Saddled with an unfortunate clunker of a name, these Ranunculus deserve a better title, or maybe we just need to embrace the beauty of all names. These flowers have slowly been wilting away since our Purple Reign weekend – at the time of this writing there is only one left intact. Circle of life. Quick pretty hit and run. Back to life, back to reality… End of blog post.
The tulip is not a flower or bulb for the control freak at heart. Aside from a few truly perennial varieties, the bulbs are unreliable for the long-term, often sporting off and becoming something wholly different than their original incarnation, defying those gardeners who plan and plot their colors and bloom times with precision. Happily, I have never been one those gardeners. The garden is one of the only places I allow for a certain element of chaos and unpredictability. It’s a requirement if you want to truly enjoy the lessons that a garden has to impart.
Akin to their garden performance, the tulip flower is a bit unpredictable as well, particularly in an arrangement, where their stems will bend and twist according to what feels very much like wish and whim (they don’t necessarily follow the source of light). That makes for interesting effects, especially if you are willing to go with the flow and embrace some changeability.
Personally, I love the unknowable actions of a tulip. They’ve been causing amusing trouble for centuries, and their prettiness is part of why they get away with it.
It’s not right, but it’s ok.
Tom Ford, in a rare failure, once tried to capture the elusive enchantment of the almost-tangy delicate perfume of the jonquil in one of the fragrances from his garden collection, ‘Jonquille de Nuit’. I didn’t very much like any of that ill-fated line, not even ‘Cafe Rose’ which is the sole survivor of the original effort, but I admired the attempt at conjuring the essence of Narcissus. (Ford would rebound gloriously in the floral realm with his Rose Garden collection, right on the cusp of when roses were everywhere.)
This week, the real-life jonquils have come into bloom, defying the wind and rain we’ve had of late and bravely putting on their little show. As much as I’ve been gardening over the last forty years, Narcissus have not fared as well under my hands as other more difficult-to-grow specimens have. Is there irony or poetic justice in that? Or maybe just a cruel trick of the universe, a dig at my vanity – always more perceived than real – a prettiness just out of reach. Tom Ford failed at capturing the magic of their perfume; I fail at their cultivation, easy though it is rumored to be.
Leaning down, near the ground and beside the brilliant orange trumpet, I breathe in its faint perfume – and it is perhaps the freshest thing the garden will bring us this season. It would be impossible to capture or replicate such a fragrance. Maybe Ford knew that, and there’s something heartbreaking in his making the attempt. In the same way I will plant more Narcissus bulbs in the fall. We all endeavor to make more beauty.
Carnations have a bad reputation, and I’ve done my part in contributing to this over the years (despite the fact that I once sent my first girlfriend a huge bouquet of two dozen of them, back when I was also giving heart-shaped crystal broaches to said girlfriend – oopsie!) Don’t fault me for my taste in high school, please. Over the years, I’ve mostly viewed carnations as filler flowers, and many of us have taken their ubiquity as a fault or reason for scorn, when such common and consistent use is proof of their durability and success as a cut flower.
Stock also is underutilized, in my opinion, particularly when it has such a fine perfume that is not nearly as oppressive as lilies. Taken together, two filler flowers may not feel like a proper bouquet, but I think it’s absolutely exquisite. A subtle tone-on-tone collection of flowers lends an elegant sophistication to a vase, one that forces a closer examination of the forms and textures, a leaning-in to the quiet perfume that both of these flowers provide.
I love a bouquet that doesn’t feel the need to shout.
Ranunculus flowers have always appealed to me, so much so that I once toyed with the idea of growing them, until I read up on their form and habit, none of which made for a great garden plant. I’ve had to admire them from afar. That’s often the best kind of admiration in which to engage. It’s safer from a distant vantage point.
Meanwhile, the bloom of this flower demands a closer inspection, bringing things to a macro level. In my mind, they are a beautiful cross between a rose and a poppy.
The power of a single bouquet of flowers is never lost on me.
Are interior design shots all about the flowers?
I would venture they are.
(More on these Ranunculus later…)
Snowdrops, wide swaths of them, blanketed portions of the Southwest Corridor Park like spotty patches of snow. They have always demanded closer inspection, and as I squatted down to take in their beauty, I wondered why I’d never bothered planting them – the perennial regret I have whenever the spring bulbs are in bloom. Summer erases such regret, spoiling me with its color and floriferous excess, so that by the time fall arrives I’m no longer bothering much about something as simple as a snowdrop. Shame on me for such wanton behavior; it’s not characteristic to throw an opportunity for planning away so easily… must look into that.
