Color in the Garden: Silver (Foxes)

Many women seem to find men with salt and pepper hair attractive. I believe they are called "Silver Foxes." I have two colleagues, both of whom are exceptionally attractive even without the sprinkling of white and gray, who turn women's heads. I learned that some (now former) students even texted each other when the elder of the two silver foxes would enter the coffee shop. "Silver Fox arrvd." No studying was done on those days. Eye candy supersedes intellectual treats. 

Silver has something of the same effect in the garden. If my gardens passed through their early spring blue phase, they now experience their yellow phase. Sedum ellacombanium and Corydalis lutea display their glory, which only accentuates the yellow pigmentation in the chartreuse Lysimachia (Creeping Jenny), which itself has produced diminutive butter cup-like flowers. The eye needs a rest, and to rest it comes especially at the east/southeast entry to the front garden.

There, I have planted the Helene von Stein varietal of Lamb's Ear--a much more compact and heartier version that the usual type, which sends up scraggly flowers and looks worn by mid-summer. On the other side of the walkway is a Provence Lavender which, though not silver, has enough of the blue-grey in its green to complement the lovely Helene. Each day I see Ms. von Stein I am reminded of another Helene in my life, the inimitable artist from Denver, and her elegant, erudite partner Joanne. I own one original Orr, a water color of a majestic tree painted in glorious autumn golds shrouded by a midnight blue sky. Joanne salvaged it from a pile and offered it to me; Helene balked in the way all artists do at some perceived imperfection, but eventually acquiesced and signed the back "To Matt and Viet: Do with it what you will. Love, Helene." Quintessential Helene, to be sure: Pithy. Affectionate. Utterly inimitable. And for the record: if there is some imperfection in this particular piece, which I have assigned a most prominent wall-space in the house (directly across the front door so that it is the first thing a visitor sees) then it is perfectly imperfect.

As usual, I digress.

In honor of the 27 May Full Flower Moon, a.k.a. the Milk Moon, I purchased a Glacier Blue Euphorbia, and planted it in the spot where my English lavender once stood. Peering through the legginess of Verbena bonariensis (a.k.a. Purpletop or Tall Verbena) and the Provence lavender, one can see a clear axis of silver to Helene von Stein, linking parts of the garden.

From another angle, the silver of Glacier Blue connects to the white of the variegated Siberian iris. Silver soothes, gives the eyes a rest, as the yellow season peaks in 410's front sun garden.

I transplanted the Feverfew yesterday, which underscores the silver patches in the garden and connects the white in the Glacier Blue Euphorbia with the variegated Siberian iris. Together, they form a formidable triumvirate, its center punctuated by the lighter hues of the anvil-like rock.

As in ordinary life, the eye surveys the landscape and invariably comes to rest on the understatedly spectacular. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but the silver fox arrests all. If silver is the essence of glamour, if silver is the color of sophistication, then silver may very well also be the lingua franca of attraction.

 

A Formal Declaration of War

The age of Obama was supposed to usher in an era of cooperation and hope, a repudiation of Bush Administration policies and assertive (aggressive?) policy. And yet my inner Bush has formally declared war on the vile little slug.

For weeks, I’ve been conducting a low intensity battle on the slimy creature, but a stroll at dusk the other evening to survey (and dust off) the ramparts shocked this reigning monarch (please, folks, keep the “queen” comments to a minimum!) into launching a massive offensive to save his kingdom. (My inner Realist and my inner Liberal rejoice: for in battle I affirm an instinct of self-defense, enact that putative law “the strong do what they can, while the weak do what they must,” and manifest my predilection for a particular kind of rule—and do all that I can do to ensure my preferred governance remains unmolested.) Sprinkling pounds of poisoned food pellets between rainfalls (especially around the hostas) has been effective at killing off the first assault of springtime slugs; ground warfare has been of a guerilla sort, and while a few slugs manage to resist the temptation of delicious “mollusk-cidal” caviar, most have fortunately succumbed to the law of delicious desire.

Yet the other evening the second, massive wave of astonishingly plump slugs slimed their ways across the leaves of the Sum and Substance hosta—the largest, tallest, and thus perhaps most visible of the hostas. I panicked. With my bare hands I plucked tens and tens of slugs from the leaves, deposited them on the stone walls, and smeared them with my sandals. Smearing the slug is necessary because slugs can self-amputate and survive a predator’s assault. Killing must be swift, and it must be totalizing; nothing but a smudge must remain.

