Sunday, March 11, 2012

Center Stage

or Changing Priorities

Western sand cherry (Prunus besseyi)

The bee wasn't desperate, just impatient.  She had crocuses, scilla, and grape hyacinths to choose from, but she was crawling over the fat, tightly closed buds of the largest sand cherry, digging at the patch of white just showing between the sepals.  Her eagerness had all my sympathy.  Spring is so near, and the cherry so close to bursting into flower that I feel ready to nudge those buds along myself, and I don't have a craving for sand cherry pollen.

A few days ago I was admiring the deep blue of a dawn sky, framed by the cherry's branches.


Since then the fattening buds have brought the branches from the margins to the foreground of my awareness.  The way those pale green nubs gleam in the sunshine has taken center stage.


Shifting between background and foreground—a lot of that happens in the garden this time of year.  The 'Winter Gem' boxwoods, which have been so delightfully green all winter, bless them, are now less interesting than the patch of ipheion at their feet (no buds yet, but soon).  The burnet in the main garden, which has been lush and shapely through the spare, lean months, is suddenly just a backdrop for grape hyacinths.  Even 'Wild Thing' autumn sage has been standing meekly by for once, while the crocuses get the glory.

Spring, with its small, pleasant upheavals, is good at making you see things differently.  Daily routines change as activities move from indoors to out; Daylight Savings Time shuffles morning and evening light around; windows opened to the breeze let a little life and movement back into the house.  (Pardon me while I go find a paper weight.)  When you have snow in the morning and lunch on the patio at noon, a little mental flexibility (not to mention layered clothing) is your friend.

I've been thinking about the garden lately while poring over bulb catalogs for fall planting* and thumbing for the umpteenth time through regional books and catalogs before the spring frenzy begins.  Ideas I was working with last summer when I started replanting the garden (and which many of you helped me with) have taken clearer shape over the last few months, and now New Mexico's famous spring winds are blowing away some old, lingering assumptions.  As a result, my excitement about sand cherries and crocuses notwithstanding, flowers have begun to take the back seat in my garden.  (I would never, ever have thought I'd say that.)  A number of things have moved forward to take their place, but the biggest factor, the one that's taking center stage at the moment and dancing an enthusiastic buck-and-wing on it, is light.  (Texture is warming up in the wings.)

In Plant-Driven Design, Lauren Springer Ogden and Scott Ogden talk about light as a feature of western gardens, but until recently I thought of light as an accessory to a floral-print outfit, not the other way around.  Now I see it differently—or realize that I've done so all along.  The reason I'm always as impatient as that bee for the sand cherry to bloom is because I love the blossoms' incandescence in front of the shady north-facing wall...

I have yet to take a picture of them that isn't either over-blown or too damped down, though.  March, 2011

I've been sitting on a sunny patio almost every weekend morning through fall, winter, and now early spring, looking south over the backlit garden and being dazzled as the sun glowed through turning leaves, ricocheted off grass seeds and blades, made the desert olives' pale gray trunks gleam, and set the oils in the autumn sage leaves to glistening.  Seeing the crocuses glowing with light this spring was the last step in moving background to foreground for me.  The garden and its leaves and flowers are lamps; they collect and shape light.

So as I consider new plants, I'm wondering how they'll play with dappled light under the olives, or how they'll give back summer radiance; whether they'll glow in the warm backlighting of autumn or in the low, white gleam of winter.  In some ways it's complicating matters; in others making them quite easy.  (There's no point in planting a grass with light-catching seed heads behind the winter shade line, no matter how sunny that spot is in summer.)  Every so often I make a note of what color the flowers are, in case that matters, too.

(And somehow, I suspect that it might.)
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* It turns out that spring really is the best time to make your bulb list—another thing they say in gardening books that ends up being true.


Has anyone ever grown ornamental comfrey (Symphytum grandiflorum)?  I was thinking of it for the deep shade under the big sand cherry but don't know if I'll regret it.  Other dry shade (think really dry, like, really, REALLY dry) suggestions would be welcome.  Thanks for any advice!

18 comments:

  1. We can all just "taste" spring coming! Can't hardly wait, any more than the bee.

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    1. It is soooooo close, Mama Hen! I feel more impatient than a kid at Christmas. Thanks for your comment!

