Thursday, July 5, 2012

Fifteen Minutes

or Transformations

Photography may be all about light, but townhouses are all about shadows.  In a tiny garden surrounded by walls, with the neighbors' houses spitting distance away*, shadows are eternal.  They may move throughout the day, but they never vanish altogether.  Sunlight is likely to enter the picture as mid-day glare, not the "golden hour" of sunrise or sunset.  In my garden, for a couple of weeks in April and September, the rising sun does shine through the narrow space between houses; for 15 minutes or so the flowers in its path glow in a gentle radiance.  The rest of the year, the sun doesn't top the walls until mid-morning.  For living in, that's just dandy; for taking photographs it isn't ideal.  (And if that's the worst thing I have to complain about, life is pretty darn good.)


I'm certainly not complaining about an excess of shade in July.  It's a welcome respite in the afternoons, generally cool enough to be enjoyable even when the temperature is in the low 90's.  The garden at this point of the season is primarily a green garden, an effect I rather like in mid-summer when so much else is brown.  Like shade, greenery is a welcome respite:  cooling, soothing.  None of the foliage is particularly dramatic—no eye-popping purples or limes—but I often prefer my dramas quiet in any case, more about slight changes of expression, and less about car chases and explosions.  Subtle greens in shade are just the right kind of drama, I think.  Each change in texture or color is like a lifted eyebrow, an upward tug at the corner of a mouth, a speculative tilt to the head.

Not that there's anything wrong with a good car chase, of course.  Or with explosions.  (In movies!  I just mean in movies!)  One of the nice things about a townhouse garden is the stark contrast between light and shadow.   (Nice for photography, at any rate, if not always for plants.)  At almost any sunlit time, you can find a deep, velvety backdrop not too far away.  When the sun is just right, even if only for 15 minutes every other Sunday, it lights up the few flowers in the garden like fireworks, from the normally gentle salmons of licorice mint

Agastache rupestris
to the delicate stars of gaura.

Gaura lindheimeri 'Whirling Butterflies'

The contrasts between dark and light, foliage and flowers, lifted eyebrows and explosions:  I'm still amazed at what extremes a small space can hold, at what transformations a few minutes of sunlight can work.  I'm in the mood to be amazed, because even as I'm writing this, rain is falling.  It's not the first rain of summer (and hopefully not the last), but it's the first to soak through the cushions on the Adirondack chair, the first with potential to fill the rain barrel.  If it lasts for more than 15 minutes I'll be surprised, but the sky suggests (with a subtly lifted eyebrow) that there may be more where this came from.  Suddenly the air is fresh, and the trees are dripping.  Thunder is rumbling across the whole great arc of the lower atmosphere.  The breeze smells sweet.  Dry, dusty New Mexico looks clean and alive.  What a transformation; what a lightning-fast journey from one end of the spectrum to the other.

It's been every bit as good as a car chase.
_______________________
* Note:  spitting is rude.

22 comments:

  1. Phew - some rain. Thank goodness. May it quench those fires. And those are delicate stars of gaura. Two out of my three didn't survive the winter and the third is nowhere near flowering yet but it is, I'm reminded, worth the wait. Your temporary shafts of sunlight during April and September sound special. Do you think the housing-developers thought long and hard how to achieve them? Rather like the summer solstice sun-alignment at Stonehenge? You should ensure that twice a year, the sun illuminates a hidden doorway or no, wait a control panel. A control panel to a huge treasure room. Or something. Dave

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    1. Dave, the rain has been such a relief -- and the temperatures have dropped 10-15°F, too. Ironically (and sadly) the next big danger for the fire-stricken areas is flash-flooding, because the vegetation that would slow down the run-off has all burned away, and the ground is seared hard. Adds insult to injury, if you ask me. It's hard for me to credit the housing developers with thought and foresight... But the universe is a strange place. There's no reason a southwestern Stonehenge couldn't have happened by accident. If I get busy maybe I can find some treasure to squirrel away before the control panel is illuminated next September!

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  2. a Stonehenge moment, what fun! Hope that means there is also rain on the Colorado fires?

