Meditation Upon A Landscape

Consider:





No weeds, no stray wisps of folige, no trash. A couple of guys moved here all the way from Mexico to maintain this. Stark white stucco, bare dirt stripped by swift rakes of all life-enriching humus. Greasy asphalt.

Naturally graceful, normally billowy Podocarpus gracilior here unnaturally dwarfed, buzzed via smog-belching two-stroke engined reciprocating clippers into rigid asymentric rectangles, like hammerheads poised to smash that row of baby Aeoniums. Aeoniums with plaintive little arms, ask for mercy. It has a tipsy geometric dignity to it, this wild imbalance of scale, and the power of simplicity.

The Podocarpus are the survivors of the original plantings while the Aeoniums are new. Those Podocarpus are tough bastards. The Mexicans who buzz them are tough, too. They came all the way here from Michoacán or Guerrero to feed the family back home. This is how they do it.

Those tough bastard Podocarpus root systems will eventually crack the sidewalk and buckle the asphalt. No, it won't be revenge for what we've done to them. They will just be searching for water and nutrients. They will just want to continue.

Yes, another fish movie

Quiet contemplation for a Sunday morning.

Just-In-Time Pumpkins

I planted the pumpkin seeds almost too late this year. Last year they sprouted too early (May) and they were ripe by August, whereupon they sat slowly drying out until pie-time at the end of November. So this year I decided to plant them later, but I procrastinated too long and got them into the ground only in the last week of July.

Here they are the last week of August:



By the beginning of October I had 4 pumpkins, but it was iffy as to whether or not they would ripen sufficiently before the plants died. The plants had begun their traditional mildewing and the stems were drying. The mildew never affects the pumpkins themselves, so I ignore it.



Thanks to a perfect warm October and early November, we managed a modest crop, enough for Thanksgiving pies. Last year I got about 30 pumpkins and couldn't use them all. Next year, I'll plant by mid-July.

I'm also going to look at an heirloom variety or two. The one we always plant, 'Small Sugar' has a fine texture, but little flavor. In the past, I've tried a "Buttercup" squash, but although the texture was velvety, the flavor was not much better and the yield was poor. I'd like something tastier--any suggestions?



All's well that ends well. Here's a good end: dessert and flowers!


Pie!




Rosa 'William Morris' (Austin, 1998)

I can't be the only one

Is not the most painful of all gardening activities set out on every seed packet?

It begins: "Thin seedlings..."

I am assured that one must be strong and thin out the vegetable seedlings. However, it is more than a little heartbreaking to see those beautiful baby plants, so bright and hopeful in their newness and freshness, emerge from the earth, knowing that some of them are doomed.

But it must be done. I try, but never can seed thinly enough to save every seedling. This week I came upon a solution not quite so bad as leaving the sacrificed to shrivel among their luckier sprouts. I eat them.

They are delicious, nutty with a touch of pepper. I savor each tiny bite. I recognize each tiny life. At least that is not a waste. Nature is endless waste. Most acorns never become Oaks. Most beautiful flowers are never cherished. Kittens are drowned. Most gifted people do not get the opportunity to use their gifts for a more beautiful world. Nature cannot be denied, but my savored spinach and broccoli seedlings are at least remembered, recognized, enjoyed. It's something.

Others must feel this way. I can't be the only one.

White Roses

What is Purity? Mere innocence?
Perhaps, in that innocence is absence.
The blue eyed baby is only potential.
But absence is nothingness, and purity's
something-ness, an all-of-one-kind-ness, a sheening.
Galahad was pure.
He was allowed to see the Grail
but not to
drink from it:
Purity takes you only
part of the way.




What is a white rose?
White light, sum of all colors.
And absence is nothingness, but a white rose
is a breathing sheen,
a chalice of cream
well-sculpted, and so
like the sight of the Grail,
it can take you, though not all of the way,
sometimes
far enough.







Rosa
'Secret Garden Musk Climber'
'Sombreuil'
'Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria'
'Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria'
'Bolero'
'Lichfield Angel'
'Glamis Castle'
'Pope John Paul II'

Happy Rebirthday

Happy Rebirthday to Hoover, who joined our pack twelve years ago today, courtesy of Samoyed Rescue, at "about age two". He's slowed down, lost a lot of hair, but still proudly maintains a very, very poor attitude.



Happy Rebirthday, sunshine!

Before & After

Here is the "before", or rather just the beginning:



Here is the "after", or rather the during, the peaking:








Tagetes lemonii, common name "Mexican Marigold" is non-descript, even rather ratty out of bloom. This particular plant looked horrible in March, when I cut it almost to the ground, leaving a few dry 4" branch stubs to spend the spring and summer growing into a plain, somewhat saggy green globe. Now that November has arrived, it's suddenly a glowing cloud of yellow.

With Maireana Sedifolia in the foreground:



Not every plant can be beautiful all the time. Not every person can be beautiful all the time, or understanding all the time, or thoughtful all the time. But if we are patient, it will happen.