Anticipating Springtime

Galanthus elwesii.

This past weekend I worked outside for a few hours. There is much debris yet to pick up before the daffodils fully emerge from the ground and I've more pruning to do.

The temperatures were chilly, but it was sunny, and the back garden looks a bit better now thanks to the effort.

Container ships waiting near the mouth of the Columbia River to be driven over the Columbia Bar by one of the bar pilots. It's dangerous work and from this restaurant window we can watch as the pilots are escorted out to the vessels. 

The weekend before that we were able to escape for an extended mini-vacation—but I had to take my work along with me. 

I worked a lot, but we somehow found the time to visit my maternal grandmother in Aberdeen (WA) one day, and we went to Astoria (OR) the day beforehand. 

It's rarely this clear and sunny during January so I took John up to the Astoria Column. (It is quite a landmark and I was surprised when he told me he'd never been there.) The views were breathtaking that day.

Looking southward (sort of) you see Youngs Bay. This is one of my all-time favorite views. Somehow, it always appears to me to look a bit like a painting.

Anticipating springtime. 

Back at the house in Portland, life continues to change and we're all adapting to the new vitality being breathed into our home. John is a lot of fun and has his own ways about him. He's a special man to have moved into a place that is so mine, but we're working to make it his too.

The most interesting adaptation we're currently going through is that the youngest cat (the partially feral one) is moving in upstairs. As she has aged, she has changed. It has been interesting to observe her as she's gone through a lot these past few years. Often, I find her hiding in plants like this just staring at me as I work. I stare back at her and she looks away. I suppose she is working too. I don't really know for certain. She observes the garden for hours on end.

There have been some major territorial adjustments but the two female cats are respecting one another for the first time. (Maurice goes wherever he wants. It's best that way—but nowadays he limps and doesn't move around nearly as much.)

Mona tends to sit on furniture more and more and the ground less. 

Indoors, Mona likes to be around the plants because she is used to living under them during the outdoor half of her year. She seeks them out in her daily routine.

She's anticipating spring and follows me outdoors to spend time with me as I work. I never dreamed she'd shadow me so much. She is very much a loner cat but she's changing. I'm honored but it's more about her than me.

John is getting to know her more as well. He rarely saw her before but now they see one another everyday and he's able to spend time petting her.

When I work indoors—writing and cooking as a ghostblogger for a food blog—she sits near my feet.

This is a big change for me. The other two cats are too old now to remain so alert to my movements all day. Maurice used to always be by my side, but now it's Mona. This is a change. 

Sedum spathulifolium.

Life is still a bit uncertain for me professionally as I try to manage working and serious chronic health issues. I miss my time spent at home, but it was very difficult for me to be living without career fulfillment. I grew tired of struggling to get by, and of working so hard to stay afloat, but it has been a humbling experience. I'm grateful.

The garden is seen differently now, but I'm at least seeing it again. The thought of losing it in the divorce made the sight of it excruciatingly painful. I now deeply admire those others who've gone through that kind of dissolution. I'm not ready to move on from here, but my time will come. Until then, I want to see my dreams and plans come to life outside.

I miss my garden though because I work a lot now and in order to be able to work I need to exercise a lot to keep the pain under control. The absolute pleasure and peace gardening gave me is now at odds with the reality of living a real life, but I am learning how to cope. It is an opportunity I never was given. I'm reintegrating gardening and am starting seeds again. I'm determined that this place will be reborn again soon.

Lewisia columbiana ssp. rupicola.

That's why I'm set to rebuild it. I've been pulling the garden alongside me during the journey as I've been rebuilding myself during these past two years. As time has passed, and as I've struggle with its passage, how could I not think of the garden?

Freelance writing work is not easy to find and I was blessed with my current job. It's amazing and I know it's the right thing for me to be doing. Being a part-time caregiver is becoming more difficult though. I'm growing to the point now where I want to be away from illness. I live in both worlds, but I still want to belong to the living for a bit longer. I know exactly what I have to look forward to in the future, but right now, it's my time.

It took the experience of a difficult client telling me repeatedly that I was there to provide her comfort and to take care of her needs. She repeatedly told me I was doing a poor job. Something inside of me rose up and rebelled. I'm in control of my own comfort and needs right now and I'm going to keep making better and more informed decisions so that I will land in a better place soon. I also realized that I was a damned good caregiver. She simply wasn't the right client for me.

I'm growing in ways I wasn't able to grow.

I'm carving out more time to write too. I cannot wait to see what publishing some of my own work will do for me as a person. It's all I ever wanted out of life and it's accomplishable now. Part of me will be at peace soon after settling that score.

Writing more—more than anything else—will heal some large wounds for me.

I've always been a writer at heart who just so happens to garden and love plants.

Lastly, as I go along plotting all these things out, my mind continues to go in and out of the garden and my plans for it—I mean our plans for it.

I'm currently sorting things around the house and am getting rid of old gardening books and other pieces of junk and this vintage window box combination really struck me the other day. I tossed the book but I kept this image from it.

