides of the property. Against the main road and down two flanks, it’s all Eastern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis). Densely planted by the original owner – thanks muchly – it now rises over three meters high. We hire a team to trim it every two years – this as ladders seem increasingly threatening as time goes by. Through the plants, when sitting on the deck or working in the garden, we can see bipeds, assorted quadrupeds, bikes, cars and wagons go by – even a horse or two if we’re lucky. This cavalcade of road travellers all pass unaware of an audience behind the green – unless they hear the music from the deck or the chat remarking on the day at hand or the surrounding community. It’s enough to keep us out there all spring, summer and fall. In winter, like now, warmed inside and facing out through large windows, it’s a veritable nature documentary where birds and squirrels claim the living fence as a place of refuge against the cold and night. Might be a rabbit or two there as well. Or a barn cat. Or fox. This fence hugs us and defines an understanding of home – where two sides are open to all.

Given that it’s February, the hedge bends heavy under snow, frosted like a great green cake. Protecting that fence is a seasonal marker for us. Early in December, Pete ambles down to the tippy shed at the far corner of the property, foraging for a clang of iron perforated bars, a heavy-duty hammer and that most useful of fencing tools – not a rapier – a post driver. Tumbled into a wagon that a neighbour made for us, all is pulled to the end of the driveway where the fence flurry begins. Measuring out two metres between each post, they run down the road that gets the most snow ploughing of the season. A temporary fence is then tied once, twice, thrice, to each support that protects the cedar from any wayward whoosh of snow that comes it way. One year, the only product available was metres and metres of bright orange webbing: “is that art?” asked a confused neighbour. “Yes. Yes, it is.” We now search high and low for a colour that cannot be abstracted into anything other than function.

A fence can have an obvious transient nature – much like ourselves. A line of branches simply entwined and piled against a growing bed. Or elevated to recognizable regional history with split cedar rails strategically framing a productive field or a welcoming home. I love the culture of wood in this valley, it speaks of generations of honest labour.

Fences can remind us of the historical choices made given the materials at hand.

To simply admire a few rocks, or hundreds piled up, alongside a path, or through a field, negates the work in finding the rocks, moving the rocks and then positioning them just so. It reminds me of the reaction of a local farmer who watched for days as I packed up the trunk of the car with the blessings from the field. Blessings? Those rocks were from inevitable winter heave and right in the way of a plough – a field reality that caused no end of work every year. Those rocky landscapes may even have worked their way into remarkable and sturdy house walls. But for the gardener with hardscaping on her mind? Nature’s bounty.

Iron fencing echoes permanence and industry – and the lack of it can speak volumes. One of the first years here, and ready to absorb our new context, a walking tour of the town had us staring at a charming iron fence. However, no fence is really simple – there be stories here. If you see an old one, pre-WWI that is, you know it was missed, or protected, during those years when many were harvested to feed the great furnaces that answered to military needs.

To protect and contain. Perhaps to dream.

Here we will shovel the snow for the foreseeable future, watch for changing seasons and welcome in vaccines – all the while looking forward to leaning on, near, or over, a fence in better times. Flummoxed indeed.

Masked in trying times

Winter solitude –
in a world of one colour
the sound of wind
Matsuo Basho, 17th century Japanese Haiku master

A patch of low sunlight wends its way through the bare branches of the Forsythia shrub outside the window – I’ll cut a few boughs to force blooms soon and seek some level of comfort. The lilac shrubs, and the maples high above, have buds swelling for future flower. A heavy cloak of snow covers the bulbs deep in the soil, preparing to burst into daffodils, tulips and alliums come spring. A quiet time in the garden? Hardly.

However, the longer I stare, icy crystals mock me. My nose presses up on the window pane and eyes glaze as the stark white of a pandemic February taunts me. The very act of my breathing heats the window with fronds of frost – botanical fantasies. As if writing a cold line of seasonal dismay, tracks mark out where a fox has broken through the layer of snow on its way past the bird feeder. The grass is masked by snow.

