Wordless Wednesday: Blooms are arriving earlier this year.

Welsh Poppy (Meconopsis cambrica).

Rosa rugosa.

A Dianthus with a little friend visiting. 

Unknown Iris. 

Clematis 'Josephine'.

Clematis 'Lincoln Star'.

The Lightly Frosted Garden in January

Tree textures: curly willow (Salix) and Doug fir (Pseudotsuga).

It is not a bad thing—at least in my mind—to wake up to a frozen world outside. 

Just a few of my many houseplants in my office/plant room.

With the cold comes sunshine and I can embrace them both so long as the heater is working. 

Pieris japonica 'Valley Valentine'.

With a warm coat and several layers of clothing you're likely to find me outside now looking around. 

Spiderweb frozen in time on a Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide'.

Ok, maybe this is a gentle time during the winter for us and I have to admit that I'm more inclined to giggle at the things I'm seeing rather than groaning about the wet muddiness of it all. (That is if I am not cursing the cold. I'm not perfect.)

Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles'.

Seeing the blue sky all day warms my heart. I adore the color blue and all that it represents. 

Even the ivy that's considered an invasive plant seems somewhat more tame and delicate with a dusting of the cold frozen dampness. 

An Epiphyllum I grew from seed.

Indoors the houseplants are still growing. I sit beside them working while I too bask in the warmth from the heater and I take advantage of the lights intended for their growth.

Some old homes don't have a lot of windows to let the light in, but I make do. 

Wordless Wednesday: The End of a Season

When You're Not Really in the Garden

These last 3 weeks I've meant to be here more, and I've meant to be in my garden, but the medical requirement to walk 15-20 miles per week has been taking up a lot of my time. 

Just a few weeks back, I had the pleasure of walking 6 miles during a really great thunderstorm. Yes, this was classic Portland in the spring.

From the Hawthorne District, I could look back and see where I'd come from and at this point I was a bit worried about the rain that was coming. (Mt Tabor is the green hill you can see far off in the distance.)

By the time the rain started to pour, I was already well on my way home.

Wet and cold, the sky continued to darken but the sunset was nice that night.

Rosa 'Golden Showers'.

When I go on my walks, as I round the corner for home, I can now see my roses blooming more and more frequently. Sometimes I think of my garden as one big neon billboard exclaiming some really colorful person lives here. I like it this time of year as the jungle begins to take over and there is a different world outside my window. 

Oftentimes I see gardens that I think look nice, but are too patterned. I might have a jungle, but these lines really fascinate me because they boggled my brain a bit. I'd rather have a jungle.

Always before reaching home I wander the reservoir at Mount Tabor Park to get in some extra miles. It is such a beautiful place to walk. I walk over the hill you see there in the background and reach home that way. It is such a wonderful place to live. 

This past Sunday I walked to the store to purchase ingredients for a lemon tart I was making for a party later that evening and I ran into what I later discovered was a swarm of bees. It was just waiting here until the group could determine where to go. What an amazing thing to watch. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. I wish I could have seen them at the moment when they all flew away.

Later that same day, after the tart was partially completed, I walked over to Portland Nursery to purchase some heirloom tomato plants from myself and a friend. Along the way I spotted this old mattress frame being used as a trellis support. This isn't exactly my style, but I do love its lines and conical rust-colored squiggles as the grid floats there in the air.

Yes, I am sure this post is a bit random, but when you're not really in the garden, so often you are, aren't you?

Wordless Wednesday: Employer's Garden & Rest Day

È arrivato l'autunno! And darkness is falling...

Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) from the bedroom window. 

Due to my seed collecting and my husband's grape harvesting, bottling, and pressing, for us autumn is when we return to our roots. It's when I begin to feel like cooking again and it's when I return to my Catholic past. From now until Easter we'll cover all of the holidays with food and friends. Once Easter hits though it's back to the "fields" for both of us. (I still have 4 weeks though before Mr B returns home for winter from California. That's when the kitchen really gets going!)

Burst of gold from the bedroom window. That's our old garage behind the house and beside it is our overgrown willow  arbor. (This is what happens when you break your pruning fingers.)

This year I will be making one last road trip to the San Francisco Bay area and I will be taking everyone along with me again. Believe it or not blogging along the way makes the traveling a bit less lonely. And trust me, the Redwoods in the rain and fog can be very scary even for this girl from the heavily forested Pacific Northwest. 

Looking into the heart of the Cyclamen. 

Before I leave I still have so much work to do and that's why my blogging has been a bit slow. At least the Ikebana work has been picking up thanks to my enrollment in a course. My teacher is a wonderful woman I met over 20 years ago when I worked with her husband as an ESL helper for Japanese exchange students. He is also a much loved Buddhist minister and it was such an honor to me that he came to our class solely to say "Hello" to me on my first day. I am still smiling about that! Glowing really.

Perennial Impatiens arguta.

