Digging in the Roots: A Pre-Spring Reverie

Viola odorata. 

After work tonight my husband and I walked to the grocery store. Along the way I plucked a few stray Viola odorata blooms and then cupped them in my left palm like small birds. From time to time—passing the halal markets and medical marijuana storefronts—I held my hand to my nose and drew in their scent. I instinctively wanted to bite into my violets because my brain recognized their sweet scent as a favorite candy. But I didn't. Instead I walked along enjoying the moment thinking about how much I love plants—especially sensual plants.  

Here at home the seedlings are growing in their little pots and plugs. I'm keeping up with my planting schedule (for the most part) but I'm not certain if I'll be able to finish things up before we leave for Italy.

We have a housesitting plan, a cat sitter, and a seedling sitter.

(I think that it's wonderful to know there are friends available to help you with your plants, don't you?)

Whatever doesn't get planted, at least I can buy at a local nursery. Portland is blessed with so many plant nurseries. [Sigh.]

One of my favorite images from the Yard, Garden & Patio Show.

I made it to the Yard, Garden & Patio Show a few weeks ago here in Portland. (I hadn't been in years!) It was a fantastic experience and I hope to post pictures from it eventually, but I know, I've said that in the past.

I mean it this time. It will happen. I will post the pictures.

This pledge is happening because I've been taking my writing more seriously. Being paid to write is a wonderful thing. Thanks to being able to work at doing what I love, a recent goal I've acknowledged is to finally organize my photos. This will help me professionally too. I can't wait to share them.

The plant room has been cleaned out again—for what I hope will be the last time. It is looking better and better but there is still much work to do. Last weekend the compact fluorescent light that has been keeping my plants alive for a few years popped and blew out. That's one more unexpected garden expense that needs to be attended to but it's worth it! That room is cheerful during the dreary and rainy months because of that light and those plants bring so much life into the dead of winter.

This is probably the reason why Mona (the partially feral cat) lives in that room now. She's always loved it back there but now it's her room—at least that is until is warms up enough to be outside all day.

Yesterday I made it outside for a bit. It was the first work I'd done in the garden in a long time. My health has not been great. I had a bad infection for several weeks last month but I toughed it out and am ok now. I'm amazed by how easily I lose my strength and conditioning. I feel strong when I exercise regularly and walk a lot but after a few months off I feel as though I have to begin all over again.

Luckily, it's worth it. The benefits of exercise for me are undeniable. Nothing makes chronic pain go away more than exercise. I guess it really is important to stay limber.

Happy (early) St Patrick's Day!

Since I won't be here again until after Monday I thought I'd leave you with this. I was born an Annie, and internally, I'll always be a little redhead named Annie. There's just a wee bit of Irish in me, can you tell? And I do love the color green, now don't I?

(This post is dedicated to Father Cathal Brennan. RIP I still miss you very much.)

My mom with Father Brennan. 

He is pruning the privet: the seemingly never-ending saga of change in a garden

Please read this poem—that is, if you have the time or inclination. I know that poems don't speak to everyone, so please, give it a try. I'll understand if you don't.

I thought for a change of pace I'd share it since it's about gardening. (But yes, you're correct, it's about much more than just pruning.)

He is pruning the privet (a poem by Joanne Kyger)

The poem says everything I'd like to say right now. I could not find the words, they found me. I'm tired, but am still able to seek. That's reassuring. As I near 40, I'm feeling my age and am waking up from a medical stupor, stupid illness I fell into at the age of 18.

Rip Van Winkle never prepared me for this.

Change and time is growth, and sloppily, wearily, messily, we'll all keep pruning too.

It's what we do.

Houseplant Season and a Few Fried Slugs

Oxalis triangularis. 

It's houseplant season and recently I've been busy. I hope to clean up a few neglected plants on Sunday.

Working over 40 hours a week with two part-time jobs is challenging physically but it's rewarding otherwise. 

I'm happy right now and it feels different. I'm adjusting. I'm changing. 

I wish I could say more about my caretaking job with the elderly—and the amazing people I continue to meet—but I'm sworn to secrecy due to privacy. 

It is safe to say that I've met a few green thumbs during the last few weeks. Many are physically too delicate to garden now so I tell them about gardens instead and they tell me about the gardens they've known. It is a wonderful way to interact with people whom you don't know well. One woman used to be involved in an ikebana group. We were fast friends. 

We tend to talk about the weather a lot and animals. I've heard many great stories. It will be good for me to continue the work—at least for now. 

There are two elderly cats here at home. It is not their favorite season. Luckily I'm earning more money now so I can purchase special items for them. Hopefully they'll be watching me sow some seeds soon.

I keep talking about it. I keep threatening to do it. Working is more important for now. Learning two new jobs is challenging. I at least am very confident about how to germinate seeds. That's reassuring and it feels good to be confident about something. 