As further evidence of my brutality, I’ve decided not to dignify the slug’s existence by posting a photograph of it. Instead, I opt to exhibit some of the slug’s damage: I under-planted the June Plantain hosta with this Dead Spotted Nettle, the leaves of which show some slug damage (notice the [thankfully minor] hail damage on the hosta leaves). A former, now deceased, acquaintance from Houston, Wynn, possessed a peculiar fascination with the slug, and even painted at least one mammoth portrait of it. Clearly, he did not have a garden, nor did he ever garden—else he wouldn’t celebrate this destructive creature. Wynn would no doubt protest my cruelty, and actively campaign against my methods.

But deploy various, sometimes lethal methods we must, else the fruits of our labors vanish with exacting precision, rendering once lush leaves to lacey Swiss cheese appearance. If groundcover, as I previously concluded, is "the perfect proxy for measuring the certitude of one's will," then decimating the slug population (decimation is about all we can hope for given their hermaphroditic orgies and, consequently, exponential reproduction rates) is the first major test of our established certitude. 

I am happy to report that I annihilate without regret, and indeed find satisfaction in every slug I smear across the walkway.  

On Transplanting

You survey the landscape before you. A rush of thoughts and emotions briefly overcome you but are impeded by the enormity of the task ahead. And then you make the proverbial plunge and begin doing.

The shovel pierces the soil and quickly descends with muffled snaps as the foot drives it deeper into the ground to blade height. The boxes open and you begin to place your life collections in them. You methodically encircle the plant, creating a moat of sorts—not a divide to be bridged as by marauding forces attempting a storming of the citadel, but a divide of permanent separation. You pack and realize that the empty spaces of moats now become the constructed spaces of cardboard walls—and the effect of permanent separation is the same. The soil has been disturbed, though hopefully not the roots, and you lift the plant above the ground. Your roots have been disturbed, especially the more you lift yourself out of your habitat. Next, you go quickly about your business so as to minimize shock: dividing the plant by slicing through the roots, or moving the specimen entirely to a new space for aesthetic or pragmatic reasons, moving back home or re-arranging furniture in your new apartment, awaiting for your new life, your new schedule, to begin.

I haven’t the energy to veil the real subject matter of this entry, or write with wit or humor. The fact of the matter is that I am verklempt, and thus nearly paralyzed in several ways. After teaching at the University of Denver for 4 years, I moved to Delaware. This is the end of my 4^th year at UD, and it corresponds to the graduation of “my” incoming class. “My class.” My groupies, as several colleagues and Viet have called them, are leaving. They have outgrown their spaces; their proverbial roots have absorbed every possible nutrient available to them in this academic environment, and thus yearn to spread further. Packing their boxes, donning their caps and gowns—well, these are their equivalent of transplantation.

Sure, the system is shocked. Even those with post-graduation plans report their angst and that ineffable feeling that comes with departing a life that they have created. And this is significant, as this university life is their first foray into adulthood: simultaneously, they are quasi-dependent (on parents and the structure of the university), and quasi-independent (making certain choices, learning to schedule and take control). There must be shock, as well as pride and happiness, and inevitable sadness.

Last night, I met several of my graduating seniors, my acquaintances and “becoming-friends,” and upon departing the gathering the sheer enormity of their departure struck me. Adam and Laura let me hang on for a little longer than usual. And then Laura advised me to spend time in the garden, which is what I did and plan on doing today (to transplant and tend). Work must wait until I recover from my own shock.

This year’s graduation also obtains particular poignancy on another level. I learned a few days ago of the sudden, tragic death of a beloved former student, Briana Conklin. I adored her, and will always adore her. She was brilliant—but never in a pedantic sort of way. Her witty, caustic sense of humor brought us closer together. She was just appointed District Attorney in Denver, and thus had a promising career ahead of her. Life happens to all of us—occasionally in unexpected ways. Death, insofar as it ends life, is very much a part of it (even if we insist on speaking of life and death in antonymic ways). Death may thus teach us the value of life, and may compel an appreciation (even for life’s vicissitudes) in unimaginable ways. But the cost of appreciation and the cost of care is the inflated sadness that results from passing, from transplantation. Yet I cannot imagine ever conserving appreciation to avoid the costs of my investments.

