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.

The Rhythms of Care

or Food and Drink

Work, and of the best sort. 

Yesterday:  a few minutes watering seedlings in the micro-garden; a trip to the hardware store for concrete blocks, rebar, and bamboo poles; an afternoon spent chatting with the neighbors and turning my purchases into a stand for the rain barrel, stakes for the Lady Banks rose (trust me, she would eat a fancy trellis for lunch), and supports for the "Coronation Gold" yarrow, which otherwise will give way to the first windstorm (and every windstorm thereafter).  —An afternoon to water all the beds, as the 0.11 inches of moisture we've received so far this year can't kick-start spring in a young garden; a few more minutes to empty the pots of perennials that didn't survive our once-in-fifty-years cold spell.

Today:  more of the same only better, in 55°F morning temperatures, in a sheltered, walled garden that warms to tank-top comfort levels.  The tasks:  cleaning and filling the bird and bug baths (setting some dried navy beans to soak); moving the "volunteer" feverfew seedlings to containers, where their blossoms will attract beneficial insects for weeks in mid-summer (taking a few moments' rest in the Adirondack chair); watering the seedlings in the micro-garden again (ducking inside for a glass of water); dividing the "Moonshine" yarrow and moving the divisions to a sunnier bed, out of the growing desert olive trees' shade (lying down for an hour's bedrest); moving the Keller's yarrow from the sand cherries' shade to the sunny, more-or-less native bed (putting the beans on to cook); working coffee grounds and tea leaves into our alkaline, "decomposed granite" soil (harvesting tarragon and garlic chives).  Resting, before the white bean salad with Shannon's citrus-tarragon vinaigrette goes on the table.

This weekend, I've been thinking about the rhythms of care—the seasonal care we give to the garden, the daily care; the sometimes competing, sometimes complementary care we give to ourselves; and the sometimes out-of-the-blue priority we give to a work ethic that may or may not be helpful.  It's been disconcerting to remember the extent to which need (the yarrows, in too much shade; a thirsty human) can end up competing with function (the garden could use some filler here; I still have this one task left to finish...).  How do we balance them—work and care? the drive to accomplish something right away and the natural rhythms of growth, of need?  Somehow or other we do, and things either work out or they don't.  For the most part, only small things hinge on our decisions—one human, one garden, a handful of plants, perhaps a few bees; things that matter in a small sphere, that may accumulate to have a wider effect, but that don't (with an ironic bow in the direction of chaos theory) affect the world at large.

From time to time, however, something mammoth interrupts the easy seasonal rhythm of care, reminds us of the world beyond our garden walls, shouts that other gardens need tending, that other humans need the food and drink of compassion.  While our kindred in Japan have a strong and resilient system to cope with natural disasters, the recent tsunami reminds us all how fragile our security really is, how great a leveler nature can be.  I haven't researched the organizations that exist internationally to contribute toward disaster relief, but in the USA, InterAction.org is a starting-point directory of NGOs; other longstanding charitable organizations are accepting contributions as well, of course.

Sometimes care extends beyond our garden walls, and giving becomes our work—work of the very best sort.

The Will to Thrive

or
In Which We Admire a Lady

I have been thinking about role models lately—those whom I admire, honor, and do my best to emulate; and do you know, it's astonishing how few of them are plants.   People, absolutely—I can think of plenty of people before whose large-heartedness, strength, courage, and grace I have been happy to bow.   Animals, yes—Luther T. Dog had a streak of joy running through him the likes of which I have never seen before or since, and he was an endlessly good sport to boot.   If I had those two traits of his in that measure, I would call my life a success.

But plants?   I can't remember a single occasion when I have found myself saying, "If I study hard enough, eat all my vegetables, and think good thoughts, maybe someday I too can be like this bit of greenery."   That is, until now.   I planted a Lady Banks rose this year, and I am in awe.

Lady Banks is a climbing rose native to China that is evergreen, almost thornless, and tolerant of drought.   It blooms only once each year, with lightly fragrant pale yellow (or white) roses, but that single blooming is so abundant, so profligate, that it lingers in memory for months.   And it is as tough as nails.

I had had a Lady Banks rose growing in a pot for two full years before planting it this spring—and I don't mean a large, spacious, room-to-grow-in sort of pot, but just the flimsy black plastic jobby from the nursery.   I'd purchased the rose with an idea in mind of where to plant it, but it didn't really work out in the garden.   Stymied, I resorted to hoping that a brilliant plan and about 15 feet of new gardening space would miraculously come to me.   (They didn't.)   It wasn't until I dug out three elder berry bushes late last winter that a good spot for the rose became apparent.

Meanwhile, Lady Banks had rather a rough time over the course of those two years.   I'd done what I could to shield the roots in their sun-intensifying black pot from the full blast of summer by hiding it in the middle of some perennials (catmint and Lady Banks work well together, in case you were wondering), and that seemed to help, but I was never sure quite how much to water it in the winter (which, being interpreted, means that I usually forgot about it altogether), and I often found myself pruning off dead growth (erm, a lot of dead growth).   By the time I was finally ready to put the rose in the ground this spring, literally two-thirds of its roots had been eaten away, possibly by roly-polies, judging from the number of them squirming around in the sudden sunshine.   What soil was left had been reduced to some odd-textured, sandy pellet-y stuff.   In fact, there was so little soil left that a black widow spider had taken up residence in the bottom, empty two-thirds of the pot.

Yet even with all those strikes against it, the rose is doing beautifully.   To have so few roots left and survive transplant shock, let alone summer heat and drought, is impressive enough, but it has survived—survived, settled in, and grown.   It is still a small plant but now thickly leaved and lush;  it recently sent up a new cane about eight feet tall.   This is a plant that wants to thrive, even though I had given it every reason to die.

Why?   Why is it that some plants, whether entire species or single examples, are so eager to take hold, given the least bit of encouragement—or none at all?   Why do others, in the same conditions, sulk or pine or fade away or even, as far as I can tell, spontaneously combust?   Why do some plants—some people—thrive, positively reveling in growth, while others merely live?   I out and out admire the Lady Banks rose—not for its beauty or blooms or shape or texture or usefulness or any of the other things I usually admire about a plant.   No, I admire the plant itself, for its sheer stubborn will to thrive, for the way it buckled down and hung on when its very roots were being eaten out from under it, and then leapt enthusiastically into life the first opportunity it had.

It does occur to me that the other plants I've known with the same indomitable spirit have been, not to put too fine a point on it, noxious weeds—you know, bindweed, goat's heads, poison ivy... And the example of the Tombstone Rose does provide rather a cautionary tale for someone with a small urban lot.   But pruning shears are my friends, and, on the off-chance that this particular plant should reach world record proportions several decades from now, by then it will be someone else's problem.   In the meantime, I am off to study hard, eat lots of vegetables, and think good thoughts.

Because Lady Banks is my idea of a lady.