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  2. lamps to collect and shape the light

    yes that was what the Nandina did for me in my garden.

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    1. Yes, that's it exactly, Diana! Such an amazing glow in those leaves.

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  3. I have been noticing light more as well...the dawn and dusk...the colors and the light in the garden although I find as spring moves on the morning light is amazing...Hardy Plumbago is the only thing I know that will tolerate dry shade...

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    1. Donna, you must really notice the changing light on your commute, too--hope the time change didn't put a cramp in your style in the mornings! Thanks for the plumbago recommendation. I have some growing elsewhere, and it really does do well here (and it looks beautiful in dappled shade). I had been hoping to plant something different, but certainly wouldn't object to more of the plumbago.

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  4. Light will really be affecting gardens, with it being longer and greater in color. The plants will come alive in the dappling light of Spring.

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    1. The light is already noticeably stronger. It's time to get out the sunscreen again!

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  5. What a gorgeous garden yours is going to be! A luminous garden - I can almost see it in my mind. Good luck on all your final decisions for your garden, and for figuring out your fall bulb order! And for finding dry shade plants!

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    1. Oh, Holley, I hope so! I have such plans. It's just getting them to work out that's the difficulty... I've actually been thinking about a post you wrote a while back where you mentioned planning for winter first: http://dreamingofroses.blogspot.com/2011/12/weathering.html, and the link in your post on texture, where the writer talks about planning for leaves first: http://dreamingofroses.blogspot.com/2011/11/pattern-and-texture-beyond-bloom.html. Now if the nurseries would just get their spring stock ready to sell...

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  6. You're very organised planning now for autumn. (Unfortunately, I spent all this time waiting for spring but not actually preparing for it.) I can understand people planning with light in mind etc. when the plants are all ready and lined up waiting to be planted, like in the garden make-over shows. At the seed or bulb stage, it's a bit of a challenge for my imagination to stretch that far, but I look forward to seeing your garden all lit up.

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    1. b-a-g, fortunately a lot of the plants I'm thinking of as good in certain light situations are ones I've already seen, either in smaller doses in my own garden or at the Botanic Garden or driving around town. Where I have trouble is imagining their proportions once they're in my garden--it's hard for me to get a sense of how big they'll be without seeing them all lined up like you say.

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  7. I can just imagine you twitching to get into the soil! You know from my own posts that I often plan designs around light patterns - adding a purple smoke bush that can turn to fiery hues as the sun sets or tall grasses which allow the low winter sun to filter through. Reflections, shadows, back-lighting. Love it all.

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    1. Karen, I'm beginning to think of that play with light and shadow as the Renaissance painting effect. Vermeer would have loved purple smoke bush, one has to suspect.

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  8. Dear Stacy, I love your third photograph! Speaking of light . . . a beauty! Your final photo is quite wonderful too . . . in colors and light. Inviting! I sympathize with the bee too. Light will certainly encourage unfurling of petals and then the bee can have its way with the pollen. I love comfrey and I am sure you know that it has a long taproot and will (if content) spread about. Not sure of the particular species you note. The gardens and fields seem so much more alive washed in a soft diffused light. My favorite times are dawn and dusk and watching the marvels of changing light sure are great ways to begin and end each day. You have got to love layers . . . of clothing and weather . . . makes for an interesting life and surely more layers of light inspire . . . as do your postings.

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    1. Carol, it's always so lovely to have you here! I'm glad you enjoyed the light in the third photo--it was a beautiful, radiant morning. Enough of the petals have opened this week that the bees seem to be content again. I was concerned about comfrey's spreading habits, but since you don't seem to find it an actual thug I'll give it a try. Thanks for sharing your experience with it. Every dawn and dusk seems to have a different way of playing with light, but the mild light of spring is especially delightful. Thank you for your lovely, warm words!

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  9. I tuned in to a programme on TV that featured a short piece about photography. They spoke about the importance of backlighting plants in photographs. I now look quite differently at the new growth. The light behind it is much less harsh and gives some interesting effects.

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    1. Interesting--I'd love to see some examples of what you're talking about.

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