Last weekend we went to my parents' house again out by the coast. It felt like a work weekend because we were both writing NaNoWriMo novels. 

This week I stopped writing mine temporarily due to swelling and hand pain. My story is writing itself and I've stepped back to better control the time I put into it. Something snapped and clicked inside of me while I was at the beach last weekend. Suddenly I saw how I write. I've never enjoyed writing fiction much but it's clicked with me. 

My book has a lot of plants and gardening in it. So I'm kind of writing about plants right now. It's just not so obvious to anyone here visiting the blog. 

John and I really like visiting my parents' house near Astoria. He enjoys cooking and the stillness while I tend to wander in the woods. This last trip I was working too hard though. I'm looking forward to having more fun next time. 

For a break we drove over to Astoria and went out to lunch and then walked the streets of our other favorite town in Oregon. 

I should have taken pictures of our meal but we ate it all too quickly. Looks like I have a good reason to go back now, don't you agree? 

John has a relative with a boat moored in the Astoria so we walked over to look at it. There were old Victorians for sale as well and a few of those caught our eye. 

But it is houseplant season and I'm back in Portland now. It's been a long week and in addition to caregiving I've been writing a lot of content for a cooking blog. I'm still in awe of the fact that I'm being paid to write quality content for someone else as a ghost blogger. I really like the woman I'm working for and cooking is so fulfilling for me. 

I'm still struggling with food photography and am setting up a home studio here for it but I will write more on that later. What's great is that I can also let some of that food spill over onto this blog too. 

Tomorrow I'm off to the Portland Farmers Market to get a wide selection of wild mushrooms. Expect some recipes soon...

In the meantime, enjoy this really interesting blog post from a few years back. The next time I hear someone proselytizing on local foods and how they have a lower impact on the environment I'll through this mushy little monkey wrench at them: Feral Food: How to Eat Slugs.

I'm such a little stinker sometimes.

An Autumn Field Report

My life feels like it's on fire right now—but my house looks like it thanks to the annual display put on by the Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). 

While my life takes off, I'm too busy to even sit and consider what'll happen to me now if I swell up. It took me a long time, and it took a lot of searching and self-acceptance, but finally, I seem to have a professional life and a work schedule I not only can manage, but I've set myself up to succeed and it feels so much better. 

The garden is no longer neglected. In my mind, it's on hold. It's slowly starting up again (really coming to life for the first time) and I'm introducing John to it little by little.

His first unique seed experience was this 'Cruel' vine seed head (Araujia sericifera). It's the only one produced by this non-hardy vine that has survived a few too many winters here in Oregon. I grew if from seed. To see it set seed after several years is very exciting to me.

The vine is in front of the house and isn't really that special. It chokes out all that gets in its way and I was getting tired of its unneighborly behavior. Then it bloomed rows of small, pretty white fragrant flowers and my dislike (aka hatred) for the plant relented.

I am a proud mama now. I can't kill my baby. I've got to collect its seeds!

The small autumn-blooming Camellia 'Silver Dollar' is currently bursting with blooms. I appreciate and admire its restraint and grace. So many of the other garden plants are dressed up like painted ladies this time of year. I love the little touch of class this plant offers my eyes.

The Amsonia I grew from seed a few years ago is looking beautiful next to this Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides)—speaking of painted ladies!

Life in the house and garden is changing though. Our family has changed and I'm working more and more outside of the house now.

Maurice the Cat is ever the trooper and despite his age, arthritic pain, and weight problem, he's soldiering on and has enjoyed every last bit of sunshine he can grasp in his polydactyl paws.

Cats do not like change and only now are they trusting that their lives are not being tossed hither and thither.

The leaves are changing and falling. The air is crisp and tonight we may have some frosty temps in the Portland metro area.

It's a beautiful time of the year and I'm preparing again to participate in NaNoWriMo.

I'm writing a novel again in November—but unlike last year—this story is fully cooked and ready to go. I am also preparing to write many other things. Actually, I'm already doing so. It's time. I am well enough now.

There is still some physical recovery to do. A decade of illness is not easy to repair. I need to lose more weight. My blood pressure and heart need a break. I've lost a lot of weight and have continued to regain and build muscle but my body needs to be leaner and meaner. I am caring for me now and it feels good too.

I will do all of these things that I've set out to do now. That's what I do. That's what I've always done. It's good to be me again.

I'm working as a caregiver now, and I work all kinds of odd shifts with the elderly and those in hospice.

Illness has prepared me for this and I'm comfortable and confident with what I'm doing.

It's not a forever job, but for now, I'm enjoying the pleasure of working hard and the opportunity of getting to know new and interesting people.

They've lived different lives than mine and we honor and respect one another as we work through basic daily tasks that have become increasingly more difficult for the clients. The adjustment has not been easy for me, but it's improving. I know what I'm doing and I know that I can help them.