These little bulbs were making a very early show of it this year, blooming in the midst of February (I still remember a couple of Boston winters where the entirety of the snow piles sometimes didn’t completely melt until June). And they say climate change isn’t real, well, idiots say that anyway…
Andy looked at the weather forecast for today and remarked that March may be coming in like a lamb. As long as it keeps its lamb-like qualities and doesn’t pull a lion out of its hat nearer the end of the month, we’ll be ok with the milder switch.
The days are growing longer – a couple of minutes more of light are gained every week as we round the corner to spring. It’s evident in the re-blooming of this epiphyte – more traditionally known as a Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter cactus. It has trouble making up its mind about when to bloom, guided only by the duration of light, which doesn’t always align to our human-imposed calendar of holidays. I like that it ignores the human timeframe completely. Nature will always guide us right.
As for this time of the year, it’s alway proven tricky. We still have a healthy few weeks of winter left, and as much as I’d love to jump forward to spring, if we leap too quickly we run the risk of losing our spring buds – the lilacs and azaleas and rhododendrons already tightly coiled and ready to burst forth into bloom. A late freeze will take them all out (and since we had a number of lilacs blooming in the late fall we’ve already lost those). Treacherous terrain, time-wise. We wait, perhaps more eagerly than any other time of the year, and wait we must.
In such purgatorial moments, I slow my mind through daily meditations. Working to maintain a mindfulness that lasts through the day, I strive to stay entirely in the moment, focusing only on what is happening around me – not what has passed or what may come. If appreciated and inhabited fully, the present moment is all one needs to be happily content. There is beauty enough in a day, no matter how gray or dull it may at first glimpse appear.
As our pendulum of light swings back in the direction of spring and summer, I pause to examine the vibrant blooms of this loyal plant, which I’ve had for a couple of decades now. One day it may be passed on to one of my niece or nephews, and it may go on blooming long after I’m gone, reminding someone else to find the beauty of a day in a single shaft of sunlight upon a bloom.
They’ve been out for a few weeks now, and I’ve finally given in to the jonquils on display in all the local grocery stores. I have started to embrace the coming of spring, even if it is a bit early. Easter and Lent are early this year too, so perhaps that’s the way it’s going to be. Didn’t the groundhog predict such a thing too? Not that a rodent should prescribe for us a way of life, but whatever bit of folklore gets us through the winter…
Whenever I pass a pot of narcissus, I pause to lean down and take a deep inhalation of their almost ephemeral fragrance. It’s something that no perfumer has successfully been able to wrangle into a bottle, and I love it all the more for that. Spring is in the air and on the wind…
Only when viewing up close and personally can one see the subtle sheen of fuzziness that encapsulates this unrecognized flower and its buds. I adore little details like this, so often unnoticed and ignored by the casual passer-by. There are times when I must appear rather spaced-out and lost in thought as I take a moment to examine these minutiae in the local greenhouse. It’s part of being mindful. It’s a practice I’ve employed since I was a child, an inadvertent element that informed a bit of meditation I was doing without even knowing I was doing it. Noticing the details of any given moment can occupy the mind and keep it from racing with other worrisome thoughts.
In the midst of winter, taking the time to peruse every specimen in the greenhouse is an exercise in soul-sustenance. There are hints of spring starting to show up in the garden center and in the supermarkets now – pots of spring bulbs, and renewed fresh leaves in certain plants. I want to jump ahead and entertain more serious thoughts of spring, and some mornings I indulge in such daydreaming.
“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” ~ Virginia Woolf
Flowers hit differently in the winter. Scarce and more precious, they are held closer to the heart. Summer makes them superfluous, such abundance robbing us of perspective and perhaps appreciation. But in the midst of January, how grateful we must be for them to be nestled in a vase, lending beauty and fragrance to the barren snow-riddled days.
“The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.” ~ Virginia Woolf
There is something soul-sustaining about seeing a bouquet of flowers in the middle of winter. It makes the heart a little gladder, and the trudge through this awful weather a little easier to bear. The fragrance of roses and stock also feeds the spirit.