So I learn something from my own life. Transplanted specimens in the gardening world require extra care in the weeks after being severed from a prior life: extra water, extra nutrients, as much shelter from the harsher elements as possible. And so it is with people. Care rewards us in ways that always outstrip the investment. And we are all the better for it, even as we mourn our losses.

“Yet mortality proves a Janus-faced gift: for at one almost inappreciable, unexpected moment somewhere in the depths of confronting the transience and fickleness of life, when sabi infuses our very Being, we apprehend both the magnitude of life and [passing], able to look ahead to the pregnant future, armed with the knowledge and the memories born from the past. This is wabi.”

** In memory of Briana Conklin **

"Anything Goes"

My friend Melinda took me to a stripper bar recently—though I am convinced that the strippers were actually drag queens. How could they not be, with names like Rose Campion and Anise Hyssop? Don’t let Anise’s redolent scent fool you: she (he?) isn’t part of the staid Licorice family but rather of the saucier mint family. Anise—sometimes s/he likes to be called Hyssop, which sounds quite slutty in and of itself—must be a drag queen, going out of her way as s/he does to fool the wayward observer with her leggy square stems and olfactory emissions.

To be sure, her name gives her history away. The Lamiaceae family is itself quite respectable, and has given us such aristocratic, venerable personalities as sage and oregano, and the prissier, prudish lavender. But every celebrated family has its skeletons, and Hyssop counts as such: s/he hails from the Agastache clan (genus), the name of which derives from the Greek aga, meaning “very much,” and stachys, meaning “spiky” or as some render it, “like stalks of wheat.” Leggy, indeed! (And even more promiscuous!)

But Hyssop has a secret life (don’t all drag queens or strippers?!), which, sociologically speaking, may be the reason why the Lamiaceaes have not expelled its prodigal child: it is the sacral herb used in ancient Judaic purification rituals. Exodus 12:22 lays it out: “Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood [of the Passover offering] … and apply some of that blood … to the lintel and to the two doorposts.” The clincher for me follows: “And don’t go outside the door of this house until morning!” Why, I ask? So the blood doesn’t drip on your head? I’d much rather post a mezuzah; it’s so much easier, and not as messy. We moderns have it easy.

Of course, this raises a question: how could a harlot like Hyssop be so integral to observant religious life?

In any case, Melinda’s trip was an imaginary one, and she had me howling with the kinds of things she thought and wrote (this blog entry is as much her invention as it is mine). The stripper bar is the garden, and several plants reveal themselves to be quite addicted to the promiscuous life.

Take Corydalis lutea, for instance. Like Rose and Hyssop, she has a reputation. I’ve been warned about her wily ways, but last year’s experience with her proved to be less than exhilarating. If the rumors titillated, then the reality deflated; apparently, Corydalis intuited that her advances would have been wasted on me. This spring, both plants have offered appreciable displays. I even bought her cousin for the shade garden, Corydalis flexuousa “Blue Panda,” yet he, to my chagrin, is not known for his casual sexual proclivities and thus has snubbed my own shameless flirtations.

Yet no offspring populated the garden. Until a few weeks ago. Suddenly, manifestations of her nighttime activities proliferate the opposite side of the garden, in the corner where the stairwell meets the front porch (hence the detritus in the photo, where the wind loses velocity and deposits its loot—and all an exhibition of my laziness). And yesterday morning, after two cool, rainy days, another child appeared at the base of the stairwell. Her productivity astounds!

I could pluck these little children, or let them grow. I’ve settled on the latter, at least until they threaten to overpopulate the garden. For now, they add a bit of charm, and a Cole Porter dose of cavalier sexuality to the garden.