This is the tangled and complicated kind of beauty I admire most. The round and tender leaves of a nasturtium are the last thing I'd imagine paired with a rattail cactus. One plant grows with ease in one season, while the other is an incredibly mature specimen plant—perfect example of the passage of time in the garden.

Spring is coming soon and I guess I'm not the gardening fraud I feel like I've become due to these past two years or so of major life changes and transitions. I'm going to Italy and I will be looking at a lot of plants. There hopefully will be a beautiful one-year wedding anniversary celebration to plan. There are more plans for the future than I can mention. I'm not necessarily the specimen plant I wanted to become. I've accepted that maybe sometimes I'm going to be the annual plant with great growth and vigor put on during one season. Or, it's baroque and complicated and like everyone else I'm everything at once and far less interesting or important than I imagine myself to be and then I just don't matter and I drift back with my eyelids shut to a sunny day in the summertime where all I can hear is the noise from the city streets, or waves from the Pacific Ocean, and I remember the sound of my grandma's trowel in the dirt beside me as I doze off in the lounge chair.

Yes, I'm anticipating springtime too and the calm nothingness brought on by spontaneous moments of profundity caught in nature and in the garden. Maybe that's what the feral cat is anticipating too.  

Wordless Wednesday: Lan Su Chinese Garden (November 4, 2012)

Lan Su Chinese Garden

Behold! An Artist's Studio has Grown in the Garden

For the last month I've been working very hard to make this studio possible for a good friend of mine. Years ago when I first moved into this house I'd wanted this space very badly to be a writing studio. After I went through that phase, I'd hoped to clean it out and use it for my Etsy businesses, but like many things in life, it just didn't quite work out as I'd hoped.

I can say now (with complete certainty) that cleaning out that space taught me a great deal about myself and my divorce. In each and every object I could see and feel a memory or two and I'd find myself taking mental steps backwards, revisiting these memories, going deeper into my former life, and this allowed me to review repeatedly both my own unhappiness and the many arguments which had occurred. 

This was an incredible experience to say the least, and in a strange way, I'm very happy it took place. 

Mona—the youngest of the 3 black cats—trying her hardest to remain as feral as possible until she can no longer take the wet cold. At that point she'll move into the basement to remain toasty warm all winter. 

The garage/studio is now free of all of those objects and I'm free of their bad memories. The process truly had me working through some intense emotions and for weeks I was physically exhausted by that process. I'm finished with that for now—except for some ongoing trash removal—but otherwise, I've found a great deal of closure. 

Begonia hemsleyana from Cistus Nursery.

For the first time in months, I finally feel like I'm getting closer to my new life and this is an exciting time for me. I've turned the corner and have finally moved past the chaos and am back outside again in the garden.

Rhododendron sinogrande amongst little friends.

I enter there and find that my garden sanctuary is now covered in mysterious autumn mists with a sprinkling of yellow and red leaves that are lifted and spun around by the crisp, sharp winds that punctuate the rays of tilted October sunbeams. 

.Aspidistra elatior.

Often these brisk breezes take me completely by surprise—especially when I am somewhere in the shade.

Great creeping Coleus that I hope to overwinter indoors as a houseplant. Why not!

It has always amazed me how differently I feel about the shade at this time of the year. Whereas it was my friend just a few weeks ago, now it's become the dark alley I don't want to be caught in for fear of some unknown impending danger. (OK, for me that might just be some foot cramps and purple fingers but those can be at least a tiny bit irritating.)

Hardy Cylamen. 

During the last few weeks of summer I allowed myself to fully enjoy my back garden with many friends—both new and old. I'd never done this before and will always remember the late night conversations drinking wine beneath the stars. Like many other gardeners I'd made the space to be lived in, to be enjoyed, to laugh in, and to grow in—that finally happened for me, so now, as I move on (and possibly away from here), I can do so knowing I grew in this place. 

That is what is important to me. I grew. They grew. My friends and I all grew together. It may take a village to raise a child, but I think that growing together as a group of individuals makes something much more vibrant and alive—much like a natural ecosystem. We all have our part to play and are necessary to one another.

I grew as a woman and as a person in my garden this year and it's thanks to the plants I planted which supported us all as people searching out in the dark for meaning and substance.

Lithops. 

Soon I will be posting more about the houseplants as they move indoors again.

As always, I'm returning more and more to my peacock sense of fashion.

Virginia Creeper, (Parthenocissus quinquefolia).

And this peacock gardener is enjoying the riot of autumn colors before they're gone. Sure, not everyone is a huge fan of Virginia Creeper but it does provide the most amazing fireworks-like finale in the garden.

I often sit out in the cold now with the little cat and she takes it all in with me.

The hummingbirds talk to us, and I am happy to have them since they also look at me through the back window in my music/plant/writing room on the mornings when I sit down to write.

More on my own creative indoor studio next time...

(And yes, more to come on indoor plant labor-i-tories soon!)

Xera Nursery Fall Fundraiser and Open House

Sometimes one feels like a kid in a candy store. This was one of those times. 

