October Surprise

or Things to Remember

A lot can be forgotten in a year:  the names and terms of all the US presidents;* the capital of Mauritania;* what that one key in the utility drawer belongs to.  Some things are a relief to forget; some are more or less irrelevant (not meaning any offense, presidents and Mauritanians); some are kind of a nuisance (what does that key belong to?).  Some, though, end up being unexpected pleasures.  My favorite things to forget every year are the fall-blooming crocuses, because they have such charming ways of recalling themselves to your attention.

Well, really, just the one way.  They bloom.  But that's pretty charming.  It's a pity we can't do that ourselves when we need someone's attention—so much more appealing than "Ahem."

I've grown two kinds of FBC's before, Crocus speciosus and C. sativus.  C. sativus is the saffron crocus.  Its flowers aren't spectacular, really, but they're perfectly attractive, even more so since you can conjure up imaginary sauces while you look at them.  They have the pleasant habit of blooming in November, though they're fickle and may decide not to bloom at all.  They also have the unpleasant habit of sending up their leaves ahead of time and hanging on to them until April or later.  Six months of leaves outweigh the brief days of bloom, I find; since the sauces have so far all stayed imaginary, growing the flowers for a tiny amount of saffron doesn't seem all that exciting, either.  All the sativus I planted last fall, except for a few sly, eely ones that got away, were dug up in the spring.  They're hanging out in pots these days, putting up leaves, and later they will be whisked off into a corner with the black widows for the winter.

We're not talking about C. sativus, though.  They aren't much of a surprise, what with the leaves letting you know that they're coming and all.  The ones that do surprise me every year are the speciosus crocuses.  The flowers come out of nowhere, it seems, since the leaves don't appear until spring.  I returned from vacation a couple of weeks ago to find a small group basking merrily in the sunshine. 

I wasn't even waiting for them this year, not even in some tucked-away, undusted little alcove of my brain; I really had forgotten all about them.  The crocuses are looking a little lost there among the greenery, but the flowers do seem to stand up better with other plants' support.  I'm not just saying that as gardener's "spin"—a white-washing way of not admitting that I had forgotten about them and planted other things in their spot.  I did forget about them.  Completely.  They're just better off that way.

Since then other crocuses in various small patches have been blooming, with one or two new flowers opening a day.  The fall-bloomers have an idiosyncratic character and appeal, separate from their beauty, blossoming as they do out of sync with the season and with the rest of their kind. They're like little floral post-it notes with reminders written all over them, and the reminders are all of pleasant things—starting with the fact of their own existence.

They also remind you of ephemerality—a little bit of a jolt, when autumn is only slowly moving along, and the other things still in flower are the kinds that bloom for months on end and still have weeks ahead of them (Go, 'Wild Thing' autumn sage!).  In their own gentle way the crocuses suggest that you might want to pay attention to each day's changes as the year wanes.

They remind you of the joys to be found in bulbs and corms, which is handy, since a box of 500 ipheion, scilla, muscari, and sundry just arrived on the doorstep, and someone is going to have to plant them.  How nice to have a little inspiration blooming at the same time.

They remind you that bees have favorites, too, and that all those blackfoot daisies and marigolds and the licorice mint and basil and sage are fine in their way, but crocus pollen is Something Else Entirely. 

They remind you to keep an ear out for the sandhill cranes' return.   (Almost right on cue a creaky purr resounds, and you see outstretched wings glinting in the sun as a family of cranes rides the thermals down the Rio Grande valley.)

They remind you not to fuss too much about color combinations in your garden, because Mother Nature sure doesn't.

They remind you that short-term fragility and long-term toughness can go hand in hand.  The flowers will be gone in another few days.  I will forget about them soon after, and the bulbs won't get any water or fertilizer or special attention.

And they'll be back next year with an October surprise.
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* I've never actually known this.**
** That I recall.

A Change of Clothing

or Autumn Slips Away

I wonder sometimes whether hummingbirds recognize people.  My guess is that they don't—I'm not sure whether they even recognize people as people, let alone have the ability to recognize individuals.  If I wear pink or orange out in the garden, the hummingbirds are much differently aware of me than if I'm in green or blue.  Pink and orange qualify me as Potential Dinner.  Yellow might let me be Worth a Shot.  But blue and green?  They just make me blue Not-a-Dinner or green Not-a-Dinner, equally uninteresting in either case.  A change of clothes is worth a whole new role in the ecosystem.  It's practically an existential makeover, in hummingbird terms.

