A little preview of tomorrow morning’s greenhouse-inspired post, this is a specimen of stephanotis, sometimes called the Madagascar jasmine. Sweet of perfume and swirling of tendrils, it is a white flowered scent of summer, one of those heady tricks of the greenhouse while the snow spins wildly outside.
The holiday season sometimes demands a bit of escapism, and this blog was largely built on such notions. Calgon take me away…
While this morning’s post was tinged with an underlying tension and danger, this one is all afternoon light and golden hour goodness, because the world is dark enough without me adding to the madness and mystery. Fall will offer ample moments for darker matter – for now, for this afternoon, let us have the light of a clump of asters.
Asters are one of the most exiting parts of the blooming moment at hand. They saved the best for last, knowing full well their best light will hit right about now. They soak it up, soak it in, radiate beauty, and prepare for their winter rest. Would that we follow suit.
Perhaps it was their ubiquitous use in the floral arrangements of St. Mary’s church that made me rebel against the gladiolus from a young age, but whatever the case I’ve only warmed to this stunner in recent years. They’ve been showing up in the markets over the past few weeks, and I’ve been replenishing our prettiest vase with their various color schemes. This time it’s the warm hues of these fiery-throated beauties captured here.
Red-beards have their own fan club in certain circles, as does the gladiolus, whose colors and varieties are as varied as the daylily and iris world. The person checking me out of Trader Joe’s, where I picked these beauties up, shared with me a trick for getting them to bloom all the way to the end of their stalks: snip off the top inch or two of the tip – it can be done by carefully peeling back the outer green protective sheath so you barely notice that anything was cut. This variation on a circumcision supposedly stimulates the plant into blooming the entire length of its stalk, and based on these blooms it seems to be working.
Here’s a little tropical flower to set the tone for this hot and humid week. Summer is at hand – let us rejoice and be glad in it! When I’ve slipped into songs I once sang at religion class every Tuesday afternoon waiting for the bus to bring us home, you know things have gone slightly awry. I have no excuse, I have no reason, I have no sense of sanity anymore. But I still find prettiness around me, such as in this little purple flower, the scientific name of which escapes me, as does the common name. All names escape me. Mine would be included if it wasn’t sewn into my underwear. Just kidding. Not even I am that precious.
Wow, this Wednesday post is something. All silliness, little substance, and the world outside is wilting. Nothing makes sense anymore, and I’m tried of trying to make it so.
A purple flower is all I have – there is majesty in it, no matter how small.
There are many plants I don’t know by name, many flowers I’ve rarely seen, and I’m always excited to see a new specimen because it reminds me how wide and expansive our world is. It is thrillingly humbling – the humility a reminder of the tiny place and space we occupy and influence on this planet.
This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the purple flowers pictured here – it feels like I’ve seen them in tropical places – maybe Florida – or some sunny climates as found in California. This particular plant was doing quite well in the warmth and humidity of this summer, draping its purple floral curtains over the edge of its pot.
It would be simple to find out what this plant is. It would be easy to solve this floral mystery. These days, I find more wonder and joy in the not knowing. Growing older, one learns to accept that they do not know it all, that they cannot know it all.
The best bouquets are those that manage to look that most elusive way: effortless.
That is the greatest secret of a successful bouquet.
Unfortunately, that effortless, carefree look requires more than just plopping some stems in a vase and letting gravity take its course. But happily not much…
A decent bouquet requires a light touch. Placing each stem and evenly spacing them from each other is the worst sort of bouquet, and we’ve all been guilty of it. Instead, I try to make an easy, sometimes unexpected focal point, and groupings of flowers that play off that focus and try to move the eye elsewhere. Color can be a way of drawing the eye as well – colors that play off each other, or echo that focal point. Don’t forget the importance of foliage, which can be a focal point in itself, but may also break up the color and architecture of the flowers.
Romanticizing this heat is an indulgence as it’s still rather new. Should it persist into August, we won’t have such a kind view of it. With rain due later in the week, let’s embrace the sun, and find ways to find coolness, such as in the hues of these blue and violet flowers.
The simplest way to combat the heat – or at least to attempt tolerating it – is to slow down. This is not the time to exert yourself with activity or frenzied motion. The common trio of ‘calm, cool and collected’ hasn’t lasted for its inaccuracy – each feeds into the other.
I will bring that energy into the office for the next few days, because with intention comes reaction.
So much of summer wants to shout and scream and jump up and down.
The quiet parts are what keep us cool.
What is that bright blaring thing in the sky?