It feels good.

There's also a new dog in the family. My mother-in-law picked up this little cutie recently and although I'm not a dog person, I like her a lot. She has made my mother-in-law very happy and I've enjoyed seeing that, but the whole adoption process led to John and I craving a kitten.

Between the two of us we have 5 cats. We do not need a kitten. (His two cats live with his mom and her new pup.) We just want one. Ugh.

This autumn we've talked a lot about eventually buying a place in the country near the ocean. I've thought about the garden it would have and what palate of plants I would pick. This is another project I'm working on right now.

I've never really designed a  project like this, but oddly, I'm ready and willing to accept the challenge.

This has led to me thinking a lot about my own design aesthetic. I never knew I had one but it runs through almost everything I do. It ties into the novel writing, so I'm a happily contained little mind now. Inside I am germinating.

There have been many meals and many recipes recently. John has been cooking new things, learning new techniques in the kitchen, and he's been shopping at farmer's markets. As for me, I'm in love with my Cauliflower (Brassica) 'Minaret'. Yes, I've been cooking too, but I've been enjoying all of John's food more. I'm proud of him. He's a great cook.

For me, food has become another job. This is a good thing—literally, a job! I'm still kind of in shock this even happened, but it did.

So, it's exciting to announce this publicly. Here goes: I've been hired to work as a ghost blogger for a food blogger. That is all I can say, since I am obviously a ghost blogger, but to say that the experience is thrilling is an understatement. I want to be a paid writer. I crave it. I need it. I would like to continue working as an editor too. With this opportunity, I will be able to do both of these things.

And from here it will only get better...

Lastly, I've returned to arranging flowers and that's been good for me during the times when I still feel chronic pain from either swelling or injuries I sustained years ago. I'm arranging plant material weekly in an effort to relieve stress and to be creative. It gets my juices flowing and it gives me a problem to solve. I relish that kind of thing.

The whole process brings a kind of value to my life that's irreplaceable.

It's still cleanup time in the garden—my garden: I'm still blogging, there are seeds to sow, I see a future garden to begin designing, and there are many words in the air. My mind has been swept and it is still a bit shady in there, but I see leaks of light and the words are in lines now that float and I can grasp their syntax.

Someday I will describe the mind of chronic pain to show how dull and slow it can become and how one can lose so many words. The feelings and thoughts were all inside of me but I couldn't get them out. I struggled. I was inarticulate for so many years.

It is difficult when the words come to me quickly now. I still feel as though I'm sitting behind the wheel of a fast car as the words pour out. I know that I am not yet as suave as I once was though, I'm rough, I repeat a lot. I could use better words—and I will.

But I will use them for my novel and it will have a garden and it will have plants and there will be so many other wonderful things. My many layers are peeling away now and as winter comes low over the horizon from the cold north I will let the chilling winds lay bare that which I want so badly to articulate but have yet been unable to do so. 

A Letter to Mr Palm (My First Gardening Mentor)

Mr. & Mrs. Palm's home and garden.

Mr. Milton Palm: my childhood horticultural mentor. 

Dear Mr. Palm,

I miss you a lot and it's good that we can talk again like this even if you've been gone for many years. If you don't know it already, I think about you a lot. The conversations we had about soil physics and the lives of plants really stuck with me. I guess our meandering conversations about history, observation, and nature really meant a lot to my growing mind. Those are still a residue in my world and they will always be there. I return to our conversations often but you're not there anymore. 

Did you know that I named my retail seed shop after you? I thought for a long time that I should name it after Grandma Virginia but then I realized she wasn't the seed person. She always bought her annuals in flats. 

You taught me about the germination process and how to get seeds to sing and dance for me. (I mean germinate. You know that's what I mean though, don't you?) For some reason I still have your seed flats and cold frames in my mind. Maybe next year I'll finally build a few simple flats and a basic cold frame like the one you had at the base of the rock wall near the stairs from the upper gardens. You'd like to see that, wouldn't you? I don't think I can make that seventeenth-century Buddhist temple you had there living amongst the grapes on your arbor though. I still cannot believe you made that for fun one winter. You were tickled by the idea that no one your age was building those things in Milwaukie. 

You were a trailblazer. 

I remember you telling me again and again about the importance of native grasses. You dreamed of a time when people would plant grass gardens and the grass could grow freely with wildflowers. Whenever I see amazing meadow designs I always think of you. How sad it is that you're not around to see them, but I am here, and they will always remind me of you—as do the pollinators. 

The pollinators are struggling now, but you told me that would happen. I remember it's why you were so concerned about suburban gardens and the overuse of chemicals. It's why we spent so much time together in your gardens just looking at insects. I was amazed at how many there were, and that I'd never noticed them before, but that's because your garden was a safe place for them. 