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The 'Wild Thing' autumn sage looks thoroughly chastened.  Winter stalked through the garden this week in a grumpy-neighbor "Some of us have to work tomorrow" sort of way and shut down the party, slam!  Now the riotous blooming by the patio is at an end, and the loud outbursts of color have gone quiet.  Let's hope 'Wild Thing' doesn't look in the mirror until it's gotten some rest.

'Wild Thing' autumn sage (Salvia greggii) when it's at home

Winter really did let us have it, at least in the Albuquerque scale of things.  On Monday the temperatures reached record lows for that date, dropping to the single digits F; some parts of town (though not mine) had several inches of snow.  The unusual cold pushed the garden forward into winter by about three weeks, if not into a whole different growing zone altogether.  The Jupiter's beard and 'Goldflame' honeysuckle, usually green through December, are blackened mush.  The ipheion, which comes up in fall and was beginning to make a bright, grassy (if somewhat threadbare) carpet under the sand cherries, is limp and flattened.  Even the more or less evergreen 'Lady Banks' rose has lost most of its leaves.

The changes are a little disappointing this early in the season—I was hoping for more life in the garden this winter and am sorry to lose it before winter even starts.  The changes are also a signal, though, that it's time to reframe my idea of beauty, to reset it to winter's standards and let autumn's slip away.

Crocus speciosus, on a bed of cotula and cat hair

The days of leaves and seed pods are yielding to the days of stems and trunks, stalks and buds, to the play of light and shadow, to grass seeds backlit against a low, white sun.  A new wardrobe, a new role in the ecosystem, an existential makeover.  The new clothes may well turn out to be striking, shapely, and chic.

But they won't be party clothes any more.

Late Arrivals

or The Last Hurrah

When the hummingbirds leave around the first of October, the party goes kind of flat.  Your favorite guests have gone—not that you don't care for the others, too, of course.  But the goldfinches, housefinches, sparrows, and mourning doves are the mixed nuts of the party, while the hummingbirds are the champagne.  You can count on them to add zest and a touch of magic to anything they do.  And with their explosive tempers, you never know when sparks will fly, or when a high-speed chase will ensue.  You wouldn't enjoy the party nearly as much without the other birds, but when the hummingbirds leave, they take a lot of the fizz with them.

When the sandhill cranes return near the end of the month, then, they are doubly welcome.  You hear their creaky purr sounding long before you see them, and when you first catch sight of them gliding down the Rio Grande valley,  the sun glinting off their silvery, upturned wings against an azure sky... Oh, they do know how to make an entrance.  Late arrivals though they are, they breathe new, dramatic life back into the party.  They bring a new character to it, too, a touch of elegance and dignity.

The cranes arrive about when the first of the fall-blooming crocuses opens.  In the garden, 'Wild Thing' autumn sage (Salvia greggii) may still be partying hard—if anything, blooming even more raucously than usual—but everything else is getting sleepy and quiet.  The agastache is winding down, the gaura looking tired, the West Texas grass sage ready to call it a day.  When the crocuses suddenly appear from nowhere, you welcome them with delight.  They bring a bright presence with them as they sound the last hurrah of the growing season.

Over by the patio, 'Wild Thing' is getting to the "wearing a lampshade and dancing on the table" stage—although really, it arrived in that condition and has kept up the rumpus ever since.  When the crocuses call you away from the action, inviting you over to their corner for some intense conversation, you're happy to go.  You appreciate 'Wild Thing,' you really do.  Its high-spirited loudness gives it a special place in your heart.  It's been blooming enthusiastically since April and is just as ready to spread a good time around now.  It will even still be cheerful tomorrow morning, with no (apparent) regrets. 

The crocuses, though—they'll be gone before you know it.  (Actually, last year one crocus or another bloomed through to December.  But each particular crocus is only around for a short while.)  For all their glowing color, they are fragile, ephemeral.  They remind you to make the most of every shining moment, and to enjoy their company while you can.

But don't get despondent about the passing of autumn or the fleeting nature of time or anything.


'Wild Thing' will still be partying hard tomorrow.