Written in honor of my venerable gardener friend, Melinda

Rethinking Torture

Anyone who treats gardening as a vocation—not as a hobby, an afternoon or weekend activity, but as a calling—knows that to sit and observe the product of our toil (a toil to create that urban oasis or backyard retreat, a meditative space or a romantic cottage garden) is akin to torture. A visual survey invariably spies an errant weed, a necessary pruning, a specious arrangement, a fallen twig, a deadening flower, an importunate blight. Yesterday, Viet and I took our afternoon tea on the deck, and though I graded 5 papers (this is the end of the semester), I breathed a sigh of relief that the pile was gradually shrinking, and sat back to enjoy the garden and the breeze. Immediately, the urge to transplant, to plant (poor Guacamole hosta which, thanks to Viet for identifying the perfect spot, finally has a home!), to weed, to think, to rearrange, to paint new proverbial brushstrokes on the verdant canvas awoke within, and the body began moving about. Such is the stuff of gardening; indeed, such is even the joy of gardening!

But there is a particular moment in time when the gardener can utter the word tranquility and, more poignantly, experience it even as the body moves about: at dawn. Each year, as summer approaches, my body experiences an odd celestial alignment, and I awake earlier and earlier. I arose in the blackness of the early morning and went about my business. A steady rain fell, but that did not nor could not stop me. Rather, darkness reigned, so gardening ventures had to be postponed.

After grading a few more papers, answering emails, and reading the news, I wandered about outside. Neighbors slept. All human-produced or related sound was momentarily purged from my small portion of the globe. A light rain occasionally, briefly fell. Droplets of water artistically collected on the delicate leaves of the Lady's Mantle. A euphony beckoned: the black capped chickadee perched on a wire above my head most likely was communicating with its kin, but I only heard a conversation between it and the warbler. And though the mockingbird did exactly what its name suggests, the wrens ignored its impetuous disdain and awarded me with a symphonic colloquy.

Miss Gray Kitty, a sweet, affectionate little girl who neighbors abandoned last fall and who now resides on my front porch, followed me as she does, occasionally meowing to protest that the dahlia received more attention than she.

Big Blue Angel and Lemon Drop hostas greeted me—the latter even eagerly displaying a slug that it wished me to smite; I happily acquiesced. I walked to and fro, being careful to make as little sound as possible.

Tranquility, I opined, is misunderstood. In movement, even in frenetic stirrings, one may experience the most sublime form of tranquility—one not even engendered by sitting in the garden.  At that moment I glanced at the Buddha, and thought, “a good Buddhist I would not make, for I cannot sit still.” And the Buddha, its eyes permanently closed in meditative posture, winked at me. And the chickadee belted a mellifluous tune. I stood upright, feeling at one and at peace with the world, being careful not to disturb the ephemeral serenity of the early morning, and went about my business intent on doing my part to keep torture at bay.

Lost in Space

Viet promised me a surprise on 7 May, but there was a catch: I needed to bring with me $100 in cash. Any reasonable person would think this suspicious, but as I do not pretend to be reasonable, I trekked to the ATM after my hair appointment and withdrew my cash. (Note to friends: this trick may not work in the future, so please don’t try it on me.) Being familiar with Viet’s tortured relationship with cardinal directions, I asked if he knew how to get to this undisclosed location (hoping Cheney would not be there…sorry, I couldn’t resist!), and he gleefully announced that he checked Mapquest. We were on our way.

At first I thought he was deliberately trying to disguise the destination by veering down odd side streets, but then it became clear: he was lost. He asked if I knew Rockford Park, and I blurted, “We’re going to the Rockford Park Plant Sale?!”

He tried to deny it of course, but then we had to ask construction workers for directions. Once we arrived, we left the car. He insisted that this was not the plant sale but a Mother’s Day carnival. I was skeptical, but as we ascended the hill (the only one in Delaware?), a Ferris Wheel gradually came into view. An inverse relationship developed: for every increase in elevation, my mood descended into disappointment. To disguise this, I simply reminded him that I had a thesis defense to conduct in 3 hours (which was true).

We crested the hill and I surveyed the landscape: amusement park rides, food booths, tents… and, huh? Plants? One tent for “donor plants,” another for “perennials,” one for herbs, another for vegetables, one for annuals and one for houseplants… The effect, especially after a bout of disappointment, cannot be described: here I was at Wilmington’s celebrated annual ROCKFORD PARK PLANT SALE with $115 in my pocket. This was my orgiastic moment, my immediate future!

I left with $2 in my pocket. Viet knows me well--hence his prescience to limit my available funds.

My purchases, you wonder?