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    1. Diana, the last I heard the Colorado fires were expected to be fully contained this weekend. Whew!

      I really must think of something exciting to light up 2x/year. Probably not a sundial.

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  3. That is wonderful news that you are getting rain...we desperately need some as well...the heat is supposed to break by Sunday and I hope with a bit of rain....it is amazing how quickly our gardens can transform as with light and water and warmth.

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    1. Donna, I hope some respite from the heat is on its way to you all soon -- it just sounds brutal out there. The weather forecasters are calling for a "full monsoon season" in the southwest, which after last year's drought is super-super exciting. I'll have to go on a wildflower walk soon -- the rain should bring them all out to play!

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  4. It's so amazing how the rain can cool things down and refresh the air. Clean. It smells clean. I love how you equated this with a lifted eyebrow. I, too, love movies that are a bit more subtle than the car chases and explosion type movies. And a green garden in the middle of the heat of summer is cooling, too. I've always admired green gardens in the summertime. But I also love the fiesta colors that are all over my garden! (Guess they're the equivalent of a car chase!) ha!

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    1. Holley, the funny thing is that I'm mostly happy with the green garden because it's hard not to be happy with anything that's growing and giving its best at this point, no matter what it is. I didn't really plan it to be a green garden in July, but since it is, I may as well enjoy being soothed! Your fiesta colors are wonderful -- so vibrant and alive. Mine all gave out the minute the temps hit the high 90's. :/

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  5. Reading this post was a good workout for the facial muscles. Your photo of gaura all lit up raised both of my eyebrows.

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    1. And here people say that blogging is a sedentary activity!

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  6. Ah, a walk in your garden to ease my pain. Thank you!

    Blessings,
    Elaine

    I love the stars of gaura!

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    1. Elaine, it's so lovely to have you here! If you really were here, I'd set you down in the Adirondack chair with a footstool and bring you a nice cold glass of herbal iced tea.

      Gaura's become one of my all-time favorites.

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  7. I've not heard of agastache as licorice mint but the name works nicely. Great images, and I agree about keeping the car chases in the movies. Green shade is priceless in summer, even in Oregon.

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    1. Hi, Linnie -- Some people call the agastache rootbeer mint, which also works but makes my mouth pucker. I don't think those tastes would go together at all. Oregon's greens are such a very deep green. I've grown used to sage greens and kind of forget what that kelly green is really like.

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  8. Is your agastache blooming a little earlier this year? Mine has started to bloom, but it feels like the summer is rushing by. I hope you have been enjoying the monsoonal rains. It's been nice not to water and to have cooler temps.

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    1. GirlSprout, the agastache is actually a little late for my garden. It usually starts blooming the third week of June but is just now really getting into gear. I saw that SF had a good drenching the other day (yay!). It's definitely been nice to kiss the upper 90's goodbye for a while!

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  9. "A slightly lifted eyebrow" - you are a poet, Stacy, making me appreciate the green garden that I tend to be slightly disappointed in in summer. But you are right - the greenness is a gift, when memories of drought linger, or the real thing stalks outside the walls.

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    1. You are quite a poet yourself, Sheila, with the drought stalking outside the walls. That's really why greenery is so precious here -- it feels like a respite from "normal" life, or an oasis. If I were in the Carolinas and could bask in green plants wherever I looked, flowers might feel more like the oasis!

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  10. Hi, Stacy, I really like the picture of the sunlight on the Gaura flowers. I've just bought that particular one as seed (haven't sown it yet). I wish we had more transitions between sun and rain as we're currently just having rain at the moment.

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    1. The British summer does sound like it's been an unmitigated nuisance this year, Sunil. I'd be interested to know how the Gaura does from seed.

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    2. It has been so bad, really, awful, an utter washout. We've been stuck in April showers for months (it's raining at the moment) and it the bad weather and low temperatures have just carried on and on, endlessly. You can tell it's got me down. Anyway, the seed packet says the Gaura will take up to two months so it might be a while before an update.

      Sunil

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    3. Sunil, I can't handle more than two days of rain in a row without becoming unspeakably grumpy, so I am more impressed than ever with British stoicism. Hang in there!

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