November 2020 – Spirit of the garden

It’s an odd time isn’t it? Deep worry about COVID yet hopeful about vaccines, the power of masks and distancing; hopeful about politics yet anxious about delayed transitions; transitioning to winter but staring at the green grass through the windows. It’s a liminal time, a betwixt and between time – a pause requiring study through windows and without.

Interestingly, in this unique time there are new tools that allow a peek into someone else’s lived experience, for the view from a home window. Window Swap and View from my Window evolved during lockdown on various platforms. My day inevitably starts with a long look out the dining room window, and as I’m as anxious as everyone else, I can understand the strange, voyeuristic enjoyment of seeing what others see daily. In an odd way, these tools worked to elevate what could become mundane in isolation – affirming that we are still here and oh look, we’re not alone. With travel severely limited, this might just provide a release of sorts and your carbon footprint is so much smaller too – OMG a double hit!

So what’s beyond my window? Well, you might not always see the beauty in this transition season but I think it might be another chance to use the word sublime -’cause, why wouldn’t you?

We’ve woken to first snows here in eastern Ontario although nary a flake has stayed more than a few hours – yet. Outside one window, not far from the computer screen that clamours for attention, I look outside and watch a ground ballet – flocks of robins and starlings, neatly spaced, pecking their way across the snowy lawn. A hunt for seed and insects to help them on their way south no doubt. And yes, the waves of geese continue above. It expands the definition of the garden to encompass seasonal change, the ongoing work and migration of beasts and birds, the beauty of those plants now pausing. It is not about surrender and demise, it is about preparation for change.

An ongoing debate was whether or not to cut down the Solomon’s Seal, Polygonatum, to tidy the space. But honestly, tidy is not all it’s cracked up to be – let nature behave as it should. It demands a rethink, of paying attention to leaving organic materials in place both as shelter for bugs, food for squirrels and birds, and as ultimate nourishment for future plant growth. For all kinds of good stewardship reasons, the plants will stay and desiccate over the winter providing shelter for all sorts of wee beings. For now, oh the colour that has been introduced is wonderful – somewhat like an impressionist brush heavy with yellow ochre.

I notice the structure of the garden more – the solidity of the green frame in place that cradles us in trying times. Take note – when looking through the window or walking about though, fight the inclination to unendingly list all the projects for next year but rather slow down and notice the details today.

And there’s something wonderful about how plants hold each other in autumn. See the multiple mounds – even if I only planted three to start – of Blue Fescue, Festuca glauca, as they nudge up against Hens and chicks, Sempervivums; how the newly planted Red Osier Dogwood, Cornus stolonifera, sketches out a ruby web against the sky while it sheds green leaves; how the winter creeper, Euonymus fortunei, snuggles up against the Spirea while sweet woodruff, Galium odoratum, prepares to die back under the leaves. Sure, the planting was mine but the poetry, well, plants have expression of their own don’t they?

I’m thinking of a quote from Lorraine Johnstone in Tending the Earth – A Gardener’s Manifesto: “While each of us may be changing the world on coneflower at a time, the world of the garden is doings its own crucial work of changing us.” This happens everyday, every season. We have a plan and then suddenly, the garden shows us something unexpected, a movement, an unexpected beauty – a teaching.

Hope quietly informs the day as I fall into this late season with all its trials and tribulations. The next season will come soon enough but for now, breathe and just be betwixt and between. And with multiple windows at hand and online? Well, all the better to understand the scope of the garden – yours, mine, ours.

Apologies to my neighbours but I really must inspect my Hypericum perforatum and don’t forget the Silene vulgaris. That’s right – I discovered a botanical paradise! It’s really wild! And it’s on my leaching field … or thereabouts!

It really explains why a quick look into our yard from the street may result in a vision of a woman with book in hand and camera at the ready, mouthing tongue-tied words familiar yet strange and decidedly Latin. A pagan ritual perhaps? No, not an incantation to the powers that be (although not a bad idea all-in-all) but a need, a quest to ignore the news of the day and focus down to the ground.

