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

Lan Su Chinese Garden

Imbued with the Spirit and Strength of Nature

It has been at least a month since I've written anything substantial about gardening or plants here on my blog. Funny to have been so silent, but I've been rediscovering so many things about who I am, and I think it's safe to say, I have been growing a great deal.

Some days I feel like that vine that ate the garage last summer. I'm blooming and blooming and I just cannot stop growing and reaching for the sunshine.

Lan Su Chinese Garden in downtown Portland, OR. I introduced some amazing new friends from Paris to this Stumptown gem last month.

Much of what's been happening has also felt a lot like suturing a wide open wound. Long ago I forgot where I was going, even where I wanted to go. I only recently realized that most of my adult life has been based solely on what I was able to do within many physical and personal limitations. I hated it.

Pomegranate bloom at Lan Su Chinese Garden.

I am free of those restraints now for the first time in my adult life, and the rediscovery of myself has been a very complicated process. It wouldn't have been possible either without all of the friends who've come back to help me with all of their love, support and feedback. Many of them had mourned the loss of who I'd been for very long and I cannot explain how amazing it is to see their excitement and emotion right now. 

This Yucca filamentosa aka Adam's Needle is one of the first plants I ever germinated. It was important for me to really enjoy its blooms this year. 

Ever since I can remember my life has been imbued with a love and interest in nature and plants. Embracing this part of myself has been a big part of my recent activities as I've sought out many different kinds of activities beyond the garden gate. It is difficult to describe how these activities have been guided, but that's because it's been a day-to-day thing.

Streamers from an outdoor concert I attended in Portland with my cousin.

I have been enjoying every moment and feeling everyday and the sensations from both all feel like gifts now as I try to enjoy as many different kinds of activities as I am able to outdoors and with friends or family. After having spent so many summers indoors, unable to walk much, this is a huge change for me. 

I am remembering what it feels like to filter and feel things other than the pain I felt for so many years from the swelling and discomfort my condition caused. I am such a sensation seeker and I have been loving all the things I've been feeling and sensing again.

May Pole ribbons from the Finnish American Folk Festival of Naselle, WA. 

I also still see plants everywhere.

The finished piece—and yes, this is what a summer sky can look like in the Pacific Northwest.

Even when I'm enjoying other things I still see their meaning and importance all around me in different communities and groups. I take note of how others care about the plants where they live. It still fascinates me to see the nostalgia we attach to things we cannot control.

I have also committed myself to seeing and doing other things too. That's why I haven't been here too much recently. I am expanding growth in every direction right now.

I am growing to retrain myself.

I will prune what I need to again later.

I felt trapped in a corner too for a long time. I think we have all had this feeling.

Plants are still at my center.

I still adore clipped shrubs very much—especially when so much depends upon the white cat beside them. 

I say this as I still see myself overlapping my love of art history and design with plant life more and more. I am imbuing meaning and emotions into so many things when I touch them—even when it's just a snapshot.

Driftwood at the Washington Coast. 

Then there is the ineffable experience of my region and its natural beauty and I have been re-experiencing my place here recently probably more than anything else. It creates a sacred feeling for me and it is silent. Everything about who I am springs from this place deep inside of me and the silence brings me much peace and calm.

A typical coastal salmon river in the Pacific Northwest. 

I am not well-rested yet, but I am working on it. Since I have at least 10 years to catch up on it might take me awhile to feel more calm, collected and self-possesed.

My father and I as I channel my own inner Jacques Cousteau. 

Spending time near water has been a high priority for me. I miss spending time in boats and this is something I plan to do more of in the future.

Two Great Blue Herons we spotted in a tree near the mouth of the river in the tidal zone.

The sounds, sights, and sensations on the water felt like home to me.

Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maxium) seeds.

I saw plenty of seeds while on my adventures too. (Of course I had to add those.)

Native Vine Maple (Acer macrophyllum) reaching over the water. 

I also very much enjoyed observing the many communities of plants along the riverbank—but that's a whole other post.

Begonia boliviensis in my garden. 

Then there is my garden back at home. I have not been in it much as I still connect a lot of unhappy memories with toiling in its soil. I buried a lot of distress and unhappiness here. There were many lonely hours spent wondering about my marriage. I also worked hard on my plants as a means to build the denial deep inside of myself of the reality that I no longer liked or even respected my husband very much. I was in denial of this fact for a very long time.