Masked.

As this is certainly the season, along with a global reason, masking comes to mind. By now you no doubt have a suite of masks of your own: handmade, elastic or ties, medical, thematic or corporate. What about be-jeweled or embroidered or pieced? And now, or very soon, you’re probably layering – three layers at least. If not – why not?

Did you find it took a few days or weeks to finally feel comfortable with masks? Did you ever? Do you find it only takes seconds now to feel uncomfortable if you’re without one? I’m finding the wearing of masks at this time of year beneficial in unexpected ways – they keep my face warmer in this chilly, eastern Canadian landscape. Masks make my eyes transcend mere functionality as they crinkle in greeting, or look longingly at some uncharted tomorrow, beyond a masked rim. The mask gives a horizon to eyes bright with hope that we will indeed be recognized – true windows into our souls. They do however, fog my glasses when I need icy clear vision. Ah well.

No doubt there will be tomes written about how communities, nations and the great population of the earth, under threat of viral infection and transmission, against feelings of rights being abrogated somehow, masked in hopes of a better tomorrow.

And it’s happened before. We’re not alone masking in trying times.

In 13^th century China, as told by Marco Polo, serving meals to the emperor meant wearing silk scarves to keep the breath from changing the aroma and taste of the food. I wonder if I should try this as we continue in endless culinary experimentation during lockdown? Do leftovers warrant such care?

Between the 14^th and 18^th centuries, plagues were frequent in Europe. In 1619, a physician of Louis XIII, posited that a mask made from boiled cardboard in the shape of a beak with two breathing holes and containing garden botanics such as dried plants, herbs or spice, would prevent infection. Hmmm, birds here might see me as competition for the seeds being put out each day – too dangerous. And herbs, well, there’s always tea.

The concept of a mask to protect, gained new ground in the 19^th century with creations to minimize dust inhalation such as experienced by miners. When in 1861, Louis Pasteur proved his concept of air borne bacteria, well, that raised the bar for modern mask design and their usage today, yesterday and, yes, tomorrow.

Canmore, Alberta, 1918 Children off to school. Camore Museum

This pandemic period began with so many uncertainties but as knowledge grew, so did a niche market for masks. Through the heroic efforts of neighbours helping neighbours by home-crafting endless offerings of face coverings; to friends and families offering protection to those they loved; to stores offering masks and sanitizer to customers coming in; to artists using masks as new means of creative expression; to myriad numbers of brand items and others online – we masked.

By the end of 2020, jewelers were commissioned to create what might be the most expensive mask in the world. A $1.5 million dollar mask made of 18k gold and no less than 3,608 diamonds, including space to insert a disposable N-99 mask. Tempting, but I worry that my gardening gallomping would loosen those precious gems as I planted, weeded and harvested this coming year, so, no. Although I may find that a simpler mask, perhaps with a trowel stitched into a corner or a bold, cursive warning to an earwig, aphid, or blight, will help when tending to our plants or at the local garden centre or community garden.

Masked.

I’m finding that those fine lines around my eyes are deepening – crevicing – the need to smile with one’s eyes etching time a little deeper. And I’m saving money on cosmetics too – my perfection will remain well cloaked. But I wonder what other traditions will form? What fashion statements will follow us into the gardens and streets this spring and summer?

For now, my mask is a belief that all will get better. My mask tells you I respect you and your right to thrive. My mask is rooted in history and yet, is temporary.

The global garden we live and play in, that we were oh-so-familiar with, will come back in so many ways. In time. Mask on!