Three Corsican mint plants; two patchouli plants; 2 lemon thyme; 1 lemon grass; 1 Gaura Whirling Butterfly; 1 Guacamole hosta; 1 Ligularia dentate (Britt-Marie Crawford); 1 Hellebore (an unusual, palm and lace leaf style white hellebore); 1 large Lady’s Mantle to replace the two Gramsci generously watered; and one red Japanese maple.

Owing to my insane work schedule of late, I’ve only gradually planted these sources of happiness. A few days ago, the lemon thyme plants found their way in the front garden, and the patchouli in a pot. But the Guacamole hosta remains pot-bound. I can’t figure out where to put it.

So now I experience Viet’s syndrome: being lost in space. If his strain manifests as being directionally challenged, then mine appears in the form of being situationally challenged. Space itself has eluded me. True, the beds are lush this year, but room remains. Somehow, though, Guacamole hosta doesn’t seem to “pop” anywhere I place it. It is a showcase plant—and deserves, like the deep red stemmed and purple-leafed Ligularia Britt-Marie Crawford, to be situated "just-so." 

For now, though, "Guac's" residence in a plastic pot, root-bound, yearning to spread its roots and make nice with its new neighbors, testifies to my inabilities and is a consequence of my aesthetic desire for perfection. But, as Viet cleverly salvaged his surprise from the grips of his “affliction,” (aided no doubt by the presence of carnival rides), Guacamole hosta salvages me from, well, me. She reminds me that all things good are not necessarily all perfect. And we shouldn’t have it any other way.   

It's Electric

A drenching rain fell upon Wilmington last night, which is good since several days ago I emptied the full rain barrel into several old cat litter buckets to save for, well, a not-so-rainy day. (The rain barrel is, by the way, perhaps the wisest addition to my garden--that and the Mr. Froggie rain gauge!--and I think I shall look into getting another one for the rear of the house.) Neighbors to the south, in Newark, received hail—hours after my friend Claire planted her vegetable garden.

One afternoon in mid-August 2008, two months after I planted the east shade bed with the bounty bestowed upon me by Phyllis (see earlier entry), a ferocious thunderstorm wreaked havoc on Wilmington. Several inches of marble size hail fell. High winds uprooted a massive old tree in Brandywine Park. Our street turned into a massive, raging ice flow, garbage and recycling bins carried away for several blocks. Needless to say, very few plants and trees retained their leaves after such a devastating storm, and the garden never did recover that season. The optimist might say that the storm excused me from having to do my late autumn garden chores and readying the bed for its winter respite.

A different kind of electric storm brews in my sun garden. The Siberian irises—the very clump I “adopted” from 35 Lovett (um, notice how my language has changed in these entries from openly admitted theft to rescue and now to adoption?)—bloomed this year. Combined with the fluorescent fuchsia Rhododendron, the Technicolor display is something out of a Todd Haynes homage to 1950s filmography! And the “big yellow” bearded iris came into full bloom three days ago, just as the pale yellow bearded irises are nearing the end of their bloom time.

And our thunderstorm brought with it a bolt of divine lightning, as the first of at least 14 white Siberian irises bloomed overnight, its bit of yellow nicely echoed by the yellow tubular flowers of the Corydalis, reminding us that the divine is human and the human is divine.

A rivulet of chartreuse Lysimachia (Creeping Jenny) winds its way around Sedum ellacombianun and the Blue Columbine, leading us to the shores of the Creeping Juniper (which, because of my real estate shortage and its expansive needs, I’ve promised to my neighbor), and beyond to the geranium. The effect is exhilarating; when I crouch down at eye level and can’t see beyond the Columbine, I feel a peculiar kind of excitement and anticipation of the unknown—the sort that only travel to a foreign place can elicit—wondering where the rivulet will take me…I picture for a moment a raging Colorado creek, chartreuse water rafters fueled by surges of adrenaline, coming perilously close to hitting those brown leaf boulders in the creek, assiduously trying to avoid being propelled by the force of the Lysimachia into the spears of the juniper.

Standing up, I am brought back to reality, perhaps because of the click of the knee or the twang in my lower back, or perhaps because my eye spies a little weed, or perhaps the sounds of the birds and the breeze on my face, or perhaps because of the sight of peeling paint on the porch deck, or perhaps the realization and the assuredness that this garden is my creation.

The effect is electric.