To say we'd grown apart is now an understatement since I now know we never grew or built anything together in the first place. I think in many ways this lack of a relationship is what drove me to plants more than anything.

I am currently separating these feelings from my garden.

And the cats are doing as they please...

Right now I am editing the plants. I still have no idea where I will be living a year from now, but no matter what, this needs to be done. Maybe I will be here, maybe I won't.

Oddly, I was driven to remove plants I'd planted that I'd purchased long ago because my ex had expressed some kind of interest in them.

He never really liked the garden much though, and never sat and enjoyed it much at all, and like my illness and the mortgage, it was just another burden. I am happy to be free of this black cloud now and I hope to see my garden look amazing one more time. 

The wine grapes were also some of the first plants to go.

And now as my garden is in a stage where it looks like the bedroom of a rebellious and messy teenager I stand firmly again on terra firma. Sure there are dead plants in pots like the plates of rotting food that often get misplaced beside the dirty socks in the rooms of our youth across the nation—but I am looking at this now and I am laughing. It is seriously funny to me.

Someone keeps telling me, "It's ok." As I look around at everything I just keep laughing. Here in this moment it might seem like I have a lot to do, but I'll get it done. I am pretty sure my friend it correct. No matter what, I've been through a lot, and it will be ok.

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?

Garden Blogs Flinging Themselves upon Seattle! (Pre-Fling Prep Course: Kubota Garden)

Grrrrrrr. I'm an anatomically incorrect stuffed eel toy and I'm about to take Seattle! I'm a lean, mean, green, garden stalking machine. 

The Amateur Bot-ann-ist has never been a flinger, but I'm flinging this year to give it a shot. I'm almost always open to new garden viewing opportunities, especially when my cohorts are not kids groaning in the backseat. Garden Bloggers Fling 2011 (Seattle). 

My husband needed a break from California so he came with me. After our arrival, I tagged along while he accomplished some work. There is a tasting planned for this Saturday so first we dropped off several cases of wine at the Fremont Wine Warehouse. Then we jumped back on the freeway and headed back to another shop. I marveled at the greenery both times we passed through downtown. Due to our wet and mild summer it is looking even better than usual.

While he was pouring samples at another shop in West Seattle I sat in the car and played with my new camera. It's a Canon PowerShot SX30 IS and I think I'm in love. Seriously.

While I was in the car I realized that on our way back into the city we could revisit a garden that I'd only seen once during a winter trip to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show: Kubota Garden.

We bloggers will be visiting the Bloedel Reserve on Monday so the least I could do was revisit the garden left behind by Fujitaro Kubota. He was a Japanese immigrant from the island Shikoku, a self-taught gardener, and a man who became a keystone to what is called the Northwest Garden Style. He also designed the Japanese garden at the Bloedel Reserve. 

An island of Bergenia cordifolia. 

After having seen the Kubota Garden during the winter, I have to admit that today it felt like an entirely different place.

Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo.'

This Japanese maple, known in Japanese as the "Floating Cloud Tree" took my breath away.

The green canvases he painted with a textural brush are so calming and peaceful.

As you walk through the scenes, experiencing the layers, it feels cleansing and refreshing.

 There are nooks and paths that lead to views.

You may even find a place to rest in the small forest. It was planned and planted in such a way as to make the space seem larger and longer. This is very pleasing to the eye.

There are two red bridges. One bridge is lower and wider.

Red berried of a Vaccinium parvifolium.

There were native red huckleberries.

The other bridge is higher and is more of a Moon bridge.

As we left the garden we both noticed the construction that we'd seen several years ago was now complete and that they'd added a new wall and passageway into the garden. The contemporary construction includes "tiles" made of rusted metal rectangles which truly enhance the garden with their weathering. Additionally, the concrete blocks reminded me a great deal of the Gordon House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, where I used to work. Do you like the wall finished or unfinished? I love either, but I think that the raw and unfinished wall could look a lot worse. It truly is kind of interesting.

I've not yet met any of the other garden bloggers, but I certainly feel as though I've arrived. I look forward also to deeper contemplation of the Northwest Garden Style that means so much to me. Cheers to you Seattle!