James Naismith – masked in Mississippi Mills, Ontario

Herbaria – Pressing Thoughts

The lovely flowers embarrass me. They make me regret I am not a bee.
Emily Dickinson

Have you ever picked a perfect flower, weed, or leaf and pressed it carefully between paper? I remember doing this as a child – may have been using wax paper and leaves, or maybe dandelions. Growing up in Montreal North, I distinctly remember placing Red Maple leaves – Acer rubrum – between pages of the telephone book, or was it the Yellow Pages Book or the Eaton’s catalogue? We’re talking about documenting the green world around us – creating an herbarium (plural: herbaria). Even the sound of it trips off the tongue and tantalizes the mind. It’s a tangible chronology of nature – observing and documenting that which surrounds us at a specific time, saved for easy reference with related notes. And isn’t a pandemic a perfect time to pursue something new to help get us through?

If you do, you’re not alone. For me, it was that 19^th century Canadian pioneer, amateur botanist, and writer, Catherine Parr-Traill, who found that documenting the plants around her helped her to navigate this new world, “…for I soon found beauties in my woodland wanderings, in the unknown trees and plants of the forest…They became like dear friends, soothing and cheering, by their sweet unconscious influence, hours of loneliness and hours of sorrow and suffering.” Or think of the wife of Lociq de Lobel, whose name seems lost to time, who created the very first herbarium of the Klondike Gold Rush to distract herself from the daily challenges of northern realities. Or what about Emily Dickinson whose interest in botany had her creating her own herbarium, now digitized, and sharing pressed flowers with friends, then plants in poetry.

Cultural treasure: one of Catherine Parr-Traill’s scrapbooks

It was Catherine, or rather, her scrapbooks, that led me to discover the National Herbarium of Canada.

What a find – a national herbarium created in 1882 – a library of plants not books, but books and shelves of, well, plants. The National Herbarium of Canada, part of the Canadian Museum of Nature, was created when the plant collections of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada were officially incorporated into a museum department. The herbarium holds four plant collections of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, and algae – over one million plant specimens, comprising one of Canada’s largest plant collections. It also means they hold the biggest and best archive of Canadian arctic plants in the world and special cultural collections like that of Traill, the author, in 1885, of Studies of Plant Life in Canada. Who knew?

There was so much going on when I visited – I was curious to know more. What better way than a chat with the Curator of Botany, Jennifer Doubt.

With degrees in Botany from Guelph University (1995) and in Bryophyte Ecology from the University of Alberta (2001), Jennifer transformed an early interest in the great outdoors and biology, notably founded on growing up and exploring in Deep River, into a series of summer jobs working in botany. First working as a consultant, she would eventually land a curatorial role at the Royal Alberta Museum given her familiarity with herbaria for research and eventually, as Curator of Botany at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario.

The herbarium, located across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, Quebec, is an extremely busy place and the best part of the work is the camaraderie and scope of people involved both internationally and at home. “There’s a wonderful dynamic with daily work, research, ongoing visits and emails – we’re exposed to so many new projects and the people behind them. Remember, there are specimens dating back to the 1700’s which gives rise to fascinating stories about individuals who were on those explorations and what happened after. Yes, we have specimens from the Franklin expeditions but also so many others,” says Jennifer. With museum staff; active field and lab researchers working on a range of topics; new specimen contributions coming in from all over needing to be processed and stored; students and the public of varying interests coming to the collections to learn; committed volunteers supporting the work of mounting specimens – well, dynamic indeed!

That documentation is critical as it tells a viewer who collected the plant, where it was collected and what they collected. Jennifer speaks highly of those who volunteer, “The volunteers love plants, or a certain geographical area – in many cases it provides a different focus than their formal work life. The work is valuable beyond imagining.”

Capturing nature – specimens from Catherine Parr-Traill’s scrapbooks

But you just can’t rest on your laurels. “Understand that this work is never complete” says Jennifer. “At a fundamental level, the collection grows through time showing what changes and trends are happening with plants and in specific geographic ranges. It’s even possible to analyse the genetic make-up of samples. The value of the collection is broader than just to botanists. Many of the people researching are not botanists, they could be historians interested in specific events/timeframes/expeditions; or artists looking for sources of botanical accuracy; special interest groups like women studies groups or those interested in what insects were impacting plants.” Or those like me interested in being close to a historical personality and their formative work.