The chair at my desk in my office is your old oak chair. It once held a dictionary you so loved and other books you were reading at that time. I have one of your favorite dictionaries too. Yes, I use the Internet a lot now, but I still need to look randomly at words for fun. The chair is paired with Grandma's old kitchen table. Do you remember it? She used it as her storage bench in the garage. It was beside the back door. Whenever she was working on something it's where she'd stage the things she needed to get the job done. For some reason I felt that pairing it with your chair would bring me good luck. The business is growing, but it's not easy. I suppose life is painful and sometimes we struggle. You taught me that too. While I work and sort seeds I think of you and smile. I know how much you'd like what I'm doing. 

You were an amazing neighbor to Grandma. Thank you for bringing the beautiful widow roses and for talking to her about documentaries and National Geographic articles. She was a woman ahead of her time, and you always knew how much I took after her. I might be crusty and grumpy at times, but I still have her heart, the heart of a poet. She liked you too because you respected her and treated her as an intellectual equal. I know that was important to her. 

As I think now of gardening I wish you could be here. There are so many things I'd like to ask you. I would ask you about your muses and inspirations and I think that you'd just look at me and say something like, "Annie, now why would I fuss with that sort of thinking? I've got plenty of other things to think about and do." I can close my eyes and see your grin, it was nice and broad, and then you'd show me your pretty teeth as your grin morphed into a big smile. I used to love how much you'd tease me about thinking too much when you were cursed by the same thing. 

When you got sick I was so upset that I couldn't come over to see you. During your funeral and afterwards I cried a lot because I was devastated that I hadn't been able to say goodbye. I still remember when I saw you last though. It wasn't like my last conversation with Grandma Virginia, but it wasn't bad. I think the cancer must have been starting then because you didn't look well. We still made the most of it though—talking about plants and books. 

At your funeral I remember your minister told us about how you were an agnostic but you went to his church just in case. Then he told us about when you'd telephoned him late at night, waking he and his wife up, because your night-blooming cactus was in bloom. I tried growing a Selenicereus grandiflorus from seed this year and it worked. I think I neglected it though so I may need to begin again. You know I will make it eventually. I want to call and wake people up too when it blooms but I'm probably more likely to post pictures of the occurrence on Facebook. Oh, how you would hate Facebook!

My mind is still all over the place and my garden shows a vast array of my green interests. Someday I will have another herb garden too—just like the one you made for me when I was a girl. I was too young to understand all of those plants well, but you gave them to me and that was a gift I'll never forget. You were the first man to give me a garden of my own—albeit a portable one. It was quite glamourous that summer up on the deck in my treehouse overlooking the creek. That herb garden you gave me changed me and opened up something really important inside of me. 

I have new mentors now and I hope you don't mind—maybe you brought them to me? I think you'd like them a lot. We're all plant nerds and many are word nerds too. We talk of plant exploration and seed collection. Sometimes—with others—we just go around on nursery tours testing out our botanical Latin. I was doing ok with that but a lot of stress threw me off my game. I hope to get back on that ball again soon so that I can be more comfortable with my green people again. I like that song and dance a lot. You know how often I wanted to get lost in your garden with you. I'm an adult now and I still seek out that exact same kind of pleasure. I am not alone though—not at all.

When it comes to my design style I'm inspired by art and nature. You would probably tell me that's impractical, but I think it's because I live in the city and it's different here. (You'd have to agree with me on that front.) I learned a lot from you though about nature, recreating it, and then embellishing it a bit. Your soil lectures taught me how that was all possible. I remember you taught me about the movement of the sun too. Maybe I'm not that impractical after all. I know that you would have liked to see more food here in my garden. I do have a fig tree at least and I'm not finished yet. (Your dried fruits during our long discussions were the best. Maybe someday I'll finally get around to making my own dehydrated fruit but I probably won't make my own industrial-sized dryer with an old engine. I do live in the city. I doubt my neighbors would care for that kind of ingenuity.) 

I'm so grateful to have known you Mr. Palm. You made my youth a happier place and you helped me to better understand that I was passionate about something my parents didn't quite understand. I needed that and you were a good friend to me. Long before I knew about other weird kids with elderly best friends, you were my BFF. 

Thank you. 

It was sad watching as the developments encroached more and more upon your privacy and garden. 

The hardy Fuchsia and the gate to Grandma Virginia's are all gone now. I have only this photo and the many happy memories. Thank you again. 

(The Grow Write Guild is a creative writing club for people who garden. It's a series of bi-weekly writing prompts created by garden author and blogger Gayla Trail. I'm starting out late with the series but hope to catch up soon. It's just what this blogger needed for some summer fun.)

My Garden (An Exercise in Garden Writing)

Back of the house as seen from the back corner of my garden. The willow arbor is floating there to the left. 