Today in November, I’m back outside in t-shirt and cut-offs as the strange unseasonly warm weather continues. There are however strong rumours of snow later this week which is at distinct odds with the last tomatoes that I’m roasting this morning. Go figure.

This particular pandemic pleasure stemmed from the mid-year. July was tough on the land and on us. We watched the clouds come and go, performed our rain dances and mourned as grass disappeared and leaves began to fall from our Silver Maples, Acer saccharinum. Barrels emptied and decisions were made to only water veg beds as needed. It was hard to watch and hard on one’s mood…everyday.

And then. I stopped cringing and looked, really looked at what was growing. And growing well in this desiccating landscape. Nature as always, was finding a way to declare itself and it was in the form of wildflowers. And what are these but an invitation to learn? Armed with an Ontario Wildflowers book, and a need to focus on what was popping up everywhere, I went to work. Who knew I would also go back in time?

Arriving in 1832, Catherine Parr-Traill, an early pioneer and writer, found green explorations as a means to hang onto her very being in this new world. As she points out in Studies of Plant Life in Canada, 1885, “…I soon found beauties in my woodland wanderings, in the unknown trees and plants of the forest. These things became a great resource, and every flower and shrub and forest tree awakened an interest in my mind, so that I began to thirst for a more intimate knowledge of them. They became like dear friends, soothing and cheering, by their sweet unconscious influence, hours of loneliness and hours of sorrow and suffering.” She was onto something – a marvelous distraction – and just what I needed.

Catharine Parr-Traill (1802, London, England – 1899, Lakefield, Ontario)

I knew there would be some wilding happening as on the roadside I could see Queen Anne’s Lace, Daucus carota, which easily could provide a shady, lacy umbrella for chipmunk or rabbit or fairy, springing up alongside beautiful blue Chicory, Cichorium intybus, which tempted me to indulge in a coffee – or at least in this coffee substitute.

The garden already had already showcased Common Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, to entice the Monarchs to land and transform; the long pointers of Great Mullein, Verbascum Thapsus, that when dried and dipped in tallow became a torch in days gone by; and the ever present Orange Daylily, Hemerocallis fulva, that shared space with purply Creeping Bellflowers, Campanula rapunculoides. A riot of plants right where we didn’t plant them! Amazing.

Now that I think of it, what a perfect summer moment and one I’ll revisit during upcoming winter days. They are also intimately tied to the memories of childhood and running free to pick bouquets to be jammed into mason jars on a windowsill and admired. Move over African violet – we picked this! I remember the succinct pop of the Bladder Campion, Silene vulgaris, as my brother and I popped their full blooms against the back of our hands. And the Common Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, which meant sitting down in the grass and blowing the seeds that seemed like fairies flying on the breeze. Haven’t done that in ages although I have thought of dandelion summer wine and crisp greens with odd shapes in salad bowls.

All this to say, I have now strategically added a new list of things to explore in this pandemic winter. Green explorations and those women who have taken it to different levels – a penultimate pandemic pastime to link today and yesterday. Among other things. According to the dictates of the day.

Botanic treasures found this year (so far):

Black-eyed Susan – Rudbeckia hirta
Bladder Campion – Silene vulgaris
Chicory – Cichorium intybus
Common Dandelion – Taraxacum officinale
Common Milkweed – Asclepias syriaca
Common St. John’s Wort – Hypericum perforatum
Creeping Bellflowers – Campanula rapunculoides
Great Mullein – Verbascum Thapsus
Orange Daylily – Hemerocallis fulva
Orange Hawkweed – Hieracium aurantiacum
Oxeye Daisy – Leucanthemum vulgare
Philadelphia Fleabane – Erigeron philadelphicus
Pineapple Weed – Matricaria dissoidea
Scentless Chamomile – Tripleurospermum perforata
Queen Anne’s Lace – Daucus carota

	Heather on Seasonal delay
	Audrey Driscoll on Seasonal delay
	tanjabrittonwriter on Seasonal delay
	Heather on Seasonal delay
	tanjabrittonwriter on Seasonal delay

Month: November 2020

Betwixt and Between

On Knowing a Thing – Now and Then