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.
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.
Andy has been chomping at the proverbial bit to get the pool open but the weather has not been cooperating for an early season. I’m cooling myself with glimpses at the spring bulb blooms that have been populating markets the past few weeks. It will have to do for now.
Even the most careful and fastidious among us can lose a bloom in the course of arranging a flower bouquet. When that happens, rather than toss it into the garbage, I’ll seek out a shallow bowl or dish on which to display the bloom. My heart always bleeds a bit for those wayward flowers that get beheaded before they have time to fully open up.
Here, a chrysanthemum flower – architectural stunner on its own, even bereft of stem – forms its own little bouquet, and at a perfect scope for a dinner party where no one wants to talk over or around a pesky arrangement.
The happy visage of bright yellow jonquils has arrived in the local markets – a sure sign of spring on the not-too-distant horizon. With temperatures soaring into the 40’s, perhaps we are finally headed away from this frozen winter. It’s been a long and trying one, with nary a thaw or break in its icy edge. And of course it’s not quite over.
Seeing us through the final weeks of cold and ice, these Narcissus blooms remind of cheerful vanity, string their poses and emitting their fine delicate fragrance. Tom Ford once tried to capture this delicious aroma, and failed miserably.
We are but one month away from spring, meaning there is only one more month left of winter. Getting two-thirds of a way through something means the end is in sight – distant sight perhaps, but in sight nonetheless. That said, in the case of winter it’s always this last trudge that feels the bleakest and most difficult. Nerves are frayed, patience is at an end, and even the magic of a snowstorm doesn’t seem so magical when you’ve already done it as much as we have this past year. I find ways of coping in splurging on a bouquet of fresh flowers, then watching as the light shifts during the day, illuminating different hues and colors as the hours tick by. I won’t disturb your viewing pleasure with these pesky words any longer.
“We don’t ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different for ourselves.” ~ Gwendolyn Brooks
The winter blues are best dispelled through strategic use of candlelight, flowers and an invitation to friends for an informal dinner party. Freshly-inspired by my very first viewing of ‘Babette’s Feast’ I am currently all about a fancy dinner – mostly just in the way of candlelight, because Andy will be crafting a simple Italian meal of basic staples for tonight’s festivities, and I’ve already indicated on the invitation that dress is entirely casual.
“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.” ~ Walter Hagen
We do have some crystal stemware that Andy had from before I ever knew him, which sparkles majestically in candlelight, and some small bouquets of pink anemone and purple freesia (all due apologies to Miranda Priestley for the latter) to brighten the winter evening. As with most dinner parties, atmosphere and cutlery and outfits are always less important than guest selection, and with Sherri, Skip, Maria and Kato, it’s already a happy success.
“I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.” ~ Emma Goldman
There are things that you guess and things that you know…
Every greenhouse keeps a store of sexual secrets inside its sweaty glass walls, at slight odds with the way flowers so flagrantly flaunt their sexual activities. For those attuned to every protuberance and emission of pollen, reproduction is around every corner, and in every crack and crevice of a greenhouse is the possibility of propagation.
There’s little things you hide and little things that you show…
Most flowering plants are monoecious, meaning they contains both female and male elements, so that they can procreate on their own. No need to get into the science of it all – that always waters down the sexual energy buzzing in the greenhouse air. Better to let the floral fantasies unwind, unfettered by fact and technical terms.
I said I won’t tease you, won’t tell you no lies…
Amid an endless winter, a greenhouse provides greenery and life – pulsating, pumping, refusing-to-be-pushed-down life. You can almost feel the fluids flowing through the stems and leaves, filling the veins and throbbing through each unfurling flower.
It’s playing on my mind It’s dancing on my soul…
Bulges of buds, swelling and bursting, some with color, some with fragrance, some with sturdy erect form, some drooping and hanging limply in extravagant splendor. There is sex around every corner, waiting to be grabbed, wanting to be bent over, needing to be opened and filled and hit like a truck…
It’s natural It’s chemical It’s logical Habitual It’s sensual But most of all…
Bumping against each other in the slightest humid breeze, or in clandestine meetings behind the veil of night, flowers will have their fun for survival.
I’ve noticed the same enchanting perfume from the blooms as the last time it put on a show; at varying times in the day it releases this sweetness, as if it selectively choosing when to emit such beauty, teasing and hiding when it feels like it, pulling back when the world feels too thirsty. As someone who’s been accused, quite accurately, of being a coquettish tease, I admire such silliness.
More than admiration, I have an appreciation for an orchid that sees fit to come into bloom at the very bottom of our winter doldrums. There’s a certain grace in that, a gift in these dark days – something to keep us going until the first hints of spring arrive.
One of my favorite plants may be in outside bloom in some parts of the world. The winter rose, usually referred to as the Lenten rose or Christmas rose in these posts, has been seen blooming in Boston in milder Decembers. I’m not sure this has been one of those Decembers, as I have’t seen it on recent city explorations, and the blooms seen here are from a display in Trader Joe’s. It matters not – beauty is beauty, whether natural or forced – each has its charms.
Right now, the bulk of our flowers will be found in forced form, unnaturally in bloom at this mostly inhospitable time of the year. In some respects they are more precious and important now than when they come into bloom outside when spring first arrives. That’s what I mean by beauty is beauty.
A simple bouquet of spray roses – pink, as Andy prefers his flowers – is a bright spot as we approach the longest night of the year. These photos were taken in the early morning light – later I’ll post their dramatically different hue at night.
I’ve found that one way to ensure that roses open up is to cut them immediately before plopping them into water so there is no time for the stem to seal up and hinder water flow later – as well as using the hottest water that comes out of the faucet (and no hotter, so you don’t need to boil anything on the stove).
Andy used to grow magnificent roses at his former house, where he had sun and good circulation and the summers were kinder than they’ve been of late. As we get older, there is less interest in sustaining such high-maintenance performers for a few flowers, though from time to time we try out a rose just to see if the climate has improved. Thus far it’s only gotten worse, with the blackspot and humidity and aphid infestations.
For now, these bouquet will have to do – and the bonus is that they’re available year-round whenever we need a little lift of spirits, even in the month of Christmas.