The sale is over at Xera Plants but I made it at least. This isn't meant in a snarky way, I'm just surprised I had the energy to go! (September was quite an active month for me and I was really drained from all the activities.)

Sorry to have not posted anything about this pre-sale, but so it goes. (This is a wholesale nursery that's not frequently open to the public so whenever they open their doors it's quite a treat!)

Yes, I am posting this after the fact but at least this was something I attended within the last week! (Oh, just wait until my backlog begins to appear soon!)

Crepe Myrtle 'Wichita', (Lagerstroemia 'Wichita').

For a bit of a change I took my landscaper friend with me and we both enjoyed the break even though we were exhausted before we'd even left. 

Polka Dot Begonia, (Begonia maculata).

Introducing my friend to a few new contacts at the nursery was fun, and besides, who among us doesn't really just enjoy looking at plants?

Buddleja colvilei 'Kew Form'.

This form of Buddleja really surprised us both and the blooms were different. If it hadn't been for its leaves I'm not sure we would have been able to identify the shrub. That's what tags are for though...

An Arctostaphylos treated as a standard. 

And just look at the bark on this beautiful topiary! I could stare at it for days, months, years.

Parrot Plant, (Impatiens niamniamensis).

Ok, since I'm always bad about posting my purchases, I will do so this time. First up was a replacement Impatiens. Yes, I know it's getting cold out and that this plant won't be happy soon out in the cold but I should remind those of you who're new to this blog that I have a lot of plant lights and I spend all winter in a house filled with lights and plants. It's not such a horrible way to live and even people who don't garden as much as I do love to visit. 

I bought a Polka Dot Begonia and another Begonia luxurians too. The latter was also a replacement plant. (Yes, some plants were neglected during the separation and divorce process. I felt badly about this, but it has been worth it in the long run.)

Fig tree, (Ficus afghanistanica).

This little fig tree was a nice find. It's a compact form and quite cold hardy so it may end up living in a container although I plan to plant it before winter sets in around here. (If I do chose to move, this one is going with me.)

My sad fig situation this year. 

I was sad that my little fig tree wasn't very productive this year but our weather has been so strange. It's been sunny and warm for weeks now and we've had so little rain. It's October and I still have to water! I should be baking with apples right now!

(Yes, I would have bought more if I could have, but not knowing where I will be this time next year means that I have to really curtail my plant purchases to those which can be transported easily to wherever I land. I do love Xera Plants a lot though and I hope that in the future when I am more settled I will be able to add more of their special plants to my garden.)

The studio/garage. 

In other news, during my recent birthday party—while hanging out in the hammock—an old friend had a bright idea. Later that night he wrote to me and asked: "Have you ever thought about renting out your garage as an art studio?" I took a deep breath before writing back to let him know that when I first saw this house for sale online it was the detached semi-finished former garage space that excited me most. I very much wanted to make it into some kind of studio but we could never do so.

So, if my garden and I are going to grow on in time, it somehow seems quite fitting to let that initial thought I'd had so long ago—a little spark I'd sent out into the world—come full circle. I hope that allowing a gifted and very talented young artist to set fire to his own creativity back there with his brushes and imaginative energy will help to propel me forward. Besides, it means I get to add some plant life back into the space over the winter.

An artist needs inspiration, right? Let it be green...

Silver Falls State Park: Returning to the Wilderness

Yesterday, for the first time in over a decade, I returned to the Oregon woods by going for an 8-mile hike in Silver Falls State Park. It was my first significant long-distance hike in a long time and it went so well that I'm excited to think I'll be able to delve deeper into more remote areas of my region as time goes on and my health and strength continue to improve. I very much want to re-enter the wilderness areas that so captivated and inspired me as a young girl to become the free spirit I am today.

North Falls, part of the Trail of Ten Falls.

When I became seriously ill, the first thing I reached for was plant-life. Gardening was for me my way out of an excruciatingly painful situation that destroyed me. Once I finally had accepted that I'd lost my fight and had to live with what was chronically (daily) occurring inside of my own body I had to let go of many things I held near and dear to my heart. In just a single plant I saw the freedom of the wilderness I was raised to believe in as both an Oregonian and descendant of many pioneers. Gardening then continued to help me as I rebuilt and grew back to who I am today. 

So, yesterday I drove far away from my garden (the place that has been my safety zone for so long), and I went back to feel the source that bound me together during the most difficult period of my life. As my senses took it all in, that sensation of being calm and at home took over. I walked right in the front door and didn't look back until I was finished and it was time to return to Portland.

(Following are some of the 10 waterfalls from the Trail of Ten Falls and some native plants too.)

South Falls.

Lower South Falls.

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum).

Western Maidenhair Fern, (Adiantum aleuticum).

Vine maples in the woods in autumn.

Piggy-back Plant, (Tolmiea menziesii). 

Lower North Falls.

Double Falls. 

Middle North Falls.

(Not one of the named falls. Just a bonus.)

North Falls.

North Falls with native Licorice Ferns (Polypodium glycyrrhiza).

Rattlesnake Plantain—a native orchid of the PNW, (Goodyera oblongifolia).