“Until we can comprehend the beguiling beauty of a single flower, we are woefully unable to grasp the meaning and potential of life itself.” ~ Virginia Woolf
This is the time of the year when I begin the weekly pilgrimages to the local greenhouse in an effort to get out from beneath the dreary weight of winter. It’s not a fix-all, but it helps, and in early January every little bit of help counts. Such is the cheer that these pretty little kalanchoe blooms bring. It’s a bit early to jump to spring colors, so I’ll keep the thought until later.
The rose has come to signify many things throughout history, and in my exceedingly short history here on earth it has been a source of multiple memories and inspirations. My very first rose memory was of our neighbors across the street, and their magnificent rose garden. It sat formally behind a meticulously-manicured hedge of privet, hidden from the distant road, and backed by a tall row of arborvitae. One side was walled by the golden brick of their garage, and the other was more naturally bordered by shrubs and trees. Inside it felt like a little secluded garden room, and it was here where various roses bloomed, centered by a magnificent old-fashioned shrub rose, with single pink blooms that appeared in profuse fashion to make up for their gorgeous simplicity.
From there, the memory shifts to when I was a little older, and I’d convinced my parents to purchase a collection of Jackson & Perkins roses, which arrived in frightening barefoot form, their bulky crowns still caked with a bit of mud, their branches thick and ready to swell with growth. I made the mistake of soaking them in my parents’ bathtub, which quickly lined itself with a thick coating of dirt and muddy water. No one was thrilled with that, but I was sure that the show I was planning for the front and side garden would make up for that.
When only two red bushes deigned to bloom later that season, my heart sank. Having followed all the planting directions, I was dismayed to find them underperforming, a lesson in location as well as the whims of certain summer seasons in upstate New York.
I’d veered away from them after that, until I met Andy, who grew roses in his backyard like some magical prince. His living room, where he would sit in quiet contemplation late at night, usually held a single rose in a bud vase beside his favored chair, brought me back to the magic of roses. His Mom grew them as well, and I watched and learned his tips for dealing with blackspot and less-than-prolific bloomers.
When we moved into out current home, we hastened to put in a few roses where we had the space and sun, but lacking in regular circulation during hot and humid summers, our tea hybrids simply didn’t thrive. Instead, we found a climber and some shrub roses to make up for them. Roses will not grow where they don’t wish to grow, and there’s no coaxing them into it. I learned to appreciate that lesson after years of pretending it wasn’t so.
These days, we mostly enjoy our roses from the florist’s shop, where we can pick and choose and guarantee a bold bouquet of blooms at any time of the year. The last few days I’ve also been favoring my rose-scented frags in an effort to conjure some notion of summer, even if it’s just in my head and through my nose. ‘Rose & Cuir’ by Frederic Malle is a happy reminder of one of the last winters we had with Dad – I wore it to their house while I spent a day with him, and it remains a giddy memory.
‘Rose de Russie’ by Tom Ford is a slightly more sultry take on the rose, while his ‘Oud Fleur’ simply smolders. Speaking of smoldering, ‘Portrait of a Lady’, another exquisite offering from Frederic Malle, is one of the most gorgeous scents I own, and comes with its own memories and connotations.
That a single flower should have such sway and influence is a happy thing indeed.
Winter songs, at least the one’s I enjoy at the moment, should be quieter moments, acoustic-like and simple, with perhaps a bit of a dour undercurrent. Especially before the onslaught of a winter storm, such as in the predicament in which we currently find ourselves in New York. Here’s a comforting one to pass the morning, a gorgeous bit of music by the aptly-named Zach Winters:
January 6 is also often referred to as the saddest day of the year, so this song resonates a little deeper. I’m leaning into the sadness this winter, finding ways of co-existing with it rather than fighting or trying to distract myself with other baubly bits of whimsy and frivolity. My life provide enough of those – I want to focus on the melancholy – not get drowned or bogged down by it – but simply experience it, feel it, let it wreak its stretches of crying, let it wring the tears and allow them to fall. Such salty water is heavy, and better drained than retained.
I’m also learning to accept love from others as a way of working through the heartache. Andy came home with our first pot of hyacinths for the season – a trio of violet bulbs that began blooming almost the second he brought them in the door. They smelled of spring, of hope, of a time less foreboding. They felt like a hug from my husband – always welcome, always needed.