It’s the sun!
Where in fuck have you been?!?
{Excitedly checks the weather app after shutting the shit down on the 29th consecutive weekend of rain… and sees the upcoming weekend set for… more rain.}
Before that next weekend of rain arrives, let’s have our sun and eat it too.
A few miscellaneous flower shots from our recent trip to Maine, and now I’m heading into the light… for the moment…
We begin within the hairy bloom of the foxglove plant, speckled with dark blood-red markings as accentuated by a pale surrounding aura of creamy white. It demands that we peer closer, lean in, and probe more deeply into its mystery and beauty. This is what I so adore about flowers – the tease, the flirtation, the invitation, and the seduction. More happens in the garden than most people realize, and I pity those who miss it because they are no longer thrilled by natural and simple beauty.
There are stories and fables and fairy tales that gave the foxglove its common name, and sometimes writing them out or explaining them in great detail ruins the magic inherent in a name. We may have lost an appreciation of such nuance, such subtlety, and maybe we need to stop speaking so much to return to that state of gratitude.
Last fall we had a crazy warm spell that brought out many lilac blooms long before they should have come out – and when you spend your lilacs blooms in the fall, you don’t get many in the spring. While others delighted in the unconventional blooming of the lilacs in the fall, I mourned and complained, because I knew what we were going to be giving up. And here we fucking are.
This is the lone lilac bloom on our hybridized lilac shrub. In honesty, while others enjoyed a fall bloom, ours didn’t bother. Sadly, our trees tend to take a year off of blooming now and then, so ours joined with the others experiencing a lackluster bloom cycle. No matter, it makes this single stem all the more cherished and glorious – and it only takes one to fill a room with happy spring memories.
Original settled by the Dutch, Albany retains echoes of its roots every year when the tulips bloom. This has been an exceptionally strong showing for the famous, and occasionally infamous, spring bulb. On a recent and rainy lunch break, I found these beautiful beds in full bloom along my downtown Albany walk.
The air around here was perfumed with the spicy sweet scent of the standard tulip flower – something that I have yet to encounter in a successful perfume version of this elusive fragrance.
Tulips provide one of my happiest memories of childhood, and reading, and flowers. To this day, their aroma brings be back to the library, back to the Dutch tulip craze, back to a childhood where my love of gardening and books was borne in one beautiful fell swoop.
Our Kwanzan cherry tree has been especially floriferous this year. That isn’t always the case, so we cherish these years because the next one might be a bust. With the rain and wind we’ve had, it’s been a shorter show than usual, and their beauty is all the more precious for their fleeting nature.
The petals perform a number of shows – starting with their celebrated turn on the tree itself. If there is rain, they will droop downward, dangling and twirling in the wind like little ballerinas, and if there is wind they will let their finery fall. This is the second show – the fall of the petals – graceful and delicate, even in the wildest of storms.
The third and final show is the petals and the pink carpet created whoever they land. In our case, much of this last display is in the pool, where they swirl and form little pink islands of prettiness. A bit pesky for those who must scoop them out, but pretty doesn’t often come without a price. And the peace such a scene affords more than makes up for a little extra work.
A favorite month for some of us, May begins in beautiful fashion, donning this floriferous coat of cherry blossoms amid wind and impending rain. Andy accurately summed up the scene by simply proclaiming that everything was blooming at once after weeks of stalled spring weather. It waited for so long, and now the petals are already falling away – the beauty lasts but a few scant days.
On this first day of May, I’m already afraid of how quickly it seems to be moving, and making motions to slow it as much as possible. I haven’t quite figured out how to successfully slow time like that – as much as I attempt to be mindful, to be fully present in the moment, to look around and pause and contemplate, making a memory, as best as I can, even as I feel the new memories disappearing as soon as they’re made.
And then I set some of it down in words, leaving them scattered here, who knows for how long, who knows for who to read, and maybe it lasts, and maybe it doesn’t.
The jaunty jonquil, sign-bearer of spring in beauty and delicate fragrance, has heralded the arrival of slightly warmer weather. It looks up at the sun, seemingly as thankful as we are for its warmth and light. It also shudders in the wind, shivering the way we might when the sun hides behind the plentiful clouds.
On the morning these photos were taken, the sun was out and about, and the day looked to be kind. Spring sometimes starts in fits and spurts, and we accept the sun as it comes.
These are happy sights, worth slowing down and taking a moment to appreciate. To savor. To get down on the ground beside them and bring your nose to their wispy perfume.
A reminder of what matters.
And that none of it lasts forever.