Autumn has had a few surprised for me in the garden too. With the onslaught of a lot of rain, my perennial Impatiens has gone crazy with bloom after bloom. It is so beautiful to see such delicate jewels just before it's the end of the season. The lilac is so unlike so many of the other fall colors but I don't mind a bit.

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit when this box arrived on my doorstep. It's full of dried plant material for crafts, as well as heat sealable teabags and dried kelp for making compost teabags. 

There are all of the last minute craft projects too that I have been planning for my shop. Some are things I have always wanted to sew, like sachet bags, and some are new ideas, like bath time teabags with fresh local dried hops and honeycomb extract from France. Sounds tasty too, right?

Dried Praying mantis. 

Autumn is also the time we have to say goodbye to things we find beautiful until the next season, and when I found this amazing specimen dried between my exterior and interior window today, it saddened me and I felt a little tear well up in my eye, but there will be more Praying mantis bugs in my garden next year. Until then, it's a little bit of feasting around these parts...

"Ogghiu di 'n summa, vinu di 'mmenzu e meli di 'n funnu." 

"The choice oil is from the surface, the best wine is from the middle, 

and the best honey is from the bottom."—Sicilian saying

(I tend to practice my Italian this time of year too by singing a lot out of boredom so here's a little Italian pop music courtesy of my favorite Italian singer Jovanotti. The first one is a corny love song, the second is a classic funny song about love, and then the last one is s new "magic happy" song I am kind of really into right now and the foster kids seem to love it because it's bouncy: Baciami Ancora, Bella & La notte dei desideri).

My Columbia River Collection: Roll On, Columbia, Roll On

Before I left for San Francisco I spent some time along the Mighty Columbia River. For me—and for my garden—this is my happy place. I love the Bay Area and NorCal too, but the Northwest is home. Following are pictures from a trip to the Astoria, Oregon area and to Cascade Locks, Oregon. 

Astoria looks at the Columbia as it enters into the ocean and Cascade Locks is where the Columbia River cuts through the Cascade Mountains. It is also just above Bonneville Dam.

These scenes are sprinkled with lyrics from "Roll On, Columbia, Roll On" written by Woody Guthrie. Hired by the Bonneville Power Administration, this song was recorded on an album of propaganda songs about the federal public works created to make hydroelectricity along the Columbia back during the early twentieth century.

The tune is set to "Good Night Irene," ironically, the song which contained the lyric that inspired the author Ken Kesey to write Sometimes a Great Notion—a Northwestern classic about loggers. 

Lower Columbia

Wikiki Beach, Cape Disappointment, Washington State.

Green Douglas firs where the waters cut through

Down her wild mountains and canyons she flew
Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue
It's roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Wikiki Beach, Cape Disappointment, Washington State.

Tom Jefferson's vision would not let him rest
An empire he saw in the Pacific Northwest
Sent Lewis and Clark and they did the rest
Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Confluence Project, Cape Disappointment, Washington State (designed by Maya Lin).

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Roll on, Columbia, roll on
Your power is turning our darkness to dawn
Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Pearly Everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea.

Other great rivers add power to you
Yakima, Snake, and the Klickitat, too
Sandy, Willamette and Hood River too

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Confluence Project, Cape Disappointment, Washington State (designed by Maya Lin).

It's there on your banks that we fought many a fight

Sheridan's boys in the blockhouse that night
They saw us in death but never in flight
Roll on Columbia, roll on!

Snake.

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Digitalis sp with native bee.

Our loved ones we lost there at Coe's little store,

By fireball and rifle, a dozen or more, 

We won by the Mary and soldiers she bore,

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Leathery Polypody Fern, Polypodium scouleri.

Remember the trial when the battle was won?

The wild Indian warriors to the tall timber run

We hung every Indian with smoke in his gun

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Licorice Fern, Polypodium glycyrrhiza.

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Upper Columbia

At Bonneville now there is ships in the locks

The waters have risen and drowned the rocks 

Shiploads of plenty will steam in the docks

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Wind surfer.

On up the river is Grand Coulee Dam

The mightiest thing ever built by a man

To run the great factories for ole Uncle Sam

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

An island where the Native Americans used to leave the bones of their ancestors.

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Bonneville Dam in the distance and smoke from forest fires. 

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

When Bonneville Dam was built it destroyed Celilo Falls where the Native Americans once fished. Although the falls are still gone, they've adapted their platforms and you see them from the sternwheeler up and down the river above the dam during the fishing season. Here you see a sister and her little brother carrying on that tradition on their grandpa's platform.

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Hope you enjoyed that little trip that jumped from the mouth of the Columbia River up past Portland to Cascade Locks in the Columbia River Gorge. It may have seemed strange to see all of this on a gardening blog but as a descendant of both pioneers, and a native American woman from the state of Montana, it is hard for me not to see the garden around me everywhere no matter where I land.