After having seen many residential gardens over the last few years I think it's safe to say that mine is rather small, a regular city lot, with areas more or less here and there in strips along the north, south, and west sides of the home. The backyard is probably more of what would be traditionally called a garden, but even it is quite small when compared to larger gardens seen in this city. It is square, roughly 30' x 30', and in its heart is my 10' x 10' living willow arbor. For me, this is the shaggy, ragged and often messy heart of my garden. It's my outdoor living room. It's cozy and a bit wild—probably a bit like me.

This area looks sort of finished but if I'd pulled the camera out a bit the illusion of order would disappear. (That's Cryptomeria japonica 'Spiraliter Falcata' there on the right and an Impatiens tinctoria on the far left. Still cannot find the tag for the really hardy evergreen fern there but I'm working on it. The grassy bunch is a lovely Carex.) 

Then there is the rest. The bits and pieces. I see swipes and swatches as I wander around watering in the heat. I see finished areas followed by piles of trash that I've not yet picked up from old ideas for projects. There are the overgrown run-on sentences of the garden—mostly vines. My garden is one that's a work-in-progress, it's an artist's studio. This place really is my mad plant scientist's laboratory. 

Antirrhinum majus 'Oriental Lanterns (TM)' grown from seed I bought from Park Seed. The color is amazing and the plant is a great plant.

My house faces west. The front yard is not really coherent. There is the tiny hell strip, cut up into three uneven pieces. There is a central area, with a privacy planting, meant to keep the eyes of those on the sidewalk away from my large front window. The parking area is there too but it's currently filled with racks and pots and is more of a staging area this summer. An edible garden once ran along the southern side of the house. It is overgrown now and a mass of tangled plants. It was created initially to be the domain of my ex, but I've not yet fully reclaimed it. I hope to soon. 

Life in the hammock on a summer evening as I dream of better times ahead.

I see the memories of each and every plant and space. I see the ghosts of plants who've come before and which are gone now. I want to garden to build a future now more than to remember the past. This will be challenging for me, but I want to do so. So much about gardening requires time and patience. I've finally learned too that gardening can be exhilarating when you rip everything out and begin again. Just like a diseased plant, it's best to rip it out. Some plants struggle in the wrong conditions, I have been one of those plants. 

The real garden here at home. The back boundary has been an eyesore for years. Here is Mona the Cat watching the apartment dwellers. Someday soon I'l have the fence I've been hoping for and planning for years.

The front garden runs along the fence and turns along with the walking path into what is my north garden. It is the access walkway and no one ever wants to go that way even when I encourage them to do so. Someday I'll actually consult someone about how to make that entryway more enticing, but for now, I'll just continue to gently encourage folks verbally. 

My engagement bike along the North Side of the house. (Yes, I'm engaged to be married.) The bike "La Dama" is now my mobile seed-collecting unit. I can bike to homes nearby and collect seeds from gardens locally to be sold in my online store. So far, the whole process has worked wonders for my health. 

I like the small northern strip. I don't like having to look directly at my neighbor's house, but he's a nice man. He just isn't as into privacy as I am. He has landscaped with English laurels (Prunus laurocerasus), Japanese privet (Ligustrum japonicum), and cedar (Cedrus)—all having grown randomly on his property from seeds dropped by birds or else they were blown in on the wind. He then plucked them and rearranged them into rows. Amazing in its own way I suppose as a lesson in patience and he has loads of that virtue. He's a great neighbor and I like to harvest from his ever-growing army of Western Sword ferns (Polystichum munitum). (My first client has also been grateful for this too.) 

Sedum morganianum in my office. I'm taking care of my indoor babies before it gets too dark and cold outside to do so in the fall. I hate transplanting houseplants when the days get shorter. It's best to care for them now. Their roots will appreciate it and they'll be far less likely to fall prey to pests and disease.

Forgive me for not writing about my plants though. Major life transitions recently have made that painful. I'm healing. I've learned a lot. So many memories were tied up in every corner of green in my space. During the past few years I've really come to understand how unusual I am in that sense. My plantings have held such sentiments. But I know that I am not the only one. There are those who garden to decorate. Some re-create a time, or a place, or a feeling. Many just want symmetry and low-maintance. Some want that impression—a replication seen in a magazine. I planted to forget. I planted to create another kind of reality. I remember far too much and I've come to realize recently that I've never forgotten nearly as much in my garden as I've remembered. 

The garden of my mother. 

My home is the home of a woman who up until recently didn't really understand she had a moderately serious case of OCD. When I was highly stressed during the past decade—for the first time in my life—the negative effects of this affliction really showed themselves. Now I'm using my "old friend" to help me to organize, clean and make sense of the chaos I'd created during so many years of unhappiness and loneliness. I've taken my life back and I no longer see OCD really at all. I had no idea that such severe and extreme stress could do this to someone. In hindsight, I have been that woman. 