For you and for me, Jennifer sees that “a personal herbarium can answer to a love of plants and understanding a geographical area more intimately…it means time well spent”, much as those early pioneers and poets did. Interestingly, on a local level, documenting botanical material can also contribute to environmental impact assessments and how policy decisions are ultimately made.

Hmmm. I wish I still had that desiccated maple leaf from my youth – it might bring back that beloved backyard in a very tangible way. But there is a tree, two or three, outside now and I know the land holds so much life to be discovered once the snow is gone. Heather’s herbarium – thou just may be mine!

“This little work on the flowers and native plants of Central Canada is offered to the Canadian public with the hope that it may prove a means of awakening a love for the natural productions of the country…The aim of the writer is simply to show the real pleasure that may be obtained from a habit of observing what is offered to the eye of the traveller,—whether by the wayside path, among the trees of the forest, in the fields, or on the shores of lake and river.”
Catherine Parr-Traill, 1885, Studies of Plant Life in Canada

Cultivating Time Passing

Come, children, gather round my knee;
Something is about to be.
Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.

Good Riddance, But Now What?
Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971)

Prescient? Is it really a new year of just the continuation of one that almost got out of hand? I for one will celebrate the onslaught of new challenges, will welcome in a new year but leave “happy” until we are well established in the upcoming annum. It will wait until we get beyond asking what day it is and being told it is none other than “Blursday!”

Crunch the snow underfoot and puff out a wonderful round of warm air. Winter meditation. I think about the intent of this blog and focus on “to cultivate” – and to do so in all aspects of its meaning.

Gardens, a great expression of a green idea, are to be cultivated in accordance with nature, space, time and inclination. My cultivation this year will begin with those seed catalogues soon to fill the mailbox. It’s highly ritualistic. I’m contentedly old-school and need to use a yellow highlighter on paper to plan – bought myself a package of new ones before the holidays too. Feeling quite chuffed I am.

There will be many a walk around the landscape here and there, and there, picking up on the patterns formed by plan or the designs wrought by botanical forms – who knew there would be such magic under snow and ice?

Cultivation also means refining knowledge – and the time is right as the annual experimentation with seed germination is still a few weeks away. Over one shoulder I can see the piles of magazines draping off the kitchen table, horticultural porn swept up in a tantalizing need to learn so much more. Gardens and garden magazines, hard or online, are great that way – you act as a voyeur and absorb green learnings from the designs, choices, and ideas of others. Or not. Interestingly, voyeurism often points us in our own directions.

There are spaces in the heart and in memory that are always filled with those we love, have loved, and miss. My heart is full this pandemic winter season. No doubt about it, family, friendships, and community need cultivation too, solid common ground prepared by times together, shared stories and sharing stories, by allowing transgressions to not colour the totality of these precious relationships that define us for a lifetime.

In some strange way, the pandemic has placed an emphasis on the reality that we need shared space with others to complete ourselves. Tools like Zoom have helped – even if there is a disquieting feeling after a call that it was not just the same, it did allow for a connection of sorts. Interestingly our last online encounter meant we were talking directly, kind of face-to-face, to family from across the nation for multiple times in one year – something the miles, or the complacency we had knowing we could visit anytime, had not afforded us before.

And, well, this blog is a means of cultivating the society of others isn’t it? We share perspectives, challenges, and joys by sharing our words and our sense of the place we find ourselves in. That voyeur comes to the fore again as we uncover the stories of those involved with green slices of the world around us – those influencers past and present.

All-in-all, my optimism for the year ahead holds as I hope yours does too. Let’s agree to be content to cultivate memory, family, friends, and the growing community all around – to lay the seed for more in the year ahead!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet

For days of auld lang syne

Auld lang syne, extract, Robert (Rabbie) Burns (1759 – 1796)

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