I'm very detail oriented. This can be a wonderful thing—especially for making pastries. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy I have a light form of OCD but I want to use it for good. The kind I have appears to have helped me in the past with my academic achievements. I have an amazing memory and when I want to organize and categorize things, it's like breathing for me and I find it extremely relaxing. It puts me in my happy place. When I'm stressed though, things fall apart. I've lived with a lot of stress for many years now and my garden shows that still. It's the last frontier of my former life but I'm making sense of it now. I'm re-writing my garden as I'm re-writing my life. 

First harvest of the season from the Ficus carica 'Petite Negra'.

For these reasons I do not see what others see. As I walk the circle around my home I see what never was, I hear the echos of arguments, there were the joyous moments after my divorce, conversations with friends and foster kids, and I see myself wandering, wondering what to do with myself. I see myself crying in pain during times of horrible illness and swelling. In my head the refrain, "I need help," repeats over and over. It is far more difficult to ask for help than it is to prune a Japanese maple. When I walk in my garden, I see and feel the pleasure pruning the Japanese maples has given me during the worst of times. When I felt my worst emotionally, I always sought my pruners. 

The front of the house July 2013. 

You'd think that this would make for an organized garden but mine is not. There are yet many unfinished projects. I'm slowly trashing them now and am making room for a new period in my life. I'm keeping the plants that grow well and which bring me happiness. If the memories are too painful, reminding me of when I fell and broke my fingers, or when I fell and hit my head, I'm trying not to let the plants die. Instead, I am either giving things away or moving them. The memories are dying instead and things are no longer falling apart. 

Maurice the Cat in his happy zone.

I should add more pictures but I'm still ashamed to do so. With a party coming up to welcome my fiancé into his new home I'm making strides. These things take time, energy, and money and I don't have a lot of any of these right now.

I'm one of the many chronically ill divorced people who've filed for personal bankruptcy. I'm not a perfectly comfortable member of the middle class and I'm not ashamed to say so. That's what I feel and see when I see my garden but I've been learning to see so much more.  

I feel that I'm lucky and gifted to be here—to be able to continue living here. I'm loved now too—a lot!—and I'm learning to be part of a team. We plan to buy the house and stay here. These things take time, but sometimes things work out for the best. I'm learning that too and being positive makes a huge difference. I adore all of the positive green people in my life and want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. We gardeners are ever the optimists and you've all helped me feel alive during a time when I really needed the lifeline. Thank you.

Gardens are for people and this garden is a big part of me. I really look forward to sharing it more with others in the future—and I guess that means you'll get a bit more of me too.

(The Grow Write Guild is a creative writing club for people who garden. It's a series of bi-weekly writing prompts created by garden author and blogger Gayla Trail. I'm starting out late with the series but hope to catch up soon. It's just what this blogger needed for some summer fun.)

A Dream Garden: When I first met mine...

Antiquo jardín del Alcázar de Sevilla (Joaquín Sorolla), 1908.

Writers, dreamers, poets and artists have thought long and hard about gardens for centuries—and so have the more religious and practical among us. At least I imagine they have because I've studied such things, but I'm far from certain. So often nowadays I find that these real characters of history are just as real to me as any who are fictional. I guess I've grown and that fine line is no longer there. It all blends together. It's all a pastiche. 

I'm not religious myself, but I was raised in a Catholic family, went to Catholic school for 12 years, and I now consider myself Catholic by culture. That's how I ended up visiting España with my parents back in my early 20s. Dad wanted to go there for 10 days to take photos of churches and to visit the region of Estremadura. The three of us traveled south from Madrid during the month of December and I'd like to say that I remember a lot more than I do, but I spent most of my trip feeling unwell. 

At night my dreams were in Spanish. (Back then my Spanish-language fluency was much better, although that had never happened to me before and it felt strange—yes, foreign.) During the daytime, my mind wandered back-and-forth in the backseat. I felt between worlds.  

As we drove I thought a lot about what a cousin had recently told me concerning our Sicilian ancestry. He'd researched our family as part of his Master's thesis and had found that one of our earliest relatives was actually a Morisco from Spain. Fresh in my mind was the way my father had vehemently been unable to accept this discovery. Today he's softened and has accepted that it's likely true, but at that time, it dramatically altered how we saw ourselves.

Jardín de Carlos V en el Alcázar de Sevilla (Joaquín Sorolla), 1910.

Before I knew it we were in the beautiful city of Sevilla. We stayed there for a few nights and went to several museums, a Flamenco performance, we ate delicious food, and then one day, while walking around on my own, I stumbled upon the Alcázar of Seville. I went inside. 

The gardens of the Reales Alcázares de Sevilla changed me. I think I was transported there away from myself. They were—and still are—my dream gardens. It was there I felt so many new and wonderful things as I saw plants that seemed so unreal to me. I felt so alive and so awake. In many ways it felt more like home to me than my own home. I had never felt that way before and I haven't felt that way again.

To me that's what a dream garden is about and it's what we seek to make when we design gardens. We want what I can only describe as being a kind of religious experience. Like in meditation, we consciously count our breathing until we transcend and forget ourselves. We want gardens to give us that kind of rush too. It's deep. I know. It seems very much connected to something inside of us that's human. Many of us crave this feeling. It's spiritual whether we like to admit it or not. It's calming. It's soothing.

To Christians, it's a return to Eden, and to those who follow Islam, it's called Paradise. In Arabic the word is جنّة or Jannah—and that's short for garden. That day in Sevilla I felt like I'd visited Paradise. Ever since then, as a gardener, I've wanted to recreate that feeling.

That has been my dream.

(The Grow Write Guild is a creative writing club for people who garden. It's a series of bi-weekly writing prompts created by garden author and blogger Gayla Trail. I'm starting out late with the series but hope to catch up soon. It's just what this blogger needed for some summer fun.)

My First Plant: The Old Man Cactus

An unnamed fuzzy cactus. Not quite like my original Old Man Cactus, but cute and fuzzy nonetheless.  

The first plant I ever owned was an Old Man Cactus (Cephalocereus senilis). I must have been 8 or 9 and it was an impulse buy my mother made out of guilt. I'm not sure now what she'd been dragging me around to do that day, but I recall even now that she bought it just so that she wouldn't have to hear me complain about the day's activities. 

It was a distraction, a bribe, and it worked—at least until I killed it. 

The plant was placed on the shelf you see above, in the same place where you see the replacement plant I just plucked from Portland Nursery the other day. Many of you have probably already guessed that this placement gave the plant a death sentence. Yes. I know now. I did that but I'd wanted it to live with my most cherished possessions—my books. I just didn't know any better.

I don't recall how long I strung that plant's life out for, but I do remember how much my mother hated that plant. 

When I told her I was going to write a post about it here on my blog, she remembered that "damn thing" well. For many years my Grandma Ila had collected cacti and succulents and my mother had always found her mother's groupings—alway in mismatched kitschy planters—to be tacky. As a kid I'd found the whole setup quirky and exotic—not at all like the oatmeal palace my mom had made for us. Her worst nightmare was that I might end up being like her mother. Maybe I did end up a little bit like her, but like all good kids, I'm a lot like a lot of people and I'm myself too. 

My cactus had not been picked at random. For a time I'd admired it at the store and I was fascinated that something so cute could have such painful spines. That trigger in my imagination made me create all kinds of stories about it and one of those was the idea that it would protect me but that makes little sense now to my adult mind. 

Before the Old Man cactus entered my room I knew little of about caring for cacti. There must have been books about gardening for children but at that time I was hooked on mysteries, mythology and the classical texts my dad passed on for me to read. If I'd asked for a gardening book back then I think both of my parents would have chuckled. The fact those are what I mostly own now, and that the books are all over my home doesn't surprise my parents at all nowadays—not even a bit. Funny how we grow. 

When the plant finally rotted I must admit that I felt a bit defeated. One day it quietly disappeared from the shelf in my room and my mom and I didn't talk about it. She hated looking at it and I felt badly that I'd failed. 

It wasn't until high school that I started growing houseplants again, and that time, I quickly succeeded with the basics and felt some mastery. During college my collection continued to grow, and my mom bought me more plants, and I still have a few around the house that I've owned for nearly 20 years. 

This little fuzzy guy is set to have a long life with me now—I hope.

(The Grow Write Guild is a creative writing club for people who garden. It's a series of bi-weekly writing prompts created by garden author and blogger Gayla Trail. I'm starting out late with the series but hope to catch up soon. It's just what this blogger needed for some summer fun.)

Plant Dreaming Deep by May Sarton

When I was a young girl I spent Saturday mornings wandering the aisles of Powell's Books in downtown Portland with my father Frank. Since my parents were very protective of their only daughter—and I was a good Catholic school girl—let's just say this activity persisted for many years.

One Saturday I happened upon a book with a title that really spoke to me. It was Journal of a Solitude and its author was the poet and memoirist May Sarton. At that time I was journaling a great deal, and of course I considered myself to be a solitude, so it seemed like a match made in heaven. I purchased it, read it, and I can say with certainty that it change my life by showing me more of who I was and who I could be. To this day, I still list it as being one of the most formative books of my early creative literary life. Considering how many books I've consumed over the years, this is quite a feat.

Imagine my surprise when just months ago I was reading some theoretical piece about garden literature and May Sarton's name popped up. Almost immediately I put on my walking shoes for the 4-mile roundtrip walk to the Powell's store on Hawthorne. It was there that I purchased this now precious book Plant Dreaming Deep.

It is a garden memoir of a place in time, a person and her life, and the town where she has come to live. As a poet, she writes patches that are striking and true. Readers at first do not know how to make sense of how the text works and fits together. These are the best books for my mind at least where there is a puzzle. We work to patch together the meaning of something so intimate, the thoughts and experiences of a stranger, and best of all, yes, there is a garden and many thoughts about what plants mean to her. More than anything, she bridges the divide that bothers me most about the majority of garden writing. She makes it personal. She is not hiding the fact that her ideas are opinions and her tastes are based on feelings and memories. She is an artist and she makes herself vulnerable. Gardening and garden design is not formulaic and it is not mimicry. I believe she would say that we have little control over our gardens at all and that for the time we have them, we should feel them at every available moment. They are gifts to us. At the garden's heart, like all great things, we will always find the subjects of life, death and change. It is for this reason we've spent so many years reflecting in gardens. It's just what humans do.

For Sarton—and for many of us gardeners like her—it's our heart and our minds we find when we garden. It is our spirit we grow and truly our souls we nourish as we tend to the soil. Not all gardeners fall into this group though, but if you do, and you're like me, I really recommend the work of Sarton.

Emerging Anew: Budding and Reblooming (The cycle never seems to end.)

The blog has been largely quiet for the last few months as I've been reentering and reshaping my life. What's nice to know, at least for my own sake, is that this blog is not going to go away anytime soon. As hokey as it sounds—like me, or even you—it's just going to continue to grow and change.

Rhododendron hybrid at the Espy House in Oysterville, WA. 

I want to grow and change. I want to be like my formerly feral cat who's grown to trust me more and more. For this love she's shown me, I fixed her fence again about a month ago. I'm not going to say that she does the dishes now, but she's quite happy with the respect I've shown her.

Currently I'm seeing so many things again as if for the first time and part of what's kept me away from my typically long and meandering posts has been a reticence to describe my new life because it is taking time for me to watch it as it unfurls.

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum). 

I'm emerging too and with the amount of restorative exercise I've been doing I'm looking like myself again. One cannot describe how much illness changes you inside as you suffer through the pain. In my case, I struggled for years on my own.

Though I'm better now, and so much stronger physically, for the last few months I've had to continue battling Hereditary Angiodema while at the same time accepting the fact that two falls down staircases have caused some serious damage to my back and neck. It is difficult to accept that I didn't seek the help I needed at the time I needed it. Daily I'm reminded of this, and daily I'm learning to think about it differently while acknowledging I did the best that I could at that time. I needed help though in my daily life, and I needed a lot of support. Accepting that I still do, and that I need to ask for it from now on, is something I see now as an immediate need as I better define what living with dignity means to me.

With allergies and food intolerances it's been difficult for years to eat but I've taken charge of that too. Having spent a lot of time with a Scandinavian friend with similar issues helped me a lot last year. Sometimes we cooked for one another too. It really helped me to rebuild my confidence and as my health has improved I've had more endurance in that arena too. Cooking is a big part of who I am.

A shrimp and basil casserole I made with a recipe from the island of Elba. It has tomatoes and potatoes too and that's just about it. 

Handmade cannoli I made for my boyfriend's birthday. Yes, I even made my own shells too. 

My online seed shop has recently been remodeled and cleaned up a bit too. I've been working on many other responsibilities as well. Highlights of my days include moments when I can sneak outside to discover new blooms on my old garden friends.

Slowly, I'm weeding the garden back into shape. Last year I didn't work outside much at all. It was simply too painful. This year, I am trying really hard to take my garden back.

Iris fiorentina. 

There are the new-to-me flowers too. Even if I've seen them a million times in print or online, seeing them up close and in person makes such a difference. I've been visiting friends' gardens more and more and I love it when I'm surprised by what I can only call "new material".

Sparaxis tricolor. 

The classics have been comforting me this spring. After years of living with great stress and uncertainty I'm finally calm enough to really soak up and appreciate their beauty.

Tulip hybrid in the company of a peony. 

The return of my green rose has brought me great comfort and gardener pride. With the high temperatures we've been having it's blooming early this year.

Their black pepper scent was much missed.

Rosa viridiflora. 

With a return to the kitchen, I've become interested again in cooking with herbs and other plants. I've been wanting to raid my neighbor's calendula for years and this is finally the year for me to do it. Have you cooked with Calendula before? Just curious.

Calendula officinalis.

Lastly, I've been returning to my roots and have been enjoying the natural beauty of the region I live in once more. There is so much meaning in everything I see and do now after so many years of struggling personally, professionally, and in my private life. Sometimes I wish that this process could speed up and end but in order to grow, I see clearly now that this takes time and care. I must tend to myself first and then to my garden. In the end, we'll all be much stronger and more disease and pest resistant.

Oh, and I'm getting really excited now about being part of a presentation—along with some other garden blogging friends—on June 8th out at Joy Creek Nursery. Should be fun to really think about the topic of garden blogging